Need advice on acoustically treating my studio...

djdstar · 19th February 2011

I read a ton and I won't lie, I am just overwhelmed by the amount of information out there. Shouts to Ethan though I watched your videos and even though I'm still spinning in circles, I really learned a lot (contradictory in a way I know, sorry!) I also searched around a bit on here but I guess just asking will probably be easier then racking my head.

My room is 17.00 (L) x 13.00 (W) x 8.75 (H) ft. The middle section as you can see is drywall and some sort of composite wood. There's two big windows behind those shades, the shades never come up really and there's no noticeable vibration. I'm gonna clean up the place a little, don't judge me, I'm mad busy

The floor is some garbage commercial carpet, and the ceiling is typical commercial tiles, drop ceiling I believe is the term.

I am on a budget right now and I want to order from ATS, I was considering getting 4 of the 24x48x4" pieces, 2 of them open backed and leaning them into the corners behind the monitors to try and handle some of the bass trapping. The back room corners don't seem too affected, with bass so I am going to throw up a 24x48x4 against the back wall approximately the same height as the monitors, and then one in opposite back corner by the door (where I am standing in the first picture). I am then thinking of a 2'x2' between the door and the turntables since there's some open space there. There are furnaces by the bass traps with covers over them but they do get somewhat hot so I hope this is not a safety issue...it's annoying because they are in the way!

I rent the studio with my best friend who's pretty open to the idea and not here often, so I'm able to move things around if necessary, most of the gear is mine anyways. It's a dedicated space, commercial, pretty much in the ghetto so I can do whatever I want and no one will care LOL. I know my monitors are crap too, but I figure a treated room is better then spending money on monitors at the moment. The monitors I am using are the KRK RP5s and I'm using the KRK 10s sub at a reasonably low volume to make up for the lack of bass (the sub overpowers the 5s when even if barely on). I am planning on purchasing the ADAM A7Xs within a few months as well, too. Production is a relatively new thing for me and I'm not generating enough income yet to justify new monitors after I just bought a Mac Pro 8-core, haha. But just to give you an idea, I am mainly producing dance music, not really recording anything in house yet. I am more willing to rent a bigger studio since the prices are dirt cheap here and they'll have better gear if I end up needing a vocalist locally. I am somewhat happy with my mixdowns and have gotten some great feedback but I am always looking to take my work to the next level...

As crazy as this sounds, it may be ignorant, but I don't feel like the reflections in here are too bad. But I know that's not something easy for an untrained ear to hear. I am willing to spend what's necessary to get the best performance. I just don't want to drop 400 bucks and spend an entire night doing this just for no results. I also need to revamp my signal path to the monitors a bit because I'm noticing a little noise in the signal at more then half volume, probably the junk Behringer mixer I am using to tie my turntables, Mac Pro/interface and monitors together.

Here's the studio pics:

djdstar · 20th February 2011

anyone?

jhbrandt · 20th February 2011

Treat the reflection points to the left and right - my First Reflection Calculator can help you here.. and with the Cloud trap overhead - between you and the speakers. Trap the corners where you can from floor to ceiling. Also trap wall/ceiling corners. Place absorption panels directly behind the mix position on the wall.

Cheers,
John

slymo · 20th February 2011

Get a $50 SPL meter, start generating some sine waves and walk around the room and you'll know really quick where you need bass traps and how many.

btw, out of curiosity, how many of those cores on the Mac do you actually use on a mix. I have a friend who has a 6 core and had a 16ch mix going with Waves plugs all over and was barely hitting half the cores. Using all of them actually made the computer crash. I know this is a bit of a hijack but I just did the opposite and dumped all my money in to room treatments and soundproofing and trying to find out if I can get away with only a quad core.

djdstar · 21st February 2011

Appreciate the advice!

Quote:

Originally Posted by slymo

Get a $50 SPL meter, start generating some sine waves and walk around the room and you'll know really quick where you need bass traps and how many.

btw, out of curiosity, how many of those cores on the Mac do you actually use on a mix. I have a friend who has a 6 core and had a 16ch mix going with Waves plugs all over and was barely hitting half the cores. Using all of them actually made the computer crash. I know this is a bit of a hijack but I just did the opposite and dumped all my money in to room treatments and soundproofing and trying to find out if I can get away with only a quad core.

Man, you want to talk about frustrating...

I use Ableton Live 8 and it doesn't support 64-bit processing! I hadn't really thought of it considering I assumed all modern software uses it and I came from producing on my laptop, which it used both cores all the time so I didn't think much of it...saved up for a few months and was DYING to get that computer, finally broke down and bought it to find that out on day 1 of getting a project going after I spent 4 grand that I am running only one core! Was so mad I almost switched to logic right on the spot, haha. I am hoping Live 9 comes out soon and supports them all. It's still a hell of a lot faster then my Macbook Pro, thats for sure. And it doesn't kill it to open a few things up in the background either.

