Oh goodness, another noob in a small room.

[kasmira]

Hello slutz,

Well I'm pretty much the epitome of someone who has no place on these boards, but hopefully that will be changing soon enough. I produce dance music in a small room in my mother's house. Yep...I know. I use KRK Rokit 5's (Yep...i still know) and I also have a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pros.

That being said, we just moved into this new house, and I have a bedroom, along with a second bedroom that I use as a studio room.

The studio room is 10' x 10'3" and 10' tall with a small closet that has sliding doors. Its pretty much a complete cube, so I understand I have the worst of the worst, and won't be able to make it anywhere near great, but anything is better than now. I just downloaded google sketch-up today, and made simple sketches of the room I'm working in.




Now, I do have some totally awesome sweet Auralex acoustic foam (....I know) that I will be putting about, because this room has seriously insane amounts of flutter. (My girlfriend got me the 32-pack of wedgies for Christmas, so I'm not going to complain)

I also just recently ordered some Roxul firebatts (six 2" thick batts) and am making two 6" deep bass traps this week. The box came in this past Friday, but the fabric I ordered hasn't come in yet...so I have to wait. I ordered my Roxul from ATS - and unfortunately, the next day after I ordered em, I found a local supplier with insane prices for insulation (84 cents a square foot for 4" thick mineral wool at 4pcf density!) so I will be making 3 corner traps with that in the next couple of weeks. They also had killer prices on Owens Corning products as well, so I'm sure I'll be making my next bass traps out of that. I'm probably going to build the corner traps completely solid by cutting mineral wool batts in half to 2' x 2', and then half again diagonally and stacking them up - and I'm going to try to build them 8' tall as well, if I have the money to.

So, I think I'm on the right track here, but I still have lots of problems to try to correct.

I currently have my desk along the long wall that the closet is attached to, but I don't know if this is the best place for it. The wall to my left is like 80% covered by a massive window. Then on my right side, I have a closet with sliding doors, and the door entrance, which swings into the room, with a 3-4 foot gap in between.

I JUST built a new studio computer as well, which I think really got me on the hike to really turn my half-assed wanna be setup, into a small, but at least useable workspace.

Now that you guys have all the info, here is what I'd like to know from you!

Where should I put my desk in the studio? I know that I should be sitting about 35% of the room length, which is just about where I am now - but this puts my monitors up against a wall. Even though my monitors are crap anyways, I wanted to start building up this room before I purchase new ones.

The south wall is the one with the window, and since this is a massive window (6 foot wide by about 5 foot tall) I don't think it would be good to put my desk against that (but perhaps it would?)

The west wall is where my desk currently is, and I've got nothing on the east wall. Since the closet is on the north-west side of the room, should I move my desk to the other side? Or will this not change much?

Also, should I take my sliding doors off the closet? The closet has random shelving built in to it which I have the boxes to all my computer and audio related purchases.

Here's a picture of my current studio. I know its not pleasant (and shit is everywhere since I just built a computer yesterday), but just like I said before - you gotta start somewhere, and I'm trying to turn it around as fast as I can.





Thanks for any help and any info you guys have. I have already read hundreds of threads on here for the past months and have gained some great insight from you guys. I am a mathematical geek at heart, so not only is acoustics a lot of fun to figure out and read up on, but its like crack for me.

I'm also planning on building some 2' x 2' diffusors, and though I know that won't help nearly as much in a small room as traps would, I'm mostly building them to have them when I move out. Might as well build stuff now while I don't have to pay rent, and have them waiting for me once I do.

This thread is not only to compile helpful info from you guys, but will also serve to be my "studio build" thread. When its all finished, I plan to have two 6" bass traps, a couple 4" bass traps, three 2' x 2' x 34" x 8' tall corner traps (cant do 4 since I have the door in the way of the one corner), two 2' x 2' diffusors, 32 panels of auralex somewhere around, and eventually I really want to build a custom studio desk. Right now I'm using a glass desk, is this bad? Haha. I could use the table you see in the pictures that is in front of the window, but then the speakers would be really spaced out. I could place them ON the table, but I'm not sure if that would be good either.

