John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Greetings from the Bronx, New York !

I am looking for some advice on acoustically treating my control room. Basically how should I set up the room in terms o placing panels, bass traps, desk, speakers etc..

I have about 20 boards of 2" 703 and 10 yards of Guilford of Maine acoustical fabric which I plan on using in this design.

I had a rough idea of how to set up the room to minimize reflections and balance the room , but didn't want to start building and putting things up without some advice from the studio design sages on this forum!


I realize there are several factors of this room that are inherently problematic ( lack of symmetry being one of them) but any professional advice on how I might approach this room treatment would be greatly appreciated. I understand that this will be far from a perfect listening room but before I build and hang panels I'd love a push in right direction in order to get the best possible listening environment for mixing (mostly Hip Hop/R&B/Soul) I do not currently have a sub woofer.


Please disregard the current treatment you see in the photos, it;s just temporary -- except for the position of the absorption cloud above the listening position -- which I'd rather not move (though the height can be easily adjusted).

*Also note: The monitors you see in the photo will not be there - they will be replaced by set of Yamaha HS8's and a set of NS 10's


Please see the sketches with dimensions attached.

over all dimensions -- it's not shown here, but the listening position is currently facing the wall that is 8' 6", with the speakers firing back at the 18' wall.
elevations
THANK YOU

Hi there "mr.john711". Welcome!

I'm not sure if you might have already seen it, but there's a thread here on the forum in progress right now about treating a control room.

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=21368

It's on-going, part of a studio I designed for the owner a couple of years ago, so stay tuned to that for additional posts as it proceeds.

Here's a link to another room, a really high end studio, that was completed last year:

www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20471

However, the techniques you see in both of those might not be applicable to your room: All rooms are different.

There's a process to setting up and treating a control room - a set of steps you can follow:

First comes layout: Orienting the room correctly, and setting out the major furniture roughly. Your room is set up backwards! IT will never work the way you have it right now. Turn it 180° so that it is facing the 5' foot wall at the bottom of your diagram. There is no other feasible orientation in that shape space.

Next, get rid of all the clutter at the front: Anything that is not strictly involved in the actual mix process must be BEHIND you, not in front of you or to the sides. Or it can be in front of you, provided that it is below desk surface height. So in front of you, is only your desk and the speakers (and computer screen).

Now get the speakers off the desk. That's a major problem, in several ways. Having the speakers on the desk causes major comb filtering artifacts, as well as transmitting sound into the desk itself, and possibly also causing "early-early" sound to arrive at your ears before the direct sound from the speaker does (yes, it is possible). So put your speakers on stands in front of the desk. Massively heavy stands. Some people stack up bricks or concrete blocks, others use hollow steel stands filled with sand. The point is that they must be very heavy. The stands must be of the correct height: The ACOUSTIC AXIS of each speaker must end up at about 47 1/2 inches above the floor, or a bit higher (depends on speaker). That's the "standard" height for studio monitors. Note that this is the acoustic axis of the speaker that we are talking about: not the top or bottom of the cabinet, nor the middle of the tweeter, or the woofer: the actual acoustic axis. Check with the manufacturer of yours to find out where that is.

Another big problem: You have your speakers laying down on their sides! Bad idea. Flip them to stand up vertically, tweeter above woofer. That's the orientation you want, and that's where you set up your acoustic axis.

Now comes geometry: getting your speakers and mix position set up correctly. Your room is not big enough to have the speakers moved away form the wall, so the only option is to push them tight up against the front wall, except for a 4" gap which you will fill with a 4" thick panel of OC703. With 11.6' width to play with, they will have to be set up about 36" from the side walls (once again, that's the location of the acoustic axis, not the sides of the cabinet). That means they will be 66" apart. This is not 100% ideal, but it should be reasonably decent, and about the best you can hope for in that space.

Set up your chair on the room center-line such that your ears will be roughly 70" from the front wall when you are seated for mixing. Not ideal at all, but the shape and size of your room don't allow much else! Set up the desk in front of that chair position, centered side to side, in a comfortable position for mixing.

