Mixing in upstairs loft, acoustic treatment?

[dax]

Greetings, first time poster here seeking acoustic treatment advice (and any advice you would follow yourself if you were to attempt what I am attempting) for working in an open non-symmetric two story home where the sound has a chance to reflect across both stories, currently with no acoustic treatment anywhere. The living room's ceiling is the ceiling of the 2nd story of the house, and so the sound reflections will have reverberate through both stories.

Take a look at the picture I uploaded showing a two story house with stairs to the loft area where the mixing will take place, depicted by the location of the man in the picture. This is the location I will be listening to my mixes on Event 20/20 monitors, which, in this open position in the house, will send acoustic reflections throughout the 1st and 2nd stories.

My question to the fine minds in this forum is, since my computer is upstairs in a wide open loft area of the house where sound can travel anywhere (unless I mix while wearing headphones the whole time), what are the biggest issues this will cause on final mixed/mastered songs when I'm doing the mixing and mastering in this open area of the house? When I clap my hands standing upstairs, I can hear a slight natural "room reverb" the sound generates in the house.

Mixing in the open, but recording in a bedroom with a door that can isolate the recording room from the rest of the house, and plan to add bass traps and acoustic treatment for that room after my research is completed on what I need for acoustically treating the recording room. But that doesn't do anything to help the potential issues with my open mixing room..

So.. with all that said.. what are your comments about mixing in the middle of an open loft plan in a house? Will headphones help? What issues am I likely to face? What would be the best way to acoustically treat this situation, if possible?

I wouldn't be offended if you directed me to any relevant and helpful online explanations and rational as well.

Thank you for your time, expertise, and gumption to help,
Doc Elroy

[Soundman2020]

Hi there Doc, and Welcome to the mad house! I mean forum!

what are the biggest issues this will cause on final mixed/mastered songs when I'm doing the mixing and mastering in this open area of the house?

Wow! Do you want the long list, or just the short list...

OK, short list, key points only:

1) Lack of symmetry. Since you won't be able to get an acoustically symmetrical layout, apparently, and since symmetry is critical for mixing, you are going to have issues. You won't have an accurate stereo image: it will be skewed to one side or the other, and that will be different for different frequencies. You also won't have an accurate sound-stage, so placing instruments and vocals with panning won't be very good: when you think you have a vocal center-left, for example, it might end up being left, or center, but not where you "heard" it in your room.

2) Mangled acoustic response. Since you won't be able to get anywhere near meeting the ITU BS.1116-3 specs, either in frequency domain or in time domain, your room will not be telling you the truth: You will not be hearing what the mix REALLY sounds like, because the room will be "coloring" it in any of many possible ways. So when you think that the electric guitar is to dull, and bring up the highs a bit, you might actually be making it screech, without realizing it. And when you pull down the dynamics on the snare attack because it sounds too harsh, you might find that you actually killed the "snap". But you wont hear that in your room, because it is lying to you.

3) Loose low end. Because you will have a massive cavern beyond the edge of the "control room", that's going to wreak havoc with your low end. Your decay times for the low end will be way, way too long, and the will not be any "tightness" at all in the bass end of the spectrum. It will be "mushy".

4) Double-jeopardy decay: Since you will be mixing in a small space that is acoustically coupled to a large space, you diffuse field will be "doubled-up": There will be two very distinct decay rates for the room: one rather fast and short, followed by a much slower, longer, drawwwwwnnnnnn oooouuuuttttt reeeveeerbb taaaaiiillllll.....

5) Mix translation: Simply put: none at all! Your mixes won't translate. You might be able to get to the point where you "learn" the rooms gross defects well enough that you can mix so it sounds sort of decent elsewhere, but in that case it will sound like crap in your room (excuse my French). In other words, what you hear when you play your mix in your room will NOT sound like what you hear when you play it in other places.

Apart from that, it will be fine!

OK, Long story short: a control room must have NEUTRAL response: it must sound transparent, as though it isn't even there. It must sound natural clean, like nothing. It must not color your sound: it must add nothing to it, and take nothing away form it. It must simply tell you the truth. What you are planing, will make your room into the biggest acoustic liar this side of the Alpha-Centuri system! (Slight exaggeration).

When I clap my hands standing upstairs, I can hear a slight natural "room reverb" the sound generates in the house.