And if any of you guys are curious to what my productions are sounding like, check out my newest original here: Kasmira - The Abyss by djkasmira on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

You can browse the others on there too and let me know what you think. Oh and two last things - I can't mount anything on the wall, so everything will have to be free standing that I make, and lastly I don't have a microphone - so it will be kind of hard for me to do tests right now. I could borrow a friend's, but I will be buying one soon so that might not come right away.

Anyways, I'm rambling off, so I'll leave you with that. Again, thank you so much for any suggestions and advice you guys have.

[Glenn Kuras]

I'm also planning on building some 2' x 2' diffusors, and though I know that won't help nearly as much in a small room as traps would, I'm mostly building them to have them when I move out. Might as well build stuff now while I don't have to pay rent, and have them waiting for me once I do.

I would hold off on building those until you get the room under control on the low end. You're fighting a room that is almost cube, which is going to take tons of bass trapping. Hit all the corners, not just the wall to wall, but also the upper corners (ceiling to wall) around the room. It would be sweet to see a soffit design in that room as you really need to hit the best you can.
As far as the layout I would start with facing the window as it is going to give you better symmetry in the room. See the following for a layout.
GIK Acoustics: Room Setup

[amishsixstringe]

Glenn is right. I have always used the 10x10x10 room as a hypothetical worst case scenario room. You only really support one mode and its harmonics...3 times. You will need to trap every corner possible.

Anyone else think this is a really good case for tuned resonators?

Also, have you measured the place with REW yet? I am actually quite interested in what that would look like.

Your salvation may be that your walls are hopefully thin and don't support ringing as much as it would if they were built per recording studio standards.

Neil

[BriHar]

The room is a tuned resonator, and it'll take a lot of "wool" to damp it and broaden the Q.

[kasmira]

Thanks for all your replies thus far everyone

Glenn, I do plan on hitting everywhere possible with bass traps first for sure. All my money is going into that currently. I was planning on making floor to ceiling corner bass traps - 2' x 2' on the sides, 34" wide, and that would make it 17" deep in the middle.

How deep/wide should a soffit trap be? The only problem I have with this right now, is that this isn't my house - and I don't think my mother would appreciate me putting holes in her walls, so I'm trying to stick with stuff I can build a stand for.

I haven't measured the room yet, but I will be doing that as soon as I get a microphone.

[Glenn Kuras]

How deep/wide should a soffit trap be? The only problem I have with this right now, is that this isn't my house - and I don't think my mother would appreciate me putting holes in her walls, so I'm trying to stick with stuff I can build a stand for.

I would make the soffits 17" on all sides. Going to be hard to do the upper ceiling corners around the room if you can not have holes. You could though put them on the floor around the room. Keep in mind that there are no "bad" corners to treat.

[amishsixstringe]

You could make all the traps in cardboard or plywood frames. Then put a header across 2 towers like stone henge. That way there are no holes in the walls.

Neil

[kasmira]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

I would make the soffits 17" on all sides. Going to be hard to do the upper ceiling corners around the room if you can not have holes. You could though put them on the floor around the room. Keep in mind that there are no "bad" corners to treat.

I figured you'd say 17, since your guys' soffits are 17. Good point on putting them on the ground. I can definitely build some of those. If I build a frame for a freestanding 8' tall corner trap, I may be able to make it hold an extra 2 foot out on each corner between ceiling, wall, and wall, so at least I'll have something. Although my woodworking skills are nowhere near impressive, so we'll see if that is something I can figure out..

Also, I was planning on making fully solid corner traps and placing them about 3" away from the actual corner. Would I have better results if I snipped off some of the back corner so theres a bigger gap back there? I mean its 17" deep in the middle so, I don't know what would be best.

[kasmira]

Originally Posted by amishsixstringe

You could make all the traps in cardboard or plywood frames. Then put a header across 2 towers like stone henge. That way there are no holes in the walls.

