John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

How do you know if the room is too dead? What does it really mean? I have been installing bass traps and I am trying to figure out if it is too dead, but I am not sure as to what it means. I have no slap echo or flutter echo...

Thanks,

Rob

Run a quick RT60 of your space and see how it comes out. If you can, better yet, measure it. It's pretty tough to make it too dead in the bottom but not at all hard to kill the mids and highs too much.

bpape wrote:Run a quick RT60 of your space and see how it comes out. If you can, better yet, measure it. It's pretty tough to make it too dead in the bottom but not at all hard to kill the mids and highs too much.

First I have to figure out how to run an RT60

Rob

The bass does not vary wildly so to speak. If you are anywhere in the room in front of the speakers (mixing position side) the bass is at a certain level throughout the room. If you walk besides or behind the speakers, the bass is much louder, below ~ 100Hz. I think I fixed it by moving the speakers closer to the front wall until what I heard in the control room is the same as what I hear on other systems.I am trying to figure out if this has created issues elsewhere. I have also not moved the desk closer to the wall as well and right now the speaker distance to the mixing position is a bit more than I would find ergonomical. At this point this is all experimenting. I am hoping to find a good solution in the next week or two before a tracking/mixing session coming up.


The mids and highs seem ok.

Rob

There are multiple spreadsheets on the web that will let you at least get a basic idea of where the room is overall compared to a target as well as where the different frequency bands are in relation to each other. There are several over on the StudioTips forum.

Rob, with that short a time frame you should probably just listen to several CD's similar to what you're doing (commercial releases that is) - and make sure what you're hearing is what you'd expect as far as bass levels, etc - For a list of "official" good CD's (as well as enough mind clogging stuff to last a while) check out Bob Katz' site

http://www.digido.com/

Specifically, click on this

http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule_id ... age_id=93/

When you get more time (and $$) an omni mic and a copy of ETF software will help, but you probably won't learn enough to benefit from ETF AND get ready for your sessions in a couple of weeks; I'm mainly just trying to help you within the time frame you mentioned... Steve