Excellent article about small room acoustics

Ermz

Ermz

¯\(°_o)/¯
Apr 5, 2002
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Melbourne, Australia
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In my once-again ignited search to tame this cuntfuck of a room, I've stumbled across a great article written by Ethan Winer, which I missed the first time around.

Given that it deals solely with small room acoustics it may be relevant to a great many of you, as it is to me. It may explain, or help highlight some issues you are having with your space.

http://www.realtraps.com/art_small_rooms.htm
 
Cheers man,anything to help improve our work quality,
And good luck resolving the issue's your contending with.
 
There's no resolution to my problems short of building a large control room from scratch, mate, but we all have to make do with the turds in front of us at some time or another (sometimes for stretches of several years).

The article is extremely concise and explains almost perfectly a great many problems I've run into, so hopefully it highlights some issues some others here have too.
 
art_small1.gif


dear god..........
 
Yeah, that's a fairly typical plot for an untreated bedroom-sized space. Almost made me throw up. Acoustics can take you down a very dark road. At the end of the day, all you can hope to achieve is 'good enough', and even that is represented as barf-worthy on most plots. It's not a good thing, this whole bedroom mixing gig.

I can speak from experience though, the nulls are what really kill you. That 80Hz null on the plot above would make mixing low-end horrid in that space. I have the same sort of thing except ranging from 90hz to 110hz. Most monitors I had in here output almost NO low-end.
 
Great article. It interested me specifically about the differences between standard interior walls (framing and wall board) vs concrete walls. My room I use, while not in a basement per se, is half below ground level with the lower half of the walls being concrete and the upper half standard interior walls (at least on the two outer walls - my room is located in a corner of the house).

I've been really interested in treating my room now that I have permanently reclaimed it from my wife (my step-son had moved back in for a brief stay and my wife needed office space so I had to give up half my room to her, but now he is gone again so it's all mine, mine all mine - my precious.....). This article gave me a lot of things to look for when planning the treatment.

Thanks Ermz.
 
that plot looks about like how it sounds to me in my mixing room. I don't mix in a bedroom, it's worse - a dining room. I'd say it's roughly 8x10 with 8 foot ceilings. My seating position is perfectly within a null almost precisly where you see the big dip in that graph. I've got a few bass traps set up and the typical wall treatments, but they are the crappy auralex foam deals...I really need to get to making some real absorbers.

I found a profound truth (for me) in the article where he made the comment about using subs in rooms like these (and how it can compound the problems in the low end)...I usually mix with a sub on to fill out the spectrum a bit, but make judgments on the low end instrument's sound/tonality with it off, just using my monitors.
 
This is so true... I mix in my bedroom as well. That graph is almost identical as what I've always felt in my room... That 80hz null is devastating, I never hear the real low end of any mixes, all I hear most of the times is "blur"... so I have to trust my ATH-M50's for the low end : \ constantly A/B'ing
 
Sptz said:
This is so true... I mix in my bedroom as well. That graph is almost identical as what I've always felt in my room... That 80hz null is devastating, I never hear the real low end of any mixes, all I hear most of the times is "blur"... so I have to trust my ATH-M50's for the low end : constantly A/B'ing
Click to expand...

This is what I do too (with K240 Studios, but ATH-M50's are on the purchase list). I know the acoustics in my room are hopeless so I don't really even care about it, I just live with it and constantly A/B with headphones. Works well enough for me, I have no complaints and haven't thought about treating it (because I'm moving out soon anyway so it's not really an option).
 
I feel for you guys. There really isn't much to be done unless you go absolutely batshit with acoustic treatment. I'm hoping to really push it to the limits with superchunking and seeing how far that gets me. Event should be sending me a calibration mic and software when I register the monitors, so I might use that to do some more scientific measurements.
 
Ermz said:
Yeah, that's a fairly typical plot for an untreated bedroom-sized space. Almost made me throw up. Acoustics can take you down a very dark road. At the end of the day, all you can hope to achieve is 'good enough', and even that is represented as barf-worthy on most plots. It's not a good thing, this whole bedroom mixing gig.

I can speak from experience though, the nulls are what really kill you. That 80Hz null on the plot above would make mixing low-end horrid in that space. I have the same sort of thing except ranging from 90hz to 110hz. Most monitors I had in here output almost NO low-end.
Click to expand...

+1. I think to have a null too in that area (around 100Hz) and my mixes sound always boomy because I'm not able to listen the bass correctly in that area...so I have to go down and listen though my car's speakers to judge low end's and reverb. Very annoying
 
thanks for the read ermz! cant wait to move out of this bedroom (which is 8x8x8 lol). luckily I have a full undeveloped basement to do whatever i want with.

the part about listening to your mixes in your car was great! I always cringe when I hear my mixes in my van! to tell you the truth, I have learned alot about making the low end in my mixes translate better on other systems, by referencing my mixes in my van. I find my mixes are heavy in the 100 hz - 300 hz range. simply eqing a couple dbs from that range on my 2bus, before compression, has made a world of difference as far as low end translation is concerned.
 
Thanks for the link Ermz.

My band actualy just moved into our monthly rehearsal spot. It is about 15'x15', open ceiling with some ventilation shafts and pipes exposed. It is the roof of the building actually.

Is there some better info. I can find regarding what broadband absorbers are, what they do, maybe how to build some, and the ideal placement?

I get the basic idea of a bass trap, but am not sure if I should just build some of those, some broadband absorbers (or both), and where to place em.

Thanks,
-Joe
 
Let me add that in addition to improving the acoustics of said room, I'd like to have a suitable envrionment to record us in eventually.

-Joe
 
vespiz said:
There are ratios of Height x Width x Lenght which are ideal. Ethan Winer has the Modecalc program on his site that you can calculate the room modes with and it gives some indication on what are the ideal sizes (something like 1:1.14:1.39 etc..)
Click to expand...

:lol: High School drop out man. :erk: Math being my very worst subject. I need the dumb ass explanation. :erk:

I may have one built, thats why I ask.

Thanks.
 
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