Neil

Thanks Neil, I did plan on building some wood frames for them and propping them up to be off the ground. Should I build stands for them out of wood? Or perhaps just rest them on something heavy, like cinder blocks?

By the way, your studio build is seriously impressive. Good work man! When do you expect to be fully completed with it? My girlfriend and I drooled over your construction last night going through your photobucket. You are a mad man, I must say. Making your own bricks? Who does that!!

[Glenn Kuras]

By the way, your studio build is seriously impressive. Good work man! When do you expect to be fully completed with it? My girlfriend and I drooled over your construction last night going through your photobucket. You are a mad man, I must say. Making your own bricks? Who does that!!

Funny you should say this, I just read through his build thread today. Very impressed, but must say I was exhausted just looking at the pictures. He is a mad man.

[kasmira]

Has anyone ever built traps using metal studs? Is this a bad idea since metal is reflective? I figure since its on the sides of the panel it wouldn't matter too much. I could drill 1"-3" holes on the sides as well to keep some of the sides open to the wool, and then cover it all in fabric. Any ideas on this?

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by kasmira

Has anyone ever built traps using metal studs? Is this a bad idea since metal is reflective? I figure since its on the sides of the panel it wouldn't matter too much. I could drill 1"-3" holes on the sides as well to keep some of the sides open to the wool, and then cover it all in fabric. Any ideas on this?

The metal would be fine. I have seen people do it before.

[kasmira]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

The metal would be fine. I have seen people do it before.

Great, thanks! Also, 17" soffits sounded like a weird size to me before, but I think I understand why now:

2' x 4' panel, cut in half =
(2) 2' x 2' panels, cut in half diagonally =
(4) 2' x 2' triangles, which would be a 34" hypotenuse, cut in half diagonally again =
(8) 17" x 17" triangles with a 2' hypotenuse, put 2 triangles together on the 2' sides =
(4) 17" x 17" square pieces.

With 4" panels, this would give you a 16" tall 17" x 17" soffit per panel.

If I used 7.5 panels, I could get a floor to ceiling soffit in one corner..

A local supplier gave me the price $.841 sq/ft for 4" thick Thermafiber mineral wool batts, and there is 8 sq/ft in one 2' x 4' panel..

8 sq/ft x 7.5 panels = 60 sq/ft x $.841 = $50.46

If i did 2 more corners like that, then soffits on the corner of floor to wall, they'd need to be 86" long since the soffits on the wall-to-wall corners are 17" thick each..

5-3/8 panels (lets just say 5.5) for 86"

8 sq/ft x 5.5 panels = 44 sq/ft x $.841 = $37.01

$50.46 x 3 + $37.01 x 2 = $151.38 + $74.02 = $225.40

So for the insulation total, I'd be looking at about $225. That is COMPLETELY do-able in a second, but the biggest problem would be how the hell to cover them. Fabric would cost a quite a bit to cover that much surface area..of course I only need to cover 2 sides of it to look nice, the other sides don't matter that much, but I still need to cover it with something, and I'd probably use metal on the corners to hold it stiff, since wood would be heavy - but then how would I attach the fabric? hmm..lots of factors here for a soffit system! Would be worth it though, I'm sure..

Anyone else got ideas on where to place the desk? Glenn, you think I should place it against the window? I agree that it would probably give the best symmetry, but there are blinds there. Perhaps my mother would let me take down the blinds and put a curtain up. But even then, this only leaves one small 3' long space behind me to trap. Hm..!

[nms]

2 questions..

Are you working towards having your music signed and commercially released?

If the answer is yes, what are the dimensions of your other room?

[kasmira]

Originally Posted by nms

2 questions..

Are you working towards having your music signed and commercially released?

If the answer is yes, what are the dimensions of your other room?

