Advice on acoustics needed for a difficult shaped room

b-lam · Post by **b-lam** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:05 pm

I know it is a bit of a longshot given most people on here probably don't do a huge amount of recording, but I'd really appreciate some advice.

I have just made some diagrams of my room (excuse the crappiness, I didn't have much time to do them), I have included major shapes, but there is a lot more clutter: bedside table, amps, tv, keyboard, books on the shelves, so this will probably help dampen the sound a bit. I have 2 questions.

1st: speaker placement. The speakers are the green things, I gather it's not perfect to have asymmetric walls to the side of them, but I wanted them to project into the room length-ways, is this a reasonably good place for them? The bass response is totally all over the place because of the shape of the room, but this doesn't bother me too much as I tend to use headphones to monitor bass. Will I be imbalancing the frequency response higher up the scale by putting them here?

2nd: recording vocals. I'm hoping to record some mc's soon, it might not be possible to get ok sounding vocals in the room, but i am hoping to avoid having to pay for studio time so I'm going to try it anyway. I was thinking of putting the vocalist where the bloke is in the diagram, facing the window side of the room, with blankets hung up on the wall behind him...is it likely I'm going to face problems with the weird space around the window?

I'd appreciate some thoughts if anyone has experience in this area, as I don't want to start wacking picture frames into every wall before I have a rough idea where I want to record.

Diagrams(in the loosest meaning of the word):

I hope someone can help

paradigm_x · Post by **paradigm_x** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:24 pm

ill have to be quick;

speakers not bad there; considering what youve got. stick some absorption at the mirror points (sit in listening position, get a mate to move mirrors around, where you can see tweeters, put absorption (rockwool is cheap and fine - get as dense as you can afford). Do the same on the ceiling. Put as much