Now set up a mic stand vertically, on the room center-line, about 16" behind your chair (in other words, 86" from the front wall), and carefully rotate each speaker (without upsetting the above positioning!) such that the acoustic axis is pointing directly at that mic stand. I normally use a laser pointer for this, taped to the top of the speaker, directly above the acoustic axis, and exactly perpendicular to the front panel of the speaker. If you now sit in the chair, you will notice that the acoustic axis of each speaker is pointing roughly at your ear, or a little further outwards from your ear. It is NOT pointing at your eye, in the classic but incorrect "equilateral triangle" setup.

That's the theoretical optimum setup for your room. (Well, it's as close as you can reasonably get, given the size and shape!)

Do some critical listening tests like that, and try making very minor adjustments, to see if you can improve on the acoustic response. Try moving your chair forward and backwards a few inches in one-inch steps, rotating the speakers in each case to point at the new reference spot, 16" behind your chair. Also try moving the speakers an inch or two closer together and further apart (and rotating them to keep the aim point correct!). Don't stray too far from the initial setup, but you might find that there's a better spot with a bit of experimentation. You could even try raising the speakers by an inch or so, to see if there is less comb filtering from the desk like that, but don't go up beyond 51" (acoustic axis height, of course)

One more comment:

they will be replaced by set of Yamaha HS8's and a set of NS 10's

Forget the NS-10's The room is not big enough for two sets of speakers, and NS-10s won't be doing you any favors. And are you SURE you want to use HS8's, for Hip-Hop, R&B, and soul? At least in the first two there's substantial stuff going on down in the low end, and HS8s don't go very low... Only 47 Hz according to the manual. Not to encouraging for bass instruments... Have you considered speakers that have better low end extension? Or maybe HS8's with a sub?

OK, now that the room is set up the right way, we can get back to your original question: Treatment!

But before doing that, pull out EVERYTHING from the room except the speakers on their stands, the desk with your DAW on it, and the chair, and do a full set of REW acoustic tests with the room empty, so that you have a base-line measurement of how the room responds when empty. Here's how to do that: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=21122

With the results from that test, you can figure out what treatment you will need, and start placing it in the correct locations.


- Stuart -

Thanks for the response stuart!

Did you mean rotate the room 90 degrees? Correct me if I’m wrong but wouldn’t 180 degrees make the listening position face the 18’ Wall? I’m confused about what you meant the desk facing the 5’ Wall...


If yoiu mean having the booth at the rear and facing the 18’ Wall, what would that accomplish?. Is that to keep the asymmetrical wall at the rear instead of the front?

Did you mean rotate the room 90 degrees? Correct me if I’m wrong but wouldn’t 180 degrees make the listening position face the 18’ Wall? I’m confused about what you meant the desk facing the 5’ Wall...

Sorry! Uncorrected typos: I originally thought you were referring to havnig your CR in the small booth at the bottom right, then I realized it was actually the larger room, but I had already written that part and forgot to go back and fix those. So yes, rotated 90°, and face the wall at the top of your diagram, marked 18', with the two windows in it. That has to be the front of the room.

Sorry for the confusion.

If yoiu mean having the booth at the rear and facing the 18’ Wall, what would that accomplish?. Is that to keep the asymmetrical wall at the rear instead of the front?

It accomplishes several things: First, it solves your symmetry problem. Second, it gets the speakers firing down the long axis of the room, so you have a decent chance of achieving an ITDG outside of the Haas time, and third, it gives you more reasonable geometry for your speakers and mix position... Fourth, optionally it would also allow you to flush-mount (a.k.a. "soffit mount") your speakers if you really wanted to take your studio to the next level, and make it as good as it can be. Soffit-mounting is the single best thing you can do for a small control room, to get the acoustics working nicely.

That's why I said it's the only viable orientation: there's no other way you can lay things out in that room and get a usable situation. Facing in any of the other three directions is no going to work.

- Stuart -

Thanks so much Stuart. A couple of questions...

Forget the NS-10's The room is not big enough for two sets of speakers, and NS-10s won't be doing you any favors.