I do already have 3 tracks signed and being commercially released in the next couple weeks/months, and am working on getting more releases. My other room is an exact mirror of this room. I know that even with all this treatment, I'm probably going to still be using my Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pros. Just, eventually, I will need this treatment, and will be buying better monitors, and be in a bigger space. Hopefully that isn't too far away. 2 years ago, I was producing in a 23' x 13' room and that was a lot better...then we had to sell our house, moved into a rental, and my room was like 12' x 11' there, and had angled ceilings that went from like 10' to 17' high, so that still wasn't nearly as bad as this. Now my music was suffering because of this change, so I grabbed the headphones. Hopefully they'll hold me for the next year or so until I move out. :/

[amishsixstringe]

Thanks to the dudes drooling on my build. Too bad the bricks I made are now just a walk path to my bon fire pit. haha. As for completion...I hope to be in the finishing touches phase by summer. It's a ton of work.

It looks like you are on track to make your room sound killer. Good luck dude.

Neil

[nms]

Damn, I'd have recommended the other room. In that case yeah just go ahead on treating the room. What I'd do is pick up a couple bags of Roxul Safe n Sound. Should be under $40 each. Make a pair of 8 ft tall triangular traps to put in the front L&R corners, a 5'x3' front wall panel (single or double layer), then use the remaining slabs to make a few 2x4 panels. Desk at the window side for sure. If you have a 4-6" thick front panel to cover it then you're good.

Next thing I'd recommend is upgrading to a pair of VXT6 as soon as you can.

[kasmira]

Originally Posted by nms

Damn, I'd have recommended the other room. In that case yeah just go ahead on treating the room. What I'd do is pick up a couple bags of Roxul Safe n Sound. Should be under $40 each. Make a pair of 8 ft tall triangular traps to put in the front L&R corners, a 5'x3' front wall panel (single or double layer), then use the remaining slabs to make a few 2x4 panels. Desk at the window side for sure. If you have a 4-6" thick front panel to cover it then you're good.

Next thing I'd recommend is upgrading to a pair of VXT6 as soon as you can.

Safe n Sound is really hard to find in Arizona, let alone the US. Most of the places I find it online are in Canada, haha. But I got great prices for a similar material, so I think I'll be using that.

I'm pretty sure my next monitor purchase will be either VXTs or Adams if I can get up the money for em. I dislike Adams for dance music because the low end is soooooooooooo not there, but the high end is so clear compared to any other monitor in the price range imo. If I don't have enough money to spend $1000-1200 on monitors, I'll probably be going with HS80Ms, just because they're decent enough, and definitely still a lot better than what I got now.

I think what I'm going to do is glue the Auralex foam pads I'm getting to cardboard or posterboard, and fill my window with it, so at least I won't be getting high-end reflections from the glass. I think I will make soffit traps for the ground-wall corners, and put triangular traps on top of them in the wall-wall corners for now. Along with putting one 6" thick 2' x 4' bass traps on each side of me in my first reflection points, and I'll have to make one more to go directly behind me in the gap between my closet and door.

I just purchased some 2x6's today to build the frame of the first two bass traps I'm making. I'm going to make 45 degree angle cuts on them, and screw L brackets into them on the inside. Then once I have the frames built, I'm going to sand and stain or paint the wood. I'll put them on the ground, and lay the fabric INSIDE of the frame and staple it to the inner parts, that way I'll have the insulation covered in fabric, but leave the wood frame exposed. A: I think it will look really nice, and B: I didn't order wide enough fabric to go 6" deep haha

I also bought some painter's canvas at Home Depot for like $7 for a 5' x 5' drop of it. It also has an extremely thin layer of plastic shit on it that I can't take off, but that would probably work REALLY well for the back of the panels - its pretty strong. I'm using microsuede as my fabric for the front. I got grey microsuede since I figured it was neutral enough to look fine anywhere, but I don't know what color I should paint the wood, or if I should just stain it..

This is the color of the microsuede: http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/z...m&itemType=sku

I could have gotten cooler colors but they were out of them when I ordered, and when I ordered the microsuede it was on sale for $5 a yard..

I got a bunch of swatches being mailed to me for different types of fabric from this store: Online Fabric Store: Discount Fabric - Drapery Fabric, Upholstery Fabric, Apparel Fabric & More!

They have pretty good prices from what I've seen, and they actually sell USED burlap coffee bags - which I really want to make some panels with! I think it would look awesome - plus, they might smell like coffee...and who doesn't love that smell?!

