help me treat my room?

[xMannequiNx]

Hey guys

My recording room desperately needs to be acoustically treated. Its a very small room, but I'm hoping Ill be able to do something with it to make it sound good or at least better. My limitations are no construction, like tearing down or adding walls, and I need to have the bed in the room, since its where I sleep (but I can move it).

What should I do with the room to treat it? I was planning on buying 32sq ft of auralex acoustic foam and using that, and I could make some panels that I could mount on the walls. Also I could build a cloud to mount on the ceiling. Theres the issue with the window and the bed, too, since I don't know how they will affect the sound.

There are so many questions and ideas floating around in my head that I'm kinda lost, and I was just hoping for some guidance.

Please don't tell to get a bigger room, cause I can't. And I know I can get pretty good recordings in this small room - look at joey sturgis's studio hes got a tiny drum room like this and he makes fuckin amazing productions.

Would getting a autoCAD like pic of the room help with deciding how to treat it? All I have are these pics...but I can throw together a sketch.

Here are the pics(apologies about the shitty cam):

 

[Erik Monsonis]

lol!

That room rules!!

I'd separate the monitors from the wall, and add some isolation panel behind them. You have the room pretty full of furniture, so reverb must be close to dead, good point IMO.
Let's see what the pr0s say about this

 

[TheDriller]

That rail behind the drum kit is awesome, hang some more stuff from it

 

[AudioGeekZine]

good fucking luck with that

move the drumset out and you might begin to get a decent mix room.

An overhead view with dimensions would help a lot.

 

[Fox Mulder]

A pair of headphones may save you. There's very little you can do in that room.

 

[DanLights]

what headphones are those? they look just like my AKG K77s

 

[xMannequiNx]

I understand that I won't be able to make this room sound amazing, but I kind of wanted this to be a dead room. Might as well - Everything I am recording is metal and I'm going for the dead sound anyways.

Would layering all the open space on the walls with foam work or would it make it sound like shit?

Is a dead room decent to mix in?

What about a cloud going over the open part of the ceiling (in the middle not shown in pics)?

I also had an Idea for a bass trap: I put a tightly rolled up packing blanket in the corner of the room behind the drums and forced a wooden board over it to make the corner triangular with the blanket filling the hollow spot. (does that make sense?)
I couldnt really tell, but then again I'm not an acoustical expert at all so maybe I don't know what I'm hearing yet, but will that idea work?

An overhead view with dimensions would help a lot.

Ill try and make one, but how would I show the bed in an overhead shot??

what headphones are those? they look just like my AKG K77s

yeah they are k77s

 

[xMannequiNx]

After spending time on a couple other recording forums, everyone is telling me to make the room with a flat frequency response rather than a dead room. What they don't understand is that all I am recording is metal/hardcore and stuff, and a lot of times the dead room sound is better.

Being that this forum is dedicated to metalhead producers, what would you say in regards to this? My only decision now is between bass trapping the hell out of the room or making it a very dead room, and I want to know what will be better for this genre.

 

[Metaltastic]

Well first off, you'll definitely want iso-pads under the monitors to decouple them from the desk, and if possible you'll wanna move them away from the wall behind them (there should be at least 6" of space, or else you get some bad muddy bass buildup, especially cuz they're rear-ported). Also, centering the desk under the bed would help, cuz right now you're clearly closer to one corner, which can cause problems in the stereo image. In fact, it looks like reversing the desk and rack would be just the ticket, since the bed is closer to the wall on the right. Beyond that, it looks like you don't even have room for bass traps in those corners, so I would go for a pair of Primacoustic Cumulus, which will straddle the top tricorner spots on each wall on either side of your desk (yes one will be above your head when you sleep, but you'll deal ) They definitely help, and look great too! (check out my setup with 'em) If you've gotta keep the drumset in there, then unfortunately I really can't think of much else you'd be able to do!

And you'll notice in my pic I have Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizers to decouple my monitors; those are the top ones you can get, but they're not cheap; a more affordable solution is Auralex MoPads, but they don't isolate as well cuz the foam is less dense and they don't have the layer of steel and neoprene the Primacoustics do. Still, they'll do the job, and judging by the pics, it doesn't exactly look like you're made of money! (not like I am, I just splurged )

 

[xMannequiNx]

so the dead room is definitely a no-no

I will be switching the desk and the rack (and hopefully fillin the rack up ), and buying the mopads for the monitors.

As far as the bass traps go, I was thinking of getting (or making) something more like this. I'll also probably lose the bookshelf and put a couple traps on the wall there, with a trap in the corner behind the drums and on the wall behind the drums. Those corner pads do look nice but seem a bit expensive. Would they be necessary if I'm adding large bass traps on the walls? I could always do a DIY version of them.

so for the 4 billionth time: will ^^ work?

 

[Metaltastic]

Oh no, the big corner wall traps would do fine, I just didn't think you had the room, they need like 1 1/2 ft. of wall clearance and you look pretty cramped in there

And to be clear, in case you didn't know, bass traps are WAY more effective when covering corners, as those are the places with by far the worst bass accumulation (and the tricorners in particular, hence the Cumulus). Your mention of "wall" bass traps suggested that you didn't realize this; a "bass trap" (such as the one you linked to) mounted on a wall is really more of a general broadband absorber and is far less effective

 

[John_C]

After spending time on a couple other recording forums, everyone is telling me to make the room with a flat frequency response rather than a dead room. What they don't understand is that all I am recording is metal/hardcore and stuff, and a lot of times the dead room sound is better.

Being that this forum is dedicated to metalhead producers, what would you say in regards to this? My only decision now is between bass trapping the hell out of the room or making it a very dead room, and I want to know what will be better for this genre.

you really don't need to have a dead room. It just needs to be balanced and not audibly reverberant

 

[vespiz]

As said on other forums, remember that a room has 12 corners..