control room symmetry

[drumkideric]

I am going to be doing some mixing in a rather large basement where half of the room is for tracking and the other half is the control room. There are no dividers. There is a wall about 5 ft away from one side ofthe monitors and one about 15 ft away from the other side. The close one is all treated with auralex.
Will having one wall closer like that drastically effect things?

[Scott R. Foster]

yes... a large deviation from left/right symmetry such as you describe makes get a balanced stereo image just about impossible.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by drumkideric

I am going to be doing some mixing in a rather large basement where half of the room is for tracking and the other half is the control room. There are no dividers. There is a wall about 5 ft away from one side ofthe monitors and one about 15 ft away from the other side. The close one is all treated with auralex.
Will having one wall closer like that drastically effect things?

As Scott said, symmetry is key to good imaging. You can force symmetry by putting absorbing panels equally spaced left and right. It's not as good as true symmetry, but it's a lot better than what you have now. Even hanging a heavy blanket (or more Auralex) from the ceiling 5 feet away on that side will help.

--Ethan