I ordered a swatch of: burlap, muslin, hemp, poplin, & broadcloth. I will be sure to take pictures of all this stuff as I am going along.

Tomorrow (as long as nothing epic gets in my way) I will be re-arranging the studio. I will take pics after I move the desk and get everything cleaned up in here. Can't wait to get down and dirty on these things!! It might take a couple weeks / months to get everything up though, I don't make a lot of money! >.<

[kasmira]

Would anyone be opposed to the idea of making a massive 8' x 8' trap that covers most of a wall? Is this a bad idea?

It could be super easy..I could grab some soundboard from Home Depot - that stuff is only like 9$ for a 4' x 8' sheet. I could use a sheet of that, nail/screw in 2x4s every 2 foot - slide the insulation into the slots divided by 2x4s (well I'd need to cut it a little bit) and grab some 128" wide muslin and just cover the whole damned thing. Then duplicate that whole process to make a second one. I could even put the two together with a few door hinges so it can fold up to be taken in and out of rooms. What do slutz think? Has anyone done this?

[nms]

Advice on the monitors.. I tried replacing my VXT6 with Adam A7X and knew the first day that they had to go.

As for your wall killing, slay your whole front wall if you like. With the other walls you probably don't want to do that. I prefer a good sized 6" thick front panel. Thicker absorbers are effective to lower freqs. Then for the rest of the front end I suggest just sticking to edge boundaries for the L, R, floor, ceiling. You want your burliest treatment to be on your front end. This follows the LEDE concept. Live end, dead end. Be careful about 2x4's or 2x6's too. Any suitable lightweight alternatives will be more practical and manageable. As for the wedgies, they're great for flutter echoes and I like the look of them. I have 4x4 squares of them on my right, left and on my rear wall layered over a dense and otherwise reflective absorber.

[kasmira]

Originally Posted by nms

Advice on the monitors.. I tried replacing my VXT6 with Adam A7X and knew the first day that they had to go.

As for your wall killing, slay your whole front wall if you like. With the other walls you probably don't want to do that. I prefer a good sized 6" thick front panel. Thicker absorbers are effective to lower freqs. Then for the rest of the front end I suggest just sticking to edge boundaries for the L, R, floor, ceiling. You want your burliest treatment to be on your front end. This follows the LEDE concept. Live end, dead end. Be careful about 2x4's or 2x6's too. Any suitable lightweight alternatives will be more practical and manageable. As for the wedgies, they're great for flutter echoes and I like the look of them. I have 4x4 squares of them on my right, left and on my rear wall layered over a dense and otherwise reflective absorber.

Haha, hm - I definitely do like the VXTs, and tbh, every single one of my friends who use / have used them recommend them. I just have KRK Rokits currently and hate them to the point where I don't even want to see a yellow woofer anymore. I suppose thats a stupid reason to not want a product, but I still feel reputable companies shouldn't make shit products just to be known to more people, and I dislike that. Regardless of my opinion of the company though, I need what sounds best, so I'll still keep them in my watch.

Thanks for all the tips. Didn't think about the weight of the 2x4s when I was thinking about the wall last night.

First things first...I will be re-arranging the studio today, and cutting the wood as soon as I get off work. Pics hopefully should be up on this thread in a couple hours..

[nms]

It's pretty common for companies to have entry level products. You can't expect reference quality with a rokit price tag but if it's all you can affd they're worth the money. There's a big difference between some yellow plastic cones though vs woven Kevlar though! For me it took upgrading to a pair of Focal Twins to replace the VXT6's I've had for the last 2 years. They were really hard to replace.

As for frames, you really don't need much. I'd avoid all 2" thick lumber. I actually built some brilliant stackable triangular corner traps using strong cardboard frames that stack 8' high.

[kasmira]

Holy shit...you guys weren't kidding about symmetry. With my speakers over here, it sounds the same throughout the room. Well, at least everything but the bass does. Before, you would walk in the middle of the room and it would phase out like hell. This is already 10x better and I haven't even done anything other than move a desk! :D

I am a very happy camper!

