Treating a Small Room

[Umlaaat]

My studio is about 14' wide, 25' long and 10' high. not the most ideal sizes when mixing, but... I wanted to know if anyone could point me to a site that could show me the proper corners/walls to work on.
Based on Ethan Winers site, I made a bunch of bass traps and have them in the corners, but honestly, I dont know if they're working. maybe i'm just convincing myself they are.

The corners where the ceiling meets the walls are untreated, but i can't hang the bass traps cuz they weigh a ton.. would it work if i took the fiberboard out and fixed it to a thin piece of plywood then attatched that to the corner?

I've got to do this without sacrificing the space that i have.

[Matej]

You wanna treat the room for mixing or recording?

Here's how I would go about it. First you need to figure out if you have significant problems with the room. Just listen to as much familiar music as you can in it and you'll figure out if it sounds funny. If it's mixing that you wanna do, then I wouldn't worry too much about reflections, try to make it cosy and put stuff on walls, like pictures, books, golden records. The catch is to make it look like a living room. You'll feel better in it and it will fix most of the reflection problems. I was surprised to see how untreated the rooms of some mastering engineers seem.

Make sure you give some distance between your nearfields and wall behind them if you can, otherwise you'll be hyping the bass.

For recording I wouldn't be afraid of some early reflections, infact they will help your sound, especially drums or anything percussive. I'd hate to track anything in a dead room, besides vocals and even that is debatable.

But ofcourse, your room is unique so you'll have to figure out if it has significant reflection anomalies or frequency buildups. You might wanna get the room measured professionally, if you plan to do serious recording/mixing in it.

Good luck!

Matej

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Umlaaat

My studio is about 14' wide, 25' long and 10' high. not the most ideal sizes when mixing, but... I wanted to know if anyone could point me to a site that could show me the proper corners/walls to work on.
Based on Ethan Winers site, I made a bunch of bass traps and have them in the corners, but honestly, I dont know if they're working. maybe i'm just convincing myself they are.

The corners where the ceiling meets the walls are untreated, but i can't hang the bass traps cuz they weigh a ton.. would it work if i took the fiberboard out and fixed it to a thin piece of plywood then attatched that to the corner?

I've got to do this without sacrificing the space that i have.

First up lets me try to understand what/how you built your traps.. I do see a lot of people build them wrong.. How thick are they? What is on the backs? Just want to make sure of that.. Are you straddling corners or just have them in the corners? How many traps do you have?

>The corners where the ceiling meets the walls are untreated, but i can't hang the bass traps cuz they weigh a ton.. would it work if i took the fiberboard out and fixed it to a thin piece of plywood then attatched that to the corner?<

You can also straddle floor to wall corners if that is easier..

>I wanted to know if anyone could point me to a site that could show me the proper corners/walls to work on.<

I have found that if you start with the front corners then back it works best.. But just about any corner is good..

>I dont know if they're working. maybe i'm just convincing myself they are. <

You can buy software that can test your room.. One of my favorites is ETF Software.. There link is www.etfacoustic.com.. There is a demo you can use.

Are you able to mix much easier in your room now? Meaning, if you don't have to compensate for bass. What you hear in the studio is what you should hear in your car or any other stereo..

>Make sure you give some distance between your nearfields and wall behind them if you can, otherwise you'll be hyping the bass.<

He is right, but you want to make sure you are firing your monitors down the 25 foot wall. Also you want your mix position to be at 38% of the front wall... In your room that would be 9.50 feet from the front wall.

Glenn

[chrisgraff]

Tons of info here:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

Best of luck!

[Ethan Winer]

Umlaaat,

> Based on Ethan Winers site, I made a bunch of bass traps <

What kind of traps? What are they made from? I show a lot of different things on my various pages and articles!

--Ethan