Need Help With Panels Placement

[Mikiber]

Hi all,
I just moved to a new apartment and have terrible acoustic problems so, it's been almost two weeks of reading great articles in this forum and in Ethan Site...
now I begin,
this is my room :



this is the recording of a pink noise from listening position :



ok..
the sound is terrible in this room!

so i've build 14 traps (120cm x 60cm) 10cm thick filled with rockwool as explained in the great "How I built my bass traps..." thread.
they are almost done i'll send pics soon.
and bought 4x 3.60meter of "corner foam" to put in all the corners from ground to ceiling.


i thought to hang 6 of the traps above the "working table" through the room until the piano.
so i'll have 8 more to hang in walls.
but i'm really not sure where should i place them all.
Please Help

[bpape]

1 behind each monitor for SBIR will help. A couple on the rear wall over the piano that's also centered behind your head at the mix position.

Return the foam and get some more mineral wool to do the corners with. It'll work MUCH better.

Bryan

[jwl]

I agree with bpape you should return the foam if possible and replace it with something more effective.

If it's not possible, then I'd install the foam in the wall/ceiling corners. I'd put 4 of your new panels across the wall/wall corners. The rest I'd put on the wall, spaced off the wall by 10cm:

1 on the left wall at the first reflection point
1 on the right wall at the first reflection point
2 on the ceiling at the first reflection point for each speaker
1 on the ceiling, above the vocal recording area
3 on the rear wall
2 on the front wall, one each directly behind each speaker

If possible, I'd put some of these on stands so they can be moved around while tracking.

[Mikiber]

thanks for the quick responses

- I ordered the foam, but did not get it yet so i can still cancel, but i need to be sure.

- I understand that the foam is not as good as the panels i build, but my ceiling is very high (3.66m) so it means i would need another 12 panels to cover the wall/wall !!!
(jwl) you wrote that i need only 4... what do you mean ?

- How can i know exactly where are the first reflections point ?
thanks.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Mikiber

my ceiling is very high (3.66m) so it means i would need another 12 panels to cover the wall/wall !!!

Most rooms have 12 corners, and the more total corner surface you treat the better. Always.

How can i know exactly where are the first reflections point ?

See this:

RealTraps - How To Set Up a Room

and this:

RealTraps - Creating a Reflection-Free Zone

--Ethan

[magicdog]

One other point - you have an almost perfect cube shaped room which is the biggest nightmare to treat...good luck...

[Mikiber]

ethan - thanks for the links -

magicdog - thanks I feel alot better now, it's been only 2 weeks that i didn't make music !!

[Mikiber]

I just finished building 16 traps :



moved the piano :



placed the traps :

- 3 --> 2 behind the speackers + 1 on top of them

- 4 --> 2 on each front corner (wall/wall)

- 2 for the first reflections (left and right wall)

- 3 behind me on the wall

- 3 --> 2 behind the piano + 1 on top of them

- 1 in the last corner (down/left)

good conclusions :

- the sound is more clean and focused

- the terrible reverb is gone

- the piano sounds great

bad conclusions :

- the working table seems to be more bassy - vibrating a lot.

- I made a new pink noise test and resuslt is almost the same...... ? ....
did i make something wrong ? , i recorded a pink noise downloaded from Ethan site with a c1 condenser from studio project , via apogee ensemble with logic 8 ...

---

questions :

- can i make better placement for the 16 panels ?

- should i put a few of them over my head and speackers ?

thanks.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Mikiber

can i make better placement for the 16 panels?

The only way to know for sure is to measure the LF response while you experiment with panel placement. Also, hearing more bass after adding traps is normal and desirable. If your desk is physically vibrating, you need to fix that at the source. This is unrelated to the acoustics in the room.

--Ethan

[Mikiber]

thanks ethan,
is the way i measure the room not right ?
do you mean to measure with a program like fuzzmeasure ?

sorry for the stupid questions, it's the first time in my life i'm dealing with acoustic.

[Mikiber]

I got fuzzmeasure - this is recording from listening position -



so if I understand what you mean, i should try to move the panels and try to get a response as flat as possible ?

[DanDan]

Hi Mikiber, IMHO
These measurements are just tools, and we are not born with the skills to use them wisely. They can be very disappointing. A radical change in how the room sounds can translate into very small variations in the overall curve. Take time with the octave Reverb times and Waterfalls, they tell a very powerful story. For frequency response, take measurements at various representative spots in the room and average them. 6 or 8 spots would be good. The result should look more encouraging.
I recommend a more holistic approach. Use Reference Music Tracks. I assure you that the very well articulated principles on Ethan's site really really deliver. Remember the 38% areas. Try putting your speakers close to the wall if they are small. More Bass and more even. Hit the corners hard, lose the Foam, try SuperChunks or MondoTraps. I have achieved a Mastering Class (Other peoples opinions) sound, in an impossible room with Corner Trapping, a Cloud, and RFZ. It sounds really great, but I wouldn't like to show the response curves ;-)
Take a peek here ::ADAM::Professional Audio::
Good Luck, you will succeed.
Dan FitzGerald AMIOA
SoundSound - Homepage

[jitterybit]

If you are in a room with a carpet on a cement foundation build yourself a cloud.
You will have crazy vertical modes in a room with concrete floors.
We built a cloud out of 2 inch dow insulating foamboard, the dense blue stuff, but the pink stuff, and fiberglass insulation. 703 or 705 would have been better but didn't know where to get it at the time. The foamboard comes in 4 foot by 8 foot sheets. We trimmed it to be shaped similar to the top third of a stop sign; cosmetic. It's hung on steel cable from eye bolts it the corners(between wall and ceiling). That made a bigger difference in our room than our bass traps. No only does it capture vertical modes but it also grabs all the excess audio headed north out of the speakers and keeps it from bouncing around the room.
Hope I helped.

[Mikiber]

the few last 3 threats are gone... maybe because the server went down.
anyway,

thanks for your help, yes the room is already sounding a lot better, even the graph is not very optimic.
and next thing, i'll build a cloud in the next days with 4" rockwool.

btw.
dandan - ADAM are great !
but I prefer my PMC..

[bpape]

Move your mic back 1' and see what happens to the dip in the 60Hz range.

Also, how thick did you make the panels behind the mix position?

I'd also definitely agree that you'll want a 4" thick panel or 2 over your head

Bryan

[Mikiber]

all the 16 panels are 4"inch -
it seems like when i'm testing with new placement, the graph has really really minor changes.. :(
it doesn't really matter where i put them, the graph is stable.
also when i move back the mic position, almost no changes.

[DanDan]

Beauty, statistics, measurements. It's all in the eye of the beholder. Average 6 or more measurements, then look only at 20-200.
Zoom.
DD