Please help my square room

[gearaddict]

Hi everyone..I was woundering if anyone had Ideas of how to set up my square room a little better..it is.12x12..with only 7FT ceilings...I have bass traps in 2 corners the other tow are doors...I have about 8 12x12" little acoustic foam on the ceiling...I cant really here the bass anymore..should I remove the traps or what..does anyone have a pic. of a room like mine I could use....Thanks everyone..your help is always apreciated!!!

[Glenn Kuras]

Why would you think removing the bass traps is the way to go? What you need to do is add more trapping and make sure you have things set up right (where you sit and where the treatment is located)
See the following links to help you with understanding acoustics and ideas on set up.

GIK Acoustics presents Acoustics Primer: Some Basics on Acoustics.
GIK Acoustics: Room Setup
Acoustic Treatment and Design for Recording Studios and Listening Rooms

Get through these pages and you will be MILES ahead of the acoustic curve.

Glenn

[gearaddict]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

Why would you think removing the bass traps is the way to go? What you need to do is add more trapping and make sure you have things set up right (where you sit and where the treatment is located)
See the following links to help you with understanding acoustics and ideas on set up.

GIK Acoustics presents Acoustics Primer: Some Basics on Acoustics.
GIK Acoustics: Room Setup
Acoustic Treatment and Design for Recording Studios and Listening Rooms

Get through these pages and you will be MILES ahead of the acoustic curve.

Glenn

well I thought maby that would allow me to here more of the bass that is all of a sudden goan!!

[gearaddict]

I will check out those links..thanks for your help!!!

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by gearaddict

well I thought maby that would allow me to here more of the bass that is all of a sudden goan!!

This will tell you this in the links I sent you, but bass traps flatten the bass response and help with ringing (Kind of think of this as reverb) so actually you will hear more (or should I say better) low end.

Glenn

[gearaddict]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

This will tell you this in the links I sent you, but bass traps flatten the bass response and help with ringing (Kind of think of this as reverb) so actually you will hear more (or should I say better) low end.

Glenn

O.K..I get it..I thought the bass traps killed the bass!!

[nickolo]

perhaps shelves with CDs books set up at different angles might help.Sometimes furniture and sofas can be more effective that specific bass traps.I suffer a similar problem but at least have a rectangle and slightly higher ceilings.I can never play stuff loud with nice results but with bits everywhere and two sofas at moderate volumes its OK..
You can build lots of acoustic solutions DIY.The mag Sound on sound have some cool builds and tips.They are online...Good luck..

[jwl]

Your room is going to have some bass problems, because it's both small and square. Square means that 2 of the room modes are the same, which will exacerbate the problems.

If you can't hear much bass at all, then chances are either your listening position or your speakers are in a null. I'd experiment with placement until you and your speakers are not in a null. For some more specific ideas on this, see the article
RealTraps - How To Set Up a Room

Once the room is set up, you'll still want to add more bass trapping to flatten the room. 2 is a start, but in a room that size I'd recommend 8 or more. Put them in the corners, including the wall/ceiling corners.

[cojo67]

[quote=jwl;2098673]Your room is going to have some bass problems, because it's both small and square. Square means that 2 of the room modes are the same, which will exacerbate the problems.

So if you have a square room, say 15 X 15, how much better would the bass response be if you changed one of the dimensions by 1 foot either way... so that you would have a 15 X 14 or a 15 X 16... and oh, ceiling height is 9 feet.

[Glenn Kuras]

[QUOTE=cojo67;3896418]

Originally Posted by jwl

Your room is going to have some bass problems, because it's both small and square. Square means that 2 of the room modes are the same, which will exacerbate the problems.

So if you have a square room, say 15 X 15, how much better would the bass response be if you changed one of the dimensions by 1 foot either way... so that you would have a 15 X 14 or a 15 X 16... and oh, ceiling height is 9 feet.

IMO you would not want to make the room smaller. Bigger is always better (SHE SAID). Changing it will only produce different problems which might be worse so stick with treatment with that room.

Glenn

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by nickolo

perhaps shelves with CDs books set up at different angles might help.Sometimes furniture and sofas can be more effective that specific bass traps.I suffer a similar problem but at least have a rectangle and slightly higher ceilings.I can never play stuff loud with nice results but with bits everywhere and two sofas at moderate volumes its OK..
You can build lots of acoustic solutions DIY.The mag Sound on sound have some cool builds and tips.They are online...Good luck..

The CD/record/bookshelf diffuser thing won't work well. They all have very unpredictable absorption/scattering characteristics, so at best the result will be the same...unpredictable. Look here for more info.

Frank

[cojo67]

[quote=Glenn Kuras;3896875]

Originally Posted by cojo67

IMO you would not want to make the room smaller. Bigger is always better (SHE SAID). Changing it will only produce different problems which might be worse so stick with treatment with that room.

Glenn

Hey thanks for the info Glenn,... so I was going to stick up a full post in a couple days about this, but you might be able to answer it for me without the pictures that I needed to draw.

