Great mix in a small room

[fraka2000]

Ok guy's,is it really possible to make really GREAT mix in a small mixing room??
Assuming good gear and good engineer.
What's the pitfall?? What to avoid?
Bass trap everywhere???
I'm king of stuck in a rut in my studio,and i don't trust my room anymore.....

[AnAverageJoe]

Acoustic treatment! You forgot to mention that. It is one of the keys to getting a great mix.

[jwl]

Yes you can get a great mix in a small room, given adequate acoustic treatment. The smaller the room the more of a challenge you have.

3 Basic rules of thumb:

1. Orient the room correctly.
2. As much bass trapping as you can fit into the room
3. Create a RFZ zone.

Lots of articles and videos on our website about how to do this if you want to read more.

[fraka2000]

How do you orient the room? And what if FRZ?

[KFMG]

[quote=jwl;1764789]Yes you can get a great mix in a small room, given adequate acoustic treatment. The smaller the room the more of a challenge you have.

3 Basic rules of thumb:

1. Orient the room correctly.
2. As much bass trapping as you can fit into the room
3. Create a RFZ zone


+1

I mix in a very small room with no problems. Bass trapping should be of high priority. Once you've taken care of standing waves, monitoring should be next. Needless to say, you want "accurate" monitors..."whatever that means". What I mean is that you should know your monitors and be comfortable working on them. Lastly, I recommend monitoring at low levels. You can occasionally raise the levels to check things out.

Once these things are in place, you should be fine.

[nicpope]

What he means by RFZ is a "Reflection free zone". That's probably not going to be possible for you, assuming that your room is not some perfect set of dimensions.

The first thing you can do is go to the walters storyk design group website and download the room mode calulator. Put the dimensions of your room in and then take some frequency response measurements and you can start moving the monitors around and find the best spot where you're experiencing the least low frequency buildup.

Low frequency buildup is probably your biggest obstacle. You can look elsewhere on here and figure out how to build bass traps and stuff after you get that covered. You won't necessarily need that much bass trapping, it just depends on the size and dimensions of your room.

[Glenn Kuras]

fraka2000

Let me help you understand what he means.


"1. Orient the room correctly."

Face the shortest wall in the room and sit back 38% of the room length.

"2. As much bass trapping as you can fit into the room"

Bass trapping is going to go into the corners of the room. Most good bass trapping is made from rigid fiberglass or mineral wool. You can straddle panels in the room or get bass traps that right into the corners.

"3. Create a RFZ zone."

This would be panels that would be covering the early reflections in the room. Most of the time it is between the mix spot (where you sit) and the monitors, on the left/right wall and ceiling.

See the following page to help you with placement of treatment and set up.
GIK Acoustics: Room Setup

Glenn

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by fraka2000

How do you orient the room? And what if FRZ?

See this:

RealTraps - How To Set Up a Room

And this:

RealTraps - Creating a Reflection-Free Zone

--Ethan

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

See this:

RealTraps - How To Set Up a Room

And this:

RealTraps - Creating a Reflection-Free Zone

--Ethan

or this for the whole set up.

http://www.gikacoustics.com/images/room_layout_662.gif

[AnAverageJoe]

Hey Glenn or Ethan, What about placing some panels angled down like what is in the pics. Look at traps number 2. Is that placement necessary? when would I use something like that?

[bpape]

Those in the wall/ceiling corners can be very helpful to add additional bass control when you can't do a vertical and maintain symmetry, when you just need more (like in a small room), or when you want some in the live part of the room but want to keep things more lively at ear/mic level.

Bryan

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by AnAverageJoe

What about placing some panels angled down like what is in the pics. Look at traps number 2. Is that placement necessary?

All rectangular rooms have 12 corners, and the more corner surface you treat, the flatter the LF response will be. So "necessary" isn't the right word, but "useful" is. Besides wall-ceiling corners, I also have a dozen-odd traps in wall-floor corners all over my living room.

--Ethan

[AnAverageJoe]

Originally Posted by bpape

Those in the wall/ceiling corners can be very helpful to add additional bass control when you can't do a vertical and maintain symmetry, when you just need more (like in a small room), or when you want some in the live part of the room but want to keep things more lively at ear/mic level.

Bryan

Oh ok, I understand now. I have a room like this, So I guess I will be putting those traps up as well

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

All rectangular rooms have 12 corners, and the more corner surface you treat, the flatter the LF response will be. So "necessary" isn't the right word, but "useful" is. Besides wall-ceiling corners, I also have a dozen-odd traps in wall-floor corners all over my living room.

--Ethan

Ok cool, I didn't know about that... Should I place them all around the room or just in my RFZ?

[bpape]

Bass control can be used in any corner for general control and also in targeted locations to deal with specific things. It's not really part of the RFZ though - not to say that it can't be part of it with appropriate broadband treatments.

Bryan