So I wasn't able to cut the wood today, but hopefully I should be able to tomorrow. Until I build my corner traps, I will put both of my 24" x 48" x 6" traps that I'm going to build on the corners of the front wall. It it OK if they are free standing for now? or at least tilted into the wall?

Edit: I think the reason it sounds SO much better now is because A: the window may reflect some stuff, but there's blinds which would actually shoot the sound off from the window, and B: because no bass is resonating off the front wall since theres no wall there!

[nms]

Sure, sit them there in the meantime and they'll still help.

I know I warned about 2x4s or 2x6s for frames as they're bulky and heavy for wall hung panels.. but if it's for the front wall I say go ahead if you want. I decided to fit another bag of Roxul in my room so I'm doing two 7 foot tall 2x4s going up the front wall and 2x6's spanning 5 feet across to work as shelves for a double layer of Roxul with a dense rubber membrane sandwiched between them. So I'll end up with a double layer of Roxul 5 feet wide going up the wall 7 feet then extending at an angle where it straddles edge between wall and ceiling.

[kasmira]

Right on! I grabbed the 2x6's I was going to use, and borrowed a friends miter saw - but the blade was really dull. So I was doing well cutting 45 degree angles, but, it started to make some burns on the wood from getting so hot (since it was dull) and took like 30 seconds to a full minute to make each cut. I've decided since a frame built of 2x6s would be REALLY heavy, and I probably still won't get it right since I've never really been a craftsman at all, I'm going to build a simpler, lightweight frame, that I can just cover the whole thing in fabric.

Bought 10 yards of some black burlap yesterday, and it looks really nice! All I need to do is get the new wood for the new frame I'm going to build and I'll probably get started on it next week since I'm very busy this weekend.

I'll probably still end up cutting the couple 45 degree angle cuts that I made off and try to reuse the wood for something else. This new frame though should only cost me about $3 per frame - instead of before, I'd need two full 2x6's for each panel, which would cost me like 10...so this is a lot more efficient and a lot cheaper, and hell of a lot easier!

[kasmira]

Boom! Will be uploading tons of pictures and the process of building to the acoustic panels sub-forum in a day or two.

Two 6" thick bass traps made with Roxul AFB, some wood, screws, etc, and covered in black burlap

Right now, they are sitting in the front corners of my room, until I build superchunks

[Iamcory]

Hey all, I have somewhat of the same problem as kasmira, except my room is hardly less square, and a little more,....unique, you could say. ha
beings that I am 18 and still living at home, this room is really my only option for right now, I dont need an extremely professional sound, but just the best I can achieve with what I have to work with.

The measurements in the pictures i'll post are close but only approximate. So if you could possibly point me in a direction as to some basic suggestions like where would be a good choice to place my desk and such, that would be awesome.

Btw, my ceiling is 6' 5" with the vent being 5' 9" high. quite a hobbit hole I live in. But between saving for college and spending money on buying gear I am unable to afford a different location. I only started getting into this about 6 months ago. So any help is appreciated.

Oh and to top it off, the brown 2x2x2' box in the corner is covering the sump pump hole, so i cannot move that.
disregard the mess, almost finished remodeling, you should have seen it before =/

thanks in advance!
cory

[kasmira]

Your desk is usually best off in the middle of whatever wall you choose. Why not the bed in the corner you have it in, but the desk in the middle of the 12' wall? It might also be practical to try to put your bed in the spot where you have your desk in layout #2, and put your desk in the middle on the 13' wall.

Of course, these are just some ideas. You'll have to move stuff around a bit to try to find the best position. If you haven't moved all the furniture in there yet, just set up the speakers with stands and a chair. Move around until you find the most even sounding position. Obviously, bass trapping will be highly necessary in a space like that, and with ceilings so low, you will probably have an insane mess of flutter echo. Bass traps are very easy to make if you have a free weekend and a friend with a table saw, and can be pretty inexpensive if you do a bit of research first!

Good luck on your room Cory