So I will have (in about two months) a perfect rectangle room with dimensions about 15 X 26 with 9 foot ceilings... and if you have a better idea of how to divide them I am ALL EARS.... but I was going to simply divide the one room into two separate rooms... one being a tracking room and one being a control room.
SO, how would you recommend me to divide it. I was thinking a control room 11X15 and then a tracking that is 15X15.... but then I found out that square is bad. So my next thought was to make the control room only 9X15 so that the tracking is 17X15, but I really don't want to make the control room any smaller than it already is due to the bad bass response.
So do you have a suggestion.

Thanks Glenn

[CHRISPRIOR]

Hey!

Sorry if this is on another thread somewhere... I searched pretty deep and found heaps of pages on room acoustics but none with my exact question!

My first post! I've been a big fan of this site for a few months now, reading up on gear I can't afford and professional tips n' whatnot but I'm moving back into my old house and am finally serious about setting up my bedroom as a control/basic tracking/mixing room. I know little about room acoustics so have been reading up on different treatments (in time I'd like to make my own) and will get started on that in a couple of weeks... but the first problem I have is this. People on this site generally say bigger is better in terms of room size, but they also say square rooms lead to massive bass irregularities. So I have a choice of two rooms in the house... one being a 15x15x9 (LWH in ft) and the other being a 9x12x9. Is it worth setting up in the smaller room for the 'better' shape? Hopefully in time I'll find a suitably bigger room for recording drums (would the 15ft square room be good for this?) so just for now I'll be using the room for dubbing vocals, gtrs, bass, keys etc and mixing.

Any help is greatly appreciated

Cheers

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by CHRISPRIOR

Hey!

Sorry if this is on another thread somewhere... I searched pretty deep and found heaps of pages on room acoustics but none with my exact question!

My first post! I've been a big fan of this site for a few months now, reading up on gear I can't afford and professional tips n' whatnot but I'm moving back into my old house and am finally serious about setting up my bedroom as a control/basic tracking/mixing room. I know little about room acoustics so have been reading up on different treatments (in time I'd like to make my own) and will get started on that in a couple of weeks... but the first problem I have is this. People on this site generally say bigger is better in terms of room size, but they also say square rooms lead to massive bass irregularities. So I have a choice of two rooms in the house... one being a 15x15x9 (LWH in ft) and the other being a 9x12x9. Is it worth setting up in the smaller room for the 'better' shape? Hopefully in time I'll find a suitably bigger room for recording drums (would the 15ft square room be good for this?) so just for now I'll be using the room for dubbing vocals, gtrs, bass, keys etc and mixing.

Any help is greatly appreciated

Cheers

The problem is, you have identical dimensions along two axis in either room. If you're going to track and mix in the room you might *have* to use the larger space, but you're going to have to treat the bejeezus out of either space.

Frank

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by CHRISPRIOR

Is it worth setting up in the smaller room for the 'better' shape?

No!



A large room is almost always better than a small room, regardless of shape. Shape matters, but with plenty of bass traps you can get great results in a room 15 by 15.

--Ethan

[CHRISPRIOR]

hey guys,

thanks for the replies, I was afraid I'd get 'blanked' (anyone seen dylan moran's black books?) for stealing the thread!

After a second inspection and reading your thoughts I've decided to use the square 15x15 room. I'd completely ignored having a same-dimension ceiling would cause the same problems as a square room. Who would've thought that sound works in three dimensions Looking at the 9x15 (I know i said 9x12 in the question - sorry) again I really can't see myself setting up a 'desk' as well as fitting in a bed and instruments etc

I was flicking through an old SOS last night looking for any tips from them and came across Ethan's name in a "analyzing your space with software" article so I feel very sure I'm in the right place getting the right advice!

Thanks alot I feel very welcomed

[CHRISPRIOR]

just an update .. setup my krk rp8 G2s (wanted genelecs but price/local stores lack of options dictated otherwise) in the untreated 15x15 room on blocks of concrete on top of a plank of wood sitting on a bookshelf (money saving solution!) to get the right listening height and equilateral triangle setup. Switched them on, cranked some music. The bass was hideous right off the bat. At first I thought this was the square room's fault, however as I moved around the room the bass did indeed change in volume but remained equally muddy and 'pushy'. After a few hours of stressing I decided to find the source of the problem by elimination, so I checked each speaker individually while changing HF levels using the controls on the back and listening through the concrete, wood and the side of the bookshelf for resonance. Pissed off that I hadn't found the problem, I lay my head on the desk and lo and behold!!! HUGE, soggy bass seemed to be converging right to this point. It was then that I realised that I had the open side of the empty bookshelf facing the desk, and a chunk of bass frequencies were seeping through the concrete and wood into the shelf, amplifying in the space and coming out of the front of the bookshelf right into my ears! So lesson learnt, although I'm sure DIY CAN work, forking out for a couple of speaker stands (where can I buy these from? Local muso stores don't seem to have any...) is much easier than experimenting with makeshift replacement ideas. I think I might end up buying my treatment...