room acoustics

[sgrocker]

hello all, i know i make alot of threads, and u guys have been very helpful, so thanks in advance, im getting more into recording and beginning to buy some equipment, i bought my first legit mic today, i think i may buy monitors next. anyway i realize that for accurate mixing i need a decent room. i dont have alot of money for acoustic treatment or anything, but i was wondering if theres any home made things i can make to help. also a big question on my mind is how do i figure out what my room needs such as bass traps and what the room has too much of. ill probaby be using this room as a live room as well for vocals, drums, guitar amps and what not. the only other option is to use my laundry room for a live room, but its very boomy sounding, my dad mentioned the idea of hanging up sound blankets, like the ones u wrap furniture in, around a person while there doing vocals like a fake booth, dunno if thats a great idea. sorry for the long post guys

~Brandon

[silent-sam]

Its tough to know exactly what your room will need without actually "shooting your room"

These are my simple suggestions.

*Take care of the coners of your room. Those are going to be mayjor bass traps.

*If your treating your controll room think "live end / dead end" its one of the most simple and basic ways to treat your room. The dead end of your room will be the front of your room where your mix position is...this is where your going to want to put all your "absorbing materials" on the walls and on the roof around your mix position.

The back end of your room will be your live end so you will leave the walls without any absorption however you will want to have some kind of diffusor on your back wall so if any low frequencys hit your back wall they will break up and be absorbed when they come back to the dead end.

Diffussors should be custom built for your room however anything will help. Book shelves with books on them can act as good diffusors.

The best way i can discribe what a diffusor does is this:

without a diffusor:
If you take a basketball and stand 4 feet from the wall and chuck the basket ball at the wall....the ball will bounce off the wall and smack you in the face really hard hahaha

with a diffusor:
If you take the basketball and chuck it into the diffussor ....the diffusor will break the basketball up in to little ping-pong balls... which are small...and weak...they might hit you but they won't hit you hard

get it?


Typically when your building a studio the goal is to have no parallel surfaces...this means your walls to eachother....and your floor to your roof. If there is anything you can sit against your walls or hang on your roof to make your walls and roof unprarralle to eachother then do it up.

[sgrocker]

Originally Posted by silent-sam

Its tough to know exactly what your room will need without actually "shooting your room"

These are my simple suggestions.

*Take care of the coners of your room. Those are going to be mayjor bass traps.

*If your treating your controll room think "live end / dead end" its one of the most simple and basic ways to treat your room. The dead end of your room will be the front of your room where your mix position is...this is where your going to want to put all your "absorbing materials" on the walls and on the roof around your mix position.

The back end of your room will be your live end so you will leave the walls without any absorption however you will want to have some kind of diffusor on your back wall so if any low frequencys hit your back wall they will break up and be absorbed when they come back to the dead end.

Diffussors should be custom built for your room however anything will help. Book shelves with books on them can act as good diffusors.

The best way i can discribe what a diffusor does is this:

without a diffusor:
If you take a basketball and stand 4 feet from the wall and chuck the basket ball at the wall....the ball will bounce off the wall and smack you in the face really hard hahaha

with a diffusor:
If you take the basketball and chuck it into the diffussor ....the diffusor will break the basketball up in to little ping-pong balls... which are small...and weak...they might hit you but they won't hit you hard

get it?


Typically when your building a studio the goal is to have no parallel surfaces...this means your walls to eachother....and your floor to your roof. If there is anything you can sit against your walls or hang on your roof to make your walls and roof unprarralle to eachother then do it up.

when you say the corners will be bass traps, u mean they need bass traps, or they are naturally bass traps? what should i do in my corners, home made stuff is much preferred =)

u explained the diffusor thing well i think i understand the concept, is a diffusor only need in front of the vocalist because that is where his sound is directed? as far as deadening the mixing side of the room, is deadening materials such as foam necessary for behind the monitors, i might have my room set up in a some what odd way, the desk is going to be a good 5-6 feet from another wall. otherwise do i just need a decent amount of absorbing material above and in back of me? thank u so much for the help

~Brandon

[tINY]

Go find Ethan Winer's site - lots of good, basic info there.

Short answer - figure out how to build bass traps and make a lot (unless your room is big, like 1/2 a basketball court and 12 feet tall.



-tINY

[Tomer1]

The use of Diffusers depends on the size of the room,
if its a small room (4X6m for say,the size of room i mix in ) absorption alone will be a better idea.

You should consider doing unturned traps as a general way of thinking,
you might want to measure your room for standing waves and tune some of the panels accordingly.

[whosyourdaddy00]

to add to the diffuser analogy, the ping pongs balls will scatter in different directions, with little or none commng back right at you.

when you say the corners will be bass traps, u mean they need bass traps, or they are naturally bass traps? what should i do in my corners, home made stuff is much preferred =)

take the thickest quilt/blankets you have and fold it in half then roll it into a cylinder...and place into the corners. should work very well, don't go for the fluffy stuff, get some HEAVY material. i just made that up off the top of my head, and i really think i wasted my money buyin' Auralex bass traps now! haha

[sgrocker]

wow thanks for all the great advice guys. im doing my reocrding in an odd room, odd shaped, and my dad has his vintage toy car collection down here, so all the walls and space is covered, theres barely ne room for absorption material, im still trying to figure out what to do. i considered the idea of doing tracking in my basement, and mixing in my room, because it would be easier to treat. however then i'd need to either buy two pair of monitors, or just bring the pair up every time i want to do a mix. ill have to think about everything. thanks again for the advice

~Brandon

[silent-sam]

Originally Posted by sgrocker

wow thanks for all the great advice guys. im doing my reocrding in an odd room, odd shaped, and my dad has his vintage toy car collection down here, so all the walls and space is covered, theres barely ne room for absorption material, im still trying to figure out what to do. i considered the idea of doing tracking in my basement, and mixing in my room, because it would be easier to treat. however then i'd need to either buy two pair of monitors, or just bring the pair up every time i want to do a mix. ill have to think about everything. thanks again for the advice

~Brandon

An odd shape could be a good thing depending on what you mean by odd shaped. If your room kind of resembles a rectangle or a square but the walls are all angled funny this could be a good thing.

It can also be bad You want to avoid square or rectangle rooms but they can be worked with....but mostly L shaped rooms are what can screw you. They are hard to work with and you will get tons of bass build up.