where to start with room treatment?

[bash54]

Hey all you acoustic experts-
This is my first post after joining a few months ago, and I've enjoyed reading hundreds of posts in the meantime. Let me start by saying this forum has been very informative and addictive, and I know there are tons of threads about this topic already. Before I dive into attempting to improve acoustics in my space, I was hoping for some specific feedback and guidance. My studio is an unfinished basement, and thus I'm starting out with less than ideal conditions, having concrete walls on all walls and the floor, with insulation exposed on the ceiling. I have treated the floor with carpet, and hung another carpet on the closer of the side walls. I also have 3 moving blankets hanging on the wall behind my monitors, and few more blankets on the wall opposite my listening position in addition to four 4" auralex wedges (4'x1.5' ea). The room dimensions are:

47.25' L x 22.3' W x 7.58' H

I've calculated the room modes and they indicate I should have issues around 75Hz and 150Hz on the low end, but when I run FuzzMeasure I see big problems around 100Hz too. I've attached screenshots of the results (using a KSM44 set to omni, probably not the perfect mic for this measurement). My monitors are 3 ft from the wall, and 5 ft from each other, so the wall behind me is about 19 ft from the monitors, and the side walls are 16 ft from my left monitor and 26 ft from my right monitor. So I'm not exactly positioned in the center of the length of the room either.

Given the room dimensions, an obvious first step is to move my desk and monitors so they are facing our from the narrow wall facing the length of the room as opposed to facing out across the width of the room as I have it setup now. But due a combination of factors (mainly staying further away from the furnace, which I turn off when recording, and staying closer to my power outlets), I would prefer not to move. I will also probably be moving in the next year or so, so I don't want to invest too much in permanent solutions that can't go with me.

Any suggestions where to start? Bass traps, diffusion, absorption? Probably all of the above and lots of it....

Thanks in advance,
Stan

[Ethan Winer]

That's a huge space so you might consider walling it off to be more reasonable. Large rooms are great acoustically! But then you have an awful lot of reflecting surfaces to treat. Just one or two walls will help a lot. If you can't do that, then focus on treating the end of the room where your speakers are set up.

--Ethan

[EricF]

For your mixing area, you might consider a DIY solution like this...Ikea bass traps ...to create a well-treated partitioned area.

However, first start with some self-education...
Basic Room Setup for Dummies | Articles | My MASSIVE Blog
GIK Acoustics presents Acoustics Primer: Some Basics on Acoustics.
RealTraps - How To Set Up a Room

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by EricF

For your mixing area, you might consider a DIY solution like this...Ikea bass traps ...to create a well-treated partitioned area.

However, first start with some self-education...
Basic Room Setup for Dummies | Articles | My MASSIVE Blog
GIK Acoustics presents Acoustics Primer: Some Basics on Acoustics.
RealTraps - How To Set Up a Room

I most admit that those IKEA things are pretty cool.

[elmolemon]

Not trying to hijack, but the ikea trap is a great idea!

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

I most admit that those IKEA things are pretty cool.

The ikea kilby is exactly the one, i plan to use myself!

So do you think that it's negative to put some of these next to each other due to their quite massive frame?

I plan to put them behind my speakers and to the early reflection points left and right! Does is affect the absorption in my case heavily?


Btw, here is an other thread dealing with ikea kilby-traps!

[bash54]

Thanks for the replies. Those IKEA cases do look intriguing. Without building permanent walls (because as I said, I'm probably moving relatively soon and don't want to waste the time or money), could I effectively cut the size of my room in half, not to mention drastically improve acoustics, by stacking some floor-to-ceiling bass traps across middle of the room width-wise? Let's see, at 2' wide that would only take 11 bass traps to go from one wall to the other...and then I still have corners to worry about! Would gobos help at all?

[LickHunter]

It's always great if you can get a room without a flat ceiling. In my old place we had a cathedral ceiling and it was great.