wall treatments in high ceiling room

[scraggs]

hi all,

i posted this over at fran manzella's forum on PSW but i'm not having any luck there, so i thought i'd see if you folks have any advice for me.

i've just built myself a new mastering room, the dimensions are 21'3" x 16'10" x 13'4" (LWH). right now i am in that phase that i imagine lots of people go through, where the room isn't totally finished, but there are records to master, so i've got a temporary setup going, with all my absorbers scattered around the room, balanced precariously on mic stands and whatnot. it sounds pretty good in there and client response to the masters has been totally positive, so i'm happy so far. hopefully in a week or so it will be slow enough that i can take all the gear out, put in the hardwood floor, put all the absorbers up for real, and actually have a finished studio.

right now i have 8' high, 6" deep bass traps in all 4 corners, 3 4'x4" traps on the front wall behind the speakers, and then various 2" and 4" panels on the side walls, mostly towards the front of the room, there's a couple on the back wall as well. there's also a 6'x4' poly diffusor in the middle of the back wall, and i have a bunch of 703 on the ceiling in between the joists. standard stuff.

it sounds good, but at the moment it's still a little livelier than i would like...i can still hear a bit of the room when i clap my hands....i don't want it 'dead' but i think i do want it pretty 'dry', no?

so what i am wondering is...does anyone have any sort of suggestions or guidelines for where/how i should best arrange the absorbers on the walls? i'm familiar with the basics, and creating a RFZ, etc, but as the ceiling is 13 feet up, there is A LOT of wall space to consider. and it's mainly what to do with the upper parts of the walls that i'm not sure about.

should i worry more about the front/back walls or the sides? or both? or am i worrying about it too much already, and a couple panels *somewhere* higher up on the walls will work fine? i was also thinking about making a few more polys, and putting them higher up on the front/side walls...good/bad idea?

thanks!
scott

[Weasel9992]

How 'bout a pic or two?

If you're just wanting to knock down some of the room flutter, then that'll be pretty easy. I did understand you to say that the low end is good and that all you wanted to do was get a little less "roomy", right?

Frank

[scraggs]

hi frank, here's a couple pix of my messy, humble room in its current totally makeshift state:







i've got the flutter under control, at least in the lower half of the room. i haven't tried the clap test up on the ladder yet, i'm sure it's fluttery up there, which can't be good...

the low end seems pretty good...it's worlds better than my last room certainly. i'm sure it could be better though...i'm planning on making the corner bass traps go floor to ceiling, and i'm also going to add a few more traps somewhere up on the ceiling/wall corners.

but yeah, it's just a little livelier than i'd like at the moment, and it's mainly what to do with all that wall space i'm wondering about. i feel like i shouldn't need to have 80 million absorbers to tame down the reverb, and it's more a matter of putting them in the right spots. i'm just not sure where the right spots are. and as treating the upper parts of the walls involves being up on the damn ladder yet again, i would much prefer to do it right the first time and be done with it!

thanks,
scott

[RKrizman]

Originally Posted by scraggs

i've got the flutter under control, at least in the lower half of the room. i haven't tried the clap test up on the ladder yet, i'm sure it's fluttery up there, which can't be good...

Keep in mind that your high walls probably won't flutter, because every sound hitting them will be coming at an angle.

-R

[Weasel9992]

Well Scott...that's a big room with a high ceiling. It's behaving pretty much exactly like it's supposed to. I'm not sure I know any subtler way of handling it than to add some more absorption. Where to add it? That's the part that takes some experimentation. What you could do is alternate absorption on opposite walls so that no untreated wall space faces another...that's an easy way to effectively double the amount of area you can cover with the panels you have.

Frank

[scraggs]

cool. thanks guys.