Is that because on a 12' front wall, the distance won't be great enough between the side walls and the 2nd set of speakers? what is the ideal distance to the side walls from an acoustical axis?

they will have to be set up about 36" from the side walls

This would place each speaker directly in front of a window along the front wall....you mentioned needing a 4" panel of 703 behind the speaker, is it feasible to install a panel in front of a window?

This room was designed for vocal tracking, as you can imagine it was not designed originally to be a mix room, however ive been getting more and more requests to mix-- Practically speaking, 99% of what I am doing is mixing rap and r&B vocals over (pre-mixed) instrumentals, as the stems are almost never provided. What I am looking to do is just give them a balanced and clear vocal mix, this has been working so far and I have gotten really positive responses on the mixes. Would keeping the room oriented as it is now be AS problematic if I am only dealing with the higher frequency range of vocals (quite often I am monitoring on headphones for the majority of the time) Since I am primarily recording vocals (not mixing) it would be less than ideal to have the vocal booth at the rear so if at all possible I'd like to avoid that as well....

Forgive me if I am

Forget the NS-10's The room is not big enough for two sets of speakers, and NS-10s won't be doing you any favors.

Is that because on a 12' front wall, the distance won't be great enough between the side walls and the 2nd set of speakers?

I'm not sure if you are aksing why the NS10's are not good, or why there won't be enough space in your room for them, so I'll answer both:

The NS-10s wont be doing you an favors simply because they are not very good speakers! That's why they are so popular in control rooms, on the meter bridge: Not because they are wonderful speakers, but because they are so bad! Engineers love them, because if you can make a mix sound good on an NS-10, it will sound good on pretty much anything... Here's the response curve for the NS-10:
As you can see, pretty lousy: there's no bass at all (it drops off steeply below 100 Hz), there's a curious "hump" right in the center of the mid range, and the high end is all over the place.

There's no space in your room for them because there's no place you can put them that would give you decent geometry, in addition to your mains having decent geometry. If yo put them outside of your mains, the toe-in angle will be rather large, and they will be too far apart for good sound-staging. If you put them on the inside of your mains, they will be too close together and the toe-in angle will be too small for good stereo imaging.

what is the ideal distance to the side walls from an acoustical axis?

I'm not sure I understand the question: The acoustical axis of the speaker does not run parallel to the side walls, so there is no "ideal distance". The acoustic axis is much closer to the side walls at the front of the room, that it is at the mix position. It is not a constant distance at all!

This would place each speaker directly in front of a window along the front wall....

Right.

you mentioned needing a 4" panel of 703 behind the speaker,

Right.

is it feasible to install a panel in front of a window?

Sure! As long as you don't need to see through the window, of course! Make sure the panel is at leas twice as wide as the speaker, and extends from a few inches below desk height to at least double the height of the speaker. Make it larger, if you can. There's no problem at all with having that in front of the window. Why are you concerned about that? What is it that is worrying you?

Would keeping the room oriented as it is now be AS problematic if I am only dealing with the higher frequency range...

I assume you are mixing in stereo? It will only be a problem if you mix in stereo. If all your mixes are pure mono, then it's not so much of a problem, but for stereo mixes you need symmetry. It is precisely BECAUSE you are "dealing with the higher frequency range" that you need symmetry. Low frequencies are not directional, and the human hearing system is not very good at determining which low frequencies are coming from. But it is REALLY good at determining which way the highs are coming from! If your room is not symmetrical, then you won't be able to pan things accurately, and since your ears are hearing different acoustic "signatures" on each side of the room, with different timing, different phase, and different frequency response, you run the risk of subconsciously trying to "fix" that in the mix. So your mix might end up sounding just fine in your room, but sound "off" or "strange" or "unbalanced" when played in other places. This is known as "mix translation": your mixes won't "translate" well. This will be mostly apparent in the mids and highs, not the lows. Bass instruments are usually panned center for this very reason: our ears are not good at determining directionality with lows, so if you DO pan the kick drum hard left and the bass guitar hard right, it sounds very weird, very unnatural, and rather unpleasant, because that doesn't occur naturally in the real world: your brain notices, and doesn't like it. But with the highs, you can pan them any place you want, because highs ARE naturally directional in the real world: your brain is very used to hearing highs coming from the left or right, or ahead, and is good at figuring out directions. So if you have a non-symmetrical room, you run the risk of always having both the lows AND the vocals panned off-center, but in different ways, so it will sound "wrong" when played on other systems.

it would be less than ideal to have the vocal booth at the rear

Why? What would be bad about that, apart from not being able to see into the booth when facing forwards?

Would keeping the room oriented as it is now be AS problematic if I am only dealing with the higher frequency range of vocals (quite often I am monitoring on headphones for the majority of the time) Since I am primarily recording vocals (not mixing)

You asked about treating your room, and I presume you want it to be as good as it can be, so that's the advice I'm giving you. If you don't want it to be good, then you don't have to follow the advice! It's your room, they are your mixes, so you can do whatever you feel like. I'm merely giving you the advice I though you were asking for, "how should I set up the room in terms o placing panels, bass traps, desk, speakers etc.": If you want to have a control room where you can track and mix optimally, then the above is how you should go about it. If you don't want that, then I probably can't help you much, because I'm not a big fan of telling people how to make there rooms sound sort of mediocre, maybe a bit OK, somewhat acceptable... I AM a big fan of helping people make their rooms great! (Take a look at my signature...


- Stuart -

Thank you Stuart.

If you want to have a control room where you can track and mix optimally, then the above is how you should go about it. If you don't want that, then I probably can't help you much, because I'm not a big fan of telling people how to make there rooms sound sort of mediocre, maybe a bit OK, somewhat acceptable... I AM a big fan of helping people make their rooms great! (Take a look at my signature...

First of all, I honestly cannot tell you how much I appreciate you and this Forum Stuart. You have helped me on other projects as well, and I don't quite understand how such a resource is available like this on line, at no cost. I don't see any ads on the side so I am at a loss at how you are able to take the time to do this and still have a livelihood! I have learned so much from you from previous posts and am grateful. IT is clear that you are nothing short of master of studio design and construction -- a field where there is a lot of misinformation -- and your refusal to accept anything that is not the BEST that it could be, is both inspiring and a precious resource to the community . I know you already know this, but just wanted to say that.

That being said...I know I am absolutely beating a dead horse here.... , but is it be possible to build an angled "false wall" on the left of the listening position to mirror the angled wall to the right and create more symmetry?

Quote:
it would be less than ideal to have the vocal booth at the rear...

Why? What would be bad about that, apart from not being able to see into the booth when facing forwards?

I like to be able to see the artist and face the monitors simultaneously and be able to keep track of the position of the vocalist in the booth - distance and angle from the mic -- i sometimes have amateur clients who are reading off a phone and not singing directly into the mic.....It's also important while I am tracking to be able to have as much visual contact as possible the physical/visual contact seems to affect the collaboration (to some degree) for some people.

Another practical reason why I am not sure if I can change the orientation of the room, superficial is it might be with regard to acoustics, is that the set up you described would eat up the majority of the seating space -- I often have sessions where 5 or 6 people are present and that already small space is valuable. as much as I hate to say it, because the business aspect of this is my livelihood, certain decisions have to take into account the more aesthetic and comfort factors

Ultimately I'll probably end up re-orienting the room if that is what is required for optimal acoustics, but I just wanted to explain my hesitation. I do want the best situation possible.

The NS-10s wont be doing you an favors simply because they are not very good speakers! That's why they are so popular in control rooms, on the meter bridge: Not because they are wonderful speakers, but because they are so bad!

Exactly why I want them - and....honestly , because they look SUPER cool and some clients who don't know better might associate them as a standard for a professional studio because they are in so many......but if there is no space, theres no space and they will have to be included in my next studio!

THANK YOU

I quickly drew up your room and unfortunately you cannot add another wall to make your current mix position symmetrical without eating way too much space up. Stuart's solution is the best.

Greg