Flattening my room's response ...

[siddhantbhatia]

My first post ever ... and I'm not an acoustics guy (except for creativity in design, though) ...

I had studied about using graphic Eq's and speaker positioning .. but unfortunately, I found this forum pretty late. I'm on the verge of completing the build-up of my little 2 room recording studio.

I thought of buying a Graphic EQ and equalising the shit out of my monitors to get a flat response.

Is this all that's required or do I need to get into things I cant even dream of?

Once again guys ... I'm very interested in learning, and I've been freaking out over the posts and replies here. Just shows how young I am ... So please dont freak out coz I'm living in the fact that 'ignorance is bliss' ... a live example! But yeah ... its not bliss anymore ...

I dont know what exactly I have to ask ... but can someone tell me this ..

Once that I have completed painting and installing lights, furniture and windows and insulation(final insulation) ... I mean just the final stages of finishing of the two rooms ... Before, of course, installing the Monitors ...

What do I have to do? Just place the monitors and sit down on the sweet spot or things are a lot more complicated ... (i'm sure they are .. I'm being funny again!!!) ...


Can someone be simple ... PLEASE!!! I know I'm crap, but there're things I'm good at too!! hehehehe ...

Sid

[siddhantbhatia]

I din know my question would attract so many replies!

[gullfo]

I din know my question would attract so many replies!

Hi siddhantbhatia,

I'm new also but I think if you read the rules of the board and read up on the SAE site, you'll find a lot of answers, which in turn will lead to more focused questions, which should give you many of the answers you need to make your audio environment as good as it can be.

check these 2 links for starters:

posting: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231
studio: http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

[Ethan Winer]

Sid,

> I thought of buying a Graphic EQ and equalising the shit out of my monitors to get a flat response. <

EQ doesn't work for at least a half dozen reasons. Below is an excerpt from my Acoustics FAQ that explains why.

--Ethan

Another common misconception is that equalization can be used to counter the effects of acoustic problems. But since every location in the room responds differently, no single EQ curve can give a flat response everywhere. Over a physical span of just a few inches the frequency response can vary significantly. Even if you aim to correct the response only where you sit, there's a bigger problem: It's impossible to counter very large cancellations. If acoustic interference causes a 25 dB dip at 60 Hz, adding that much boost with an equalizer to compensate will reduce the available volume (headroom) by the same amount. Such an extreme boost will increase low frequency distortion in the loudspeakers too. And at other room locations where 60 Hz is already too loud, applying EQ boost will make the problem much worse. Even if EQ could successfully raise a null, the large high-Q boost needed will create electrical ringing at that frequency. Likewise, EQ cut to reduce a peak will not reduce the peak's acoustic ringing. EQ cannot always help at higher frequencies either. If a room has ringing tones that continue after the sound source stops, EQ might make the ringing a little softer but it will still be present. However, equalization can help a little to tame low frequency peaks (only) caused by natural room resonance, as opposed to peaks and nulls due to acoustic interference, if used in moderation.