Help with a square control room

[soypancho]

I'm trying to help a local studio owner who's control room is enhancing the bass to the point that no one can mix in there. The room is 10 ft x 10.5 feet and he currently has it set up diagonally so that his back is facing a corner. I was wondering 1) am I right to tell him that it needs to be horizontally oriented? and 2) how much of this Owens Corning 703 do we need to buy (approximately) to properly treat this room?

I have access to SMAART analyzer software and we will be actively running it as we place the bass traps around the room to get the best frequency response, but we only want to place one order and hopefully end up with enough or maybe just a bit more than it takes to get the room as flat as possible. Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

[Glenn Kuras]

"1) am I right to tell him that it needs to be horizontally oriented?"

Yes and have him face the shortest wall. You want the mix spot (where he sits) to be 38% of the room length. If the room is 10.50 inches then he needs to be about 4 feet from the wall in front of him.

and 2) how much of this Owens Corning 703 do we need to buy (approximately) to properly treat this room?

ALOT!!!!!!! Really for a room like that you want to cover as many of the corners you can. Also put panels on the back wall and first reflections on left, right and ceiling. If you start to get worried that the high end will over absorb (which can happen) then use FRK on the fronts of the bass traps. You do not though want to use the FRK for the fronts of the panels that will be used for early reflections.

Hope that helps you out.

Glenn

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by soypancho

his back is facing a corner.

Not great, because that focuses all the reflected sound from behind right back at his ears. See this article:

RealTraps - How To Set Up a Room

how much of this Owens Corning 703 do we need to buy (approximately) to properly treat this room?

As Glenn said, as much as possible!

I have access to SMAART analyzer software and we will be actively running it as we place the bass traps around the room to get the best frequency response

Excellent idea, and that will let you see the improvement. But you should aim to cover every single corner, including wall-ceiling corners and optionally where the walls meet the floor, rather than plan on only a few traps hoping Smaart will find the best places. For example, one corner might help more at 100 Hz, but another corner improves 130 Hz, and so forth. That's why covering as many corners as possible is always best.

--Ethan