Stupid bedroom acoustics

[Pedro Teixeira]

Hey, I had my room set up as this image:

As you can see it's in a corner, at the left I have my balcony with a really large window, so yeah not good. Low end is boomy as hell and pretty loud as well, which led to undercompensate my mixes' low end.

So I did this:

So I started listening to some mixes and some albums, and I noticed I now barely listen to the low end, I don't know if it was my ears that were just pre-adapted to the way it was set up before, but everything seems a bit clearer but there seems to be little bass.

BUT! There's a problem which is this:

As you can see, a picture is worth a thousand words... I'm not planning on staying much longer, as this is my parent's house, I'm leaving in September, so treating the room acoustically wouldn't be a good idea right now, and as you can see my room is FAR than ideal for this. But could this set up be really bad? As there is a LOT of space in front of the desk, and glass windows right in my back...

(btw sorry for the awesome pic quality)

 

[Kazrog]

That's definitely far from ideal. Get a good set of headphones (if you can afford them, I suggest AKG K702) and burn CDs of your mixes to test on different systems also. Invest in treatment once you are in a more permanent location.

 

[Fragle]

the thing with the window is that it's fucking with your frequencies BIG TIME.
in un-scientific terms, glass mainly reflects highs and midrange, but not bass....and it's reflecting *very* well on top of that.
so what you end up with is a lot of early reflections from behind that are really fucked frequency wise.
try this: get some music blasting on a nice and loud level, and slowly move from the window towards your speakers. you will hear an effect similar to phasing or flange - that's comb filtering right there.

trust me, i've been there before....there's no way you can possibly judge how your mixes (or even just music) sound with a setup like this. depending on where you sit (or even HOW you sit in the chair, with the head further towards the speakers or vice versa) you'll get a totally different frequency response, and one that's far from reality on top of that.

for a quick "fix", i'd try to flip the desk so that the monitors are facing away from the windows, and also put some heavy curtains in front of the window if possible.
depending on your room, rearranging the whole thing might be even better, but since it's just a temporary setup i guess you don't want to invest too much time into this room.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Hm... what if I perhaps moved the table 180º from the first picture? That way my back would be to the wall and the window on the right. Would that work better?

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

That's definitely far from ideal. Get a good set of headphones (if you can afford them, I suggest AKG K702) and burn CDs of your mixes to test on different systems also. Invest in treatment once you are in a more permanent location.

I already invested in ATH-M50. I love them, but they don't seem to show me those harsh high end like "eSSes" etc. If I check a mix in my uni in a cheap pair of AKG phones I do listen to those, but not in these cans :|

 

[Metaltastic]

These pictures are sorely lacking in the fat kitty factor Pedro But if you could draw an overhead picture in MS Paint to give us an idea of the floorplan, that'd help a lot! And holy SHIT, is that your bed? That's like 2 ft wide!

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

ahah I know, it sucks, but it does keep warm and close when the gf sleeps over :]

Anyway here's the pic:

Threw some cat fatness in there for ya marcus

 

[AdamWathan]

Do what Fragle said, flip the desk 180 so you are facing the window and hang some heavy drapes or blankets. You can get heavy moving blankets for cheap that do a great job at killing some mid and high end. It will still be a shit room but it'll be a lot better than what you have now!

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Yeah, I was thinking about that today. Although it's not a permanent location, it should have to endure until September... And I'm currently working on an album and after that I'll be working on an EP. So all the help I could get right now as far as acoustics in this room would be awesome... I also tried to think of rearranging the whole room... but I just can't think how... : \

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

I actually thought of disposing the other table that is against the wall, so I could get more room, and maybe put the bed in there... god damn I don't know, my room sucks fucking hard :l

And what if I just hang on some heavy blankets right behind me? Would that help? Or would the space behind the monitors, as you can see on the pictures, which has a bed and then closets, since it goes a bit further you think it would screw up ?

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Maybe I should turn my desk to the wall again as it was before?

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Anyone? :X