Convolusion on Dead Room

[kasmira]

Well, how large is your room? In most small rooms, its close to impossible to keep your reverberation time / RT30 / RT60 / whatever balanced throughout the whole spectrum. In most cases, in order to dampen the lowest octaves in a cheap and efficient manner, we end up deadening the mids and highs a bit.

It all comes down to budget, time constraints, and how much work you want to put into it. A fully balanced room IS possible, but it wouldn't be cheap, and if DIY'd it would take quite some time. You must figure out what your objectives and budget is, and decide where you want to take the hit.

If you find a way to support the diffusers, you can actually install diffusers on top / on front of bass traps. You will get the diffusion at the frequencies they are designed to handle, and you will get absorption on the lower octaves. Another easy way to introduce a bit of diffusion while maintaining liveliness in the room coupled with absorption is slatted absorbers. You can introduce slats in many different forms - vertically, horizontally, and even with varying depths on the front of absorbers. The easiest one to be a able to build-n-go would be Newell's sequence: 534435453534435 (Where each number represents width, and you alternate between a gap and a piece of wood)

To answer your main question, I wouldn't rely on a plugin to change the sound coming out of my speakers. You will get to know your room the more you work it out. I'm kinda iffy on any room modeling plugins (the same like that you would use with headphones) - I don't really see any benefit on anything coming out of the speakers than what I purposely do. I mean, I understand the point and it makes sense, just not for me personally..

[Arqen]

If the room is very small, I think your first priority should be treating room modes. Then, you might consider using a diffuser that's only designed for mid to high frequencies, or a hybrid absorber-diffuser.

If you're considering making your whole room dead, you'll need a LOT of low frequency absorption, and if you're doing that you may as well turn your room into a 'Non-Environment' control room (no diffusers needed, no room correction needed).

Not sure I completely understand what you're looking to use the convolution reverb plugin for. If you're trying to apply room correction to your mix using it, I don't recommend it. It's an interesting concept but consider that you're introducing a lot of complexity, which you plan to handle manually, without doing proper measurements.
Also, I think an effective room correction system should rely on more than just the impulse response.

Interesting idea though!

Tim

[SirTralala]

Originally Posted by Arqen

Not sure I completely understand what you're looking to use the convolution reverb plugin for. If you're trying to apply room correction to your mix using it, I don't recommend it. It's an interesting concept but consider that you're introducing a lot of complexity, which you plan to handle manually, without doing proper measurements.
Also, I think an effective room correction system should rely on more than just the impulse response.

Interesting idea though!

Tim

No ! This should be for mixing purposes, not to apply it on the records. Like artificial reverberation comes out of the speakers after killing the natural verb of the room because of treating the modes - should be to avoid applying too much reverb on the mixes because your room sounds dead.

But as Kasmira said, better try to treat the room well - I totally agree with that, but on the other hand, it would save money on diffusors etc. if there is a possibility to use the convolusion plugin for that.

By the way, here is a thread where I did some measurements incl. some pictures:


Small Room, Big Absorption, Strange Graph

[DanDan]

I have tried this. I used 4.0 IR's in Altiverb. Four full range speakers. Very dead room. It is a wonderful sensation. It is difficult to find 'perfect' IR's though.
Many of the famous Studio Tracking rooms are quite bass heavy. I used a large modern one, scaled down by the software.
DD

[SirTralala]

Thank you Sir, so this could be a possibility. But I am going back to my old thread then and continue with my newbie studies and experiments on room acoustics, there is so much material and content on this topic, my brain is fried. I would be happy if you find the time and take a look at the graphs if you are interested, and tell me your opinion on that.

[SirTralala]

Originally Posted by kasmira

Well, how large is your room? In most small rooms, its close to impossible to keep your reverberation time / RT30 / RT60 / whatever balanced throughout the whole spectrum. In most cases, in order to dampen the lowest octaves in a cheap and efficient manner, we end up deadening the mids and highs a bit.

It all comes down to budget, time constraints, and how much work you want to put into it. A fully balanced room IS possible, but it wouldn't be cheap, and if DIY'd it would take quite some time. You must figure out what your objectives and budget is, and decide where you want to take the hit.

If you find a way to support the diffusers, you can actually install diffusers on top / on front of bass traps. You will get the diffusion at the frequencies they are designed to handle, and you will get absorption on the lower octaves. Another easy way to introduce a bit of diffusion while maintaining liveliness in the room coupled with absorption is slatted absorbers. You can introduce slats in many different forms - vertically, horizontally, and even with varying depths on the front of absorbers. The easiest one to be a able to build-n-go would be Newell's sequence: 534435453534435 (Where each number represents width, and you alternate between a gap and a piece of wood)

To answer your main question, I wouldn't rely on a plugin to change the sound coming out of my speakers. You will get to know your room the more you work it out. I'm kinda iffy on any room modeling plugins (the same like that you would use with headphones) - I don't really see any benefit on anything coming out of the speakers than what I purposely do. I mean, I understand the point and it makes sense, just not for me personally..

And thank you too, I didn`t gave a long comment, because it would be easier to have a look at the pictures of the room to know what it is all about (my first idea was exactly what you said, placing wood on the bass-chunks leaving slots, and then build a qrd 1d diff. at the rear but I`m not sure because the room is quite small, and I already messed around with absorbers a lot, so my plan was, to use my brain more, reading more theorie and plan steps better - and maybe get some feedback from you experiencend people here).