Small Room Resonating

[Tomas1808]

Hi,

I need some help with my room.

I've read some guides on how to set up a room and I've made some changes with my room. I think it sounds pretty decent when I listen to music, but when I play guitar on my computer, certain low notes sound unusually loud. This makes playing guitar very stressful as I often find myself trying to avoid these notes (they are usually A, B, C or D on the 6th string, depending on where I'm standing in the room).

I don't know if this is because I'm using a home stereo instead of studio monitors, or because there is a huge empty wall in the room. The room is made of hard concrete walls and when I listen to music/play guitar I'm usually sitting in the middle of the room so the speakers are pointing to my head. I was thinking of placing a thick blanket on the wall but I don't know if this would be effective at all, as you can see my budget is pretty low haha

Here are some pictures and a diagram so you can see what I'm talking about.







THANKS!

Edit: Actually when listening to music it doesn't sound that good either. High frequencies sound kind of annoying.

[PaulP]

Originally Posted by Tomas1808

I was thinking of placing a thick blanket on the wall but I don't know if this would be effective at all, as you can see my budget is pretty low haha

A blanket won't do anything good. It'll cut your highs and do nothing for the
bass. You'll have to treat your room and this will not be cheap and will do
nothing for your decor. The cheapest would be to make your own absorbers
and live with an imperfect room. If you needed the room for serious mixing,
mastering or recording you'd have to invest quite a bit of money before your
room sounded good enough.

RealTraps and GIK Acoustics have some good information on the subject.

Paul P

[SaSi_SiDi]

It's a small room and the walls are pretty bare. And with the loudspeakers located where they are, it's getting even worse.

I have a feeling that even relocating the loudspeakers will give you an improvement. How big depends on where you place them and where you sit.

Try sitting somewhere not in the middle of any distance between walls (1/3 would be better) and locate the speakers differently.

One idea would be to use only one speaker for playing guitar. You don't really need stereo. Locating close to you firing away from you is an idea. Another option that I once tried and worked in my bedroom was to lay the speaker face up on the bed.

Experiment with different arrangements and see how things improve. Some arrangements might be even worse, so don't lose your drive.

[bpape]

It's likely a combination of where you are in terms of the room modes, and boundary interaction from the monitors being so close to the wall (SBIR). A couple of reasonably thick panels behind them will help with the SBIR - and also with the closeness of the side of the cabinet between them.

You'll also likely find that they'd sound significantly better on some stands that will raise them up and get rid of the large table surface they're sitting on (another boundary related bass issue)

Bryan

[Tomas1808]

Thanks a lot for the answers. I'll answer them one by one.

Originally Posted by PaulP

A blanket won't do anything good. It'll cut your highs and do nothing for the
bass. You'll have to treat your room and this will not be cheap and will do
nothing for your decor. The cheapest would be to make your own absorbers
and live with an imperfect room. If you needed the room for serious mixing,
mastering or recording you'd have to invest quite a bit of money before your
room sounded good enough.

RealTraps and GIK Acoustics have some good information on the subject.

Paul P

I've been reading a bit on how to make my own absorbers. There's a thread here on how to make basstraps, but they are 17cm wide and i don't know if its worth the effort, I'm just going to use this room to jam with my band. I dont really need the room to sound perfect, my real problem is that when we play with bass, guitar and synth the notes that resonate can get very annoying. Also I noticed that, although not nearly as disturbing as the low frequencies, high frequencies do sound kind of bad, do you think that using a blanket to reduce these, along with something else to fix the bass problem could be a good idea?

Originally Posted by SaSi_SiDi

It's a small room and the walls are pretty bare. And with the loudspeakers located where they are, it's getting even worse.

I have a feeling that even relocating the loudspeakers will give you an improvement. How big depends on where you place them and where you sit.

Try sitting somewhere not in the middle of any distance between walls (1/3 would be better) and locate the speakers differently.

One idea would be to use only one speaker for playing guitar. You don't really need stereo. Locating close to you firing away from you is an idea. Another option that I once tried and worked in my bedroom was to lay the speaker face up on the bed.

Experiment with different arrangements and see how things improve. Some arrangements might be even worse, so don't lose your drive.

Hey I tried using just one speaker for playing guitar and it was a massive improvement!! Thanks a lot, I also tried placing the speaker on the bed and the sound improved quite a bit.

Concerning the placing of the speakers what would you suggest? I tried to place them as shown on RealTraps - Home

Originally Posted by bpape

It's likely a combination of where you are in terms of the room modes, and boundary interaction from the monitors being so close to the wall (SBIR). A couple of reasonably thick panels behind them will help with the SBIR - and also with the closeness of the side of the cabinet between them.

You'll also likely find that they'd sound significantly better on some stands that will raise them up and get rid of the large table surface they're sitting on (another boundary related bass issue)

Bryan

I think i can find a couple of stands and raise them a bit. The right speaker would be against the window though. Would it be better to raise them and have them against the window, or keep them low and put some panels behind them?

Well I really appreciate you took the time to answer! thanks!

[PaulP]

Originally Posted by Tomas1808

I'm just going to use this room to jam with my band. I dont really need the room to sound perfect, my real problem is that when we play with bass, guitar and synth the notes that resonate can get very annoying. Also I noticed that, although not nearly as disturbing as the low frequencies, high frequencies do sound kind of bad, do you think that using a blanket to reduce these, along with something else to fix the bass problem could be a good idea?

The thing is, small rooms weren't made for band practice. The walls and ceiling are
so close that the sound just bounces around all over the place and each time a reflection
comes back at you it screws up the direct sound you're in the middle of listening to.

It's like if you and your friends are jumping up and down in a small wading pool and
you'd like the water to stay calm. It might be possible in a lake, but not in a little pool.
Bass traps (absorption in general) will absorb the waves and keep things calm but
in a small room you need a lot of them and they have to be thick. On the walls
and on the ceiling.

High frequencies are easier and a blanket will absorb them. But if the blanket is all you've
got you'll just end up with muddy bass and no treble. Egg cartons will do the same thing.

I suggest you spend as much time as you can reading up on all of this, this forum is a
good place to start, then add proper absorption as you can afford it. In the meantime
just enjoy playing with your friends in a lousy room, like countless other musicians have
done throughout history. Keeping the volume down might help.

Paul P

[SaSi_SiDi]

Your plan for the room is a good starting point. The side panels appear to be correctly placed based on the "if you can see it with a mirror, put a panel there". But the front wall is also a candidate for early reflections - since it's a small room and you are sitting quite close to the front wall.