Another Small CR from HELL!!!

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by BJohnston

I'm trying to make the best situation out of a small control room. It's 8x13 with 8 ft flat ceilings. The floors are wood laminate with a 4 x 6 rug placed at mix position. I've made bass traps for the front 2 corners of the room. I've also got 2 high/mid absorbing clouds overhead and 1 on each side of mix position centered at ear level. I've tried hanging bass traps toward the back of the room as well, but as you can see by the drawing I've got a door and and window to contend with. I'm currently in the process of making some skyline diffusers to place on the back wall. My major problem is the low end and my stereo imaging is absolutely horrific.
It's time to make improvements. I wanted to get some feedback as to how I can correct the problems in such a small space. I thought about putting bass traps on the ceiling and possibley making a ceiling to wall slanted trap in the back of the room? Hoping that might help some. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
B

A few things that strike me

1) Because of the room being so small you it would be much more benefit if you place 4" or more (I like 6") on the back wall. Diffusion is great but for a bigger room and you would be amazed at the low end coming off that back wall back on you. You could though put diffusion on the back 1/3rd side walls of the room (behind you) which would work pretty well.
2)Place 4" panels behind the monitors to help with SBIR (Learn what is SBIR (Speaker Boundary Interface Response).)
3) Straddle other corners like ceiling to wall or floor to wall. Great start with what you have done , but you need way more then what you have.

Hope that helps,
Glenn

[BJohnston]

Glenn,
Thanks for your response. It helps for sure. How low should the clouds sit? I had set up another control room with clouds that started out lower and assended toward the ceiling. Is there any science in height when it comes to clouds? Thanks again for your help.

B

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by BJohnston

Glenn,
Thanks for your response. It helps for sure. How low should the clouds sit? I had set up another control room with clouds that started out lower and assended toward the ceiling. Is there any science in height when it comes to clouds? Thanks again for your help.

B

Space the cloud the same thickness as the panels. So if you use 2" panels then space it 2" off the ceiling.

Glenn

[jwl]

If your imaging is horrific, I wonder how you have your side/ceiling clouds placed. They should be at the first reflection points. One trick for this is to have a helper move a mirror along the walls and/or ceiling while you are sitting at the mix position. Anywhere you can see the relfection of the speakers in the mirror, put your absorbers there. For more on this, see Creating a Reflection-Free Zone.

Also, in addition to Glenn's good advice about treating the rear wall, I'd also get some good corner absorbers in all the wall/ceiling corners, and even the wall/floor corners where practical (ie, behind the speakers).

Diffusion.... could work. But it will only work well after you get enough absorption in the room.

[bpape]

Another thing you might consider - if your computer monitor is actually as you drew - between and in front of the monitors at all, that can be a huge issue. Find a way to drop it lower, tip it up, and or move it behind the face of the speakers.

Bryan

[jamsmith]

Near field monitoring works better the farther you are away from the walls. The idea of near fields is to get the direct sound higher in level than the reverberant sound to mask the control room acoustics. The farther you are from the reflective souce, the lower that level is. If you are 1.5 feet from the wall and you move to 3 feet from the wall, the level of the reflections drops 6dB. And since you also have doubled the distance from the wall you have also double the distance from the source to the wall. If the wall was perfectly reflective, the net would be a 12dB reduction.