So I guess you can get the 4 core, considering I am doing all mine with just "one" core technically. According to iStat, I am barely using 7 of them. I am hoping for 9 to come out soon so I can lower my buffer rate a ton...but really it's not too necessary. I don't run 10000 cpu intensive master plugins lol

slymo · 21st February 2011

Thanks that what I was "hoping" to hear. Good luck on the room treatment. The one piece of advice I read on here that helped me so much as I started diving into obsessive room analysis is know your room's limitations and work within. Helped me finally put away the measurement mic, SPL meter and fiberglass and just get to work recording and mixing.

djdstar · 22nd February 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by slymo

Thanks that what I was "hoping" to hear. Good luck on the room treatment. The one piece of advice I read on here that helped me so much as I started diving into obsessive room analysis is know your room's limitations and work within. Helped me finally put away the measurement mic, SPL meter and fiberglass and just get to work recording and mixing.

Cool man, good luck with everything!

19th February 2011	#1
djdstar Gear Head Joined: Jan 2011 Posts: 64 Thread Starter	Need advice on acoustically treating my studio... I read a ton and I won't lie, I am just overwhelmed by the amount of information out there. Shouts to Ethan though I watched your videos and even though I'm still spinning in circles, I really learned a lot (contradictory in a way I know, sorry!) I also searched around a bit on here but I guess just asking will probably be easier then racking my head. My room is 17.00 (L) x 13.00 (W) x 8.75 (H) ft. The middle section as you can see is drywall and some sort of composite wood. There's two big windows behind those shades, the shades never come up really and there's no noticeable vibration. I'm gonna clean up the place a little, don't judge me, I'm mad busy The floor is some garbage commercial carpet, and the ceiling is typical commercial tiles, drop ceiling I believe is the term. I am on a budget right now and I want to order from ATS, I was considering getting 4 of the 24x48x4" pieces, 2 of them open backed and leaning them into the corners behind the monitors to try and handle some of the bass trapping. The back room corners don't seem too affected, with bass so I am going to throw up a 24x48x4 against the back wall approximately the same height as the monitors, and then one in opposite back corner by the door (where I am standing in the first picture). I am then thinking of a 2'x2' between the door and the turntables since there's some open space there. There are furnaces by the bass traps with covers over them but they do get somewhat hot so I hope this is not a safety issue...it's annoying because they are in the way! I rent the studio with my best friend who's pretty open to the idea and not here often, so I'm able to move things around if necessary, most of the gear is mine anyways. It's a dedicated space, commercial, pretty much in the ghetto so I can do whatever I want and no one will care LOL. I know my monitors are crap too, but I figure a treated room is better then spending money on monitors at the moment. The monitors I am using are the KRK RP5s and I'm using the KRK 10s sub at a reasonably low volume to make up for the lack of bass (the sub overpowers the 5s when even if barely on). I am planning on purchasing the ADAM A7Xs within a few months as well, too. Production is a relatively new thing for me and I'm not generating enough income yet to justify new monitors after I just bought a Mac Pro 8-core, haha. But just to give you an idea, I am mainly producing dance music, not really recording anything in house yet. I am more willing to rent a bigger studio since the prices are dirt cheap here and they'll have better gear if I end up needing a vocalist locally. I am somewhat happy with my mixdowns and have gotten some great feedback but I am always looking to take my work to the next level... As crazy as this sounds, it may be ignorant, but I don't feel like the reflections in here are too bad. But I know that's not something easy for an untrained ear to hear. I am willing to spend what's necessary to get the best performance. I just don't want to drop 400 bucks and spend an entire night doing this just for no results. I also need to revamp my signal path to the monitors a bit because I'm noticing a little noise in the signal at more then half volume, probably the junk Behringer mixer I am using to tie my turntables, Mac Pro/interface and monitors together. Here's the studio pics:

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20th February 2011	#2
djdstar Gear Head Joined: Jan 2011 Posts: 64 Thread Starter	anyone?

20th February 2011	#3
jhbrandt Lives for gear Joined: Feb 2009 Location: Jakarta, Indonesia Posts: 2,715	Treat the reflection points to the left and right - my First Reflection Calculator can help you here.. and with the Cloud trap overhead - between you and the speakers. Trap the corners where you can from floor to ceiling. Also trap wall/ceiling corners. Place absorption panels directly behind the mix position on the wall. Cheers, John

20th February 2011	#4
slymo Gear maniac Joined: Jun 2009 Location: Ketchum, ID Posts: 190	Get a $50 SPL meter, start generating some sine waves and walk around the room and you'll know really quick where you need bass traps and how many. btw, out of curiosity, how many of those cores on the Mac do you actually use on a mix. I have a friend who has a 6 core and had a 16ch mix going with Waves plugs all over and was barely hitting half the cores. Using all of them actually made the computer crash. I know this is a bit of a hijack but I just did the opposite and dumped all my money in to room treatments and soundproofing and trying to find out if I can get away with only a quad core.

21st February 2011	#6
slymo Gear maniac Joined: Jun 2009 Location: Ketchum, ID Posts: 190	Thanks that what I was "hoping" to hear. Good luck on the room treatment. The one piece of advice I read on here that helped me so much as I started diving into obsessive room analysis is know your room's limitations and work within. Helped me finally put away the measurement mic, SPL meter and fiberglass and just get to work recording and mixing.