untreated room

[Wayne]

$500 can get you a damned lot of room/monitor zone treatment.
Rather smallish and untreated !? Try this. (You'll love it.. thumbsup

Clap sharply in different spots in your room .. listen for the fluttering short echo and resonances.
Now play some low mid sustained fairly pure tones (organ, keyboard whatever) around say 200-400 or so. Move your head six inches side to side either way.

First is the ringing' peaks and dips which are resonant time issues.
Second, which point in the six inch swing should it eq for?

Don't think eq will fix this stuff.

[Hardtoe]

Wayne is right - you need to take care of early reflections before anything else (by absorbing them) and do as much bass trapping as possible - spend your money on treatment first, there is no free lunch. After you have done this, then you may want the Ergo (there is a big thread on the Ergo if you search).

There are basically two camps of thought. First are those who use it in an already treated room to do the last bit of tweaking to the freq response which is already in the ballpark - it works great for this and has really improved how clearly I can hear the bass. The second camp believes it can not work even though they have never used it (based on acoustic theory). As a pragmatist I will take the actual improvement of my monitoring over the theoretical arguements.

[Wayne]

By the way, are you also recording in this room? Although it applies to any small rooms, consider the Haas delay range effect. This basically says delay (reflections in this case) below around 20 or so ms sound 'as part of the original source. I.e., that's walls and or ceilings at around 10-15 feet.
We add delay' like that when we want to smear' and spread.
I'd love to get some other opinion on the relative significance of this on our recording, but my practical experience says control in this area is a big factor for 'clarity and quality of focus, and you do not want 'close delay to be the norm' on your tracks.

[A M Kelly]

Cheers for the replies and ideas guys... Havent really got a clue where to start treating... Might check out some you tube tutorials..

This production game (especially a for a beginner like myself) is a dam steep learning curve. Just when you think you cracked it or have learned a particular subject something else comes along and blows you away. ... Maybe thats a reason why we all love it...

[Unclenny]

It really is quite the curve. You need to love it enough to stick with it and learn to get the best out of what you have.

I'm still tracking and mixing in a spare room.

I do use all of the other rooms in my house for tracking. You just need to listen to your room.....whichever one it is that you are tracking in. Walk around in it and make noises. In time you'll get to know it.

Then you can do things to it. I can't make permanent changes so I hang blankets and such.....I have strings run across the room for different situations.

The most important thing to know is that your room will become your sound....for better or for worse.

As far as mixing..........It has been this way for me for a long time so I have grown accustomed to a good set of cans.

[oldskool978]

I had amazing result by adding nails to the wall, and hanging my clothes to the nails with a clothes hanger.. i have shirts all over my walls, but the difference it made to the sound was amazing.. I made it look nice too.. il try to upload a photo of the setup shortly (when I get home) but trust me, it doesnt get any more "low end" then that. lol, not to mention my room sounds a thousand percent better!!!thumbsup

[Unclenny]

Originally Posted by oldskool978

I had amazing result by adding nails to the wall, and hanging my clothes to the nails with a clothes hanger..

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by A M Kelly

Hi guys... Mixing in my spare bedroom. Finally close to having a good standard of gear to get a good recording but am now thinking bout the room i mix in. It is a very small room with no treatment.

Have just seen the krk ergo product and wondered has anyone used it or if anyone has any advice to improve the room... Cheers

You did not list the size of your room but here is some general info.
First thing you are going to want to do is make sure you are set up in the room correctly. Start by putting the mix area facing the shortest wall so to fire the speakers down the long wall. You are going to want to start with the mix spot (where you sit) around 38% of the room length. After you are set up correctly you will want to treat the early reflection points (What Are Early Reflection Points. SPOTLIGHT:Bob Ebeling - Revolution Studio), proper bass trapping in as many corners as possible and THICK absorption on the back wall.
You can use the following as a guide for set up.
GIK Acoustics: Room Setup