Acoustic Treatment - Small Apt Mixing Room

[Jman]

Greetings,

As many say, long time lurker, first time poster. I reworked this post to hopefully make it shorter and clearer. Anyway, I have been dabbling in the world of recording/mixing for a little while, and am looking to improve my current setup by focusing on acoustic treatment. I already have set it up based on some recommendations I have seen here and across the net, but have not yet tackled acoustic treatment, but I understand how vital it is! My biggest concern is the layout of the room, as it isn't just a simple rectangle.

The room is ~15x14 feet, so I know I will have some issues with it being so tiny. It has an 8 foot ceiling, is on the second floor (so no concrete...) and is carpeted. I can certainly tell where some bass frequencies are very much hyped, especially as I turn up the volume, and things become much more muddy.

The second image attached shows the "top" of the room, where my desk is located, how far it is positioned from the walls, etc. With my limited understanding, I placed everything slightly off center, and to where I am sitting, ~1/3 of the way back in the room. The 80"x11" rectangle seen in the second image holds my Mackie MR5s, laptop, and monitors. I have uploaded a couple images of this part of the room. The base of this "shelf" is 35" from the floor.

The second rectangle, 60"x28.24" is my desk. I would imagine this would be an important reflection point to pay attention to. I also think the "mirror trick" sounds like a great starting point. I will probably need to do this project in a few "segments", so I gotta figure out what will make the most immediate difference. would love some suggestions so I can know what would be best to order/make/etc for this very small room, especially with it's odd shape. Thanks you all for the help, both in this thread and for everything I have already learned!

PS - As you can see in the images I took, I have a lamp on each side. Assuming these will need to be moved for bass traps

[aof21]

Originally Posted by Jman

Greetings,

After a bit of searching, I see that Auralex sells a reasonably priced kit called Roominators D36, which I wondered might be a good place to start, though it might not be enough coverage, and from what I can tell, does not include bass trapping.

Dear Jman

I'm sure Ethan and / or the GIK Acoustics guys will respond very shortly will loads of helpful info. Since they may be modest about selling themselves, may I highly recommend that you purchase acoustic products from them rather than anyone else. The more we support these guys the more they will continue to hang out on these threads and help us!

[Glenn Kuras]

Every thing looks good to me.
-Bass traps in as many corners as possible
-panels for early reflection points
What Are Early Reflection Points. SPOTLIGHT:Bob Ebeling - Revolution Studio
-Thick panels for the back wall.

See the following as a guide for acoustic set up.
GIK Acoustics: Room Setup

[Jman]

Thanks for the info already! I will most certainly plan to purchase what I can from GIK!

I would definitely like to look into what I could build myself as well, but really want to come up with the most effective solution.

[ellmanl]

just from a mixing point of view, you might want to get rid of some of those computer monitors

Your monitors (speakers) should only be about as far apart from each other as you'll be sitting away from them to get accurate imaging in your mix position. It looks like they are a little far apart to me. Also make a little space around the monitors (speakers), and behind them if you can - and - dont stack things on top of them, that will cause problems.

[Jman]

Yeah, I was wondering if having the (computer) monitors on top of the speakers would be an issue, even sitting on some Auralex foam left over from my MoPads. Guess the monitors will be coming down.

Also, when you set up monitors, do you tend to have someone else do the measuring to get the whole equilateral triangle thing figured out? I don't' mind losing a computer monitor, (and the ones on top, though one is a TV, which I use for about an hour a year!). I guess I set them this far apart because that's how long the board was, and of course my desk is reasonably wide.

Also ellmanl, I can't seem to figure out the proper placement away from the wall for the monitors (speakers). In the manual provided with them, it says to keep them pretty close, though I would assume some of this is to keep them from losing some bass. (Which might not be the best for mixing...)

So it hit me, duh! I tend to miss some of the most obvious things... I will just draw in a triangle in Photoshop, and measure how far away the chair should be.