I doubt it! I'm not doubting what you hear: I'm doubting that it meets the definition of "natural" that a control needs to meet. Google the document ITU BS.1116-3, and take a look at chapters 7 and 8: that defines the acoustic conditions that your control room must meet. I can absolutely guarantee that your room does no meet a single one of those. If you don't agree, then test it for yourself! Here's how: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =3&t=21122 Post the results here, and I'd by happy to scare your socks off with a basic analysis, comparing what you are actually getting to BS.1116-3.

Clapping your hands is actually not a very good way of judging room acoustics, despite common myth. It is nowhere near a true acoustic impulse, and your ears could not judge the response accurately even if it was. There's no substitute for an actual acoustic test.

But that doesn't do anything to help the potential issues with my open mixing room.

Right!

what are your comments about mixing in the middle of an open loft plan in a house?

Simple: Don't even try!

Will headphones help?

No, because with headphones you don't get a true stereo sound field: your left ear does not hear the right speaker, and your right ear does not hear the left speaker. There is no ITDG, there is no diffuse field, the stereo image is insanely wide, and there's no telling how flat (or not) your headphone response is. Or isn't.

What issues am I likely to face?

See above...

What would be the best way to acoustically treat this situation, if possible?

There is none. The only way you can make that work, is to close off the control room area from the rest of the building. Build a wall (or tow, or three) such that you have a real "room", isolated from the rest of the house, with it's own acoustic response that can be tailored to meet the specs that you need to have.

There is no amount of acoustic treatment, no arrangement of absorbers, diffusers, resonators, reflectors or even pixie dust and unicorn hair, that can make your current plan workable. Sorry. I wish I had better news for you, but the laws of physics are fixed solid, engraved in stone, and you can't change them by wishing.

Here's a couple of threads that you might find useful about control rooms. The first is Studio Three, which has completed a couple of years back, and the second is another room which is currently going through the process of being tuned.

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471

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

Studio Three shows you what can be achieved when a room is designed, built, and tuned to perfect. Not all rooms can be that good, of course, but that's the goal you should be shooting for: to get as close as you can to that. The other thread shows you a much smaller, more common type of home studio control room, also designed properly, and currently close to completion. There's just a couple more bits that need to be added to the puzzle, to tune it to the limit. It's not going to be as good as Studio Three, of course, simply because it is too small for that, but it's still gong to be darn good! Yours can be too, if you seal it off properly as a separate room.


- Stuart -

[dax]

Hi there Doc, and Welcome to the mad house! I mean forum!
- Stuart -

Thank you Stuart! Your response was very helpful and thorough! You have convinced me (and clued me in on what I did not know before)... so I'll definitely change plans to use a symmetrical, isolated room for mixing, and research the other points you mentioned. Yea, it was a bit of a bummer discovering what unexpected results one can cook up when mixing in an "uncontrolled" control room, but it's better to find out from your post than going to a lot of trouble to find out the same things way later! For now, I have some reading and deciding and thinking to do Life is awesome!

Good evening,
Doc

[Soundman2020]

so I'll definitely change plans to use a symmetrical, isolated room for mixing, and research the other points you mentioned.

Great! Start by downloading that ITU document I mentioned: You can ignore the first few chapters, as they have nothing to do with studios, but chapters 7 and 8 do. That document was actually written as method for evaluating speakers, and the first part has to do with selecting the people to do the evaluation. The part that interests us studio folks, is chapter 7 and 8, which is about the acoustic conditions that the room must met in order to make ti possible to evaluate speakers. That's called the criteria for a "critical listening room", and a control room is exactly that: it's a critical listening room where you are evaluating the sound coming out of speakers. The specs there define what the room acoustics should be in order to do that reliably.

Yea, it was a bit of a bummer discovering what unexpected results one can cook up when mixing in an "uncontrolled" control room,

Yup. The basic issue is "mix translation", and that's the goal for all studios. "mix translation" simply means that when the mix sounds good in your room, it also sounds good in all other rooms and systems where you plat it. Everything from in your car, on your iPhone ear buds, in a club, on the radio, in your living room, at the office, in a church, shop, the street, or on the stadium giant screen. If your room is not neutral, natural, smooth, tight, etc. then you won't ave good mix translation. You'll be able to make it sound great in your room, yes, but when you then play it in your car it will sound lousy. Or as I mentioned, you could learn the room enough that you can always mix so it sounds good in the car, but then it will sound lousy in your room.

If your room has the correct acoustic response, then all your mixes will sound good everywhere, and that's the entire purpose of a control room! BS.1116-3 defines what you need to have that. So start with that, then design your room so that it will meet those specs. Of course, that's easy to say, but not so easy to accomplish! And that's what this forum is for: so we can help you accomplish that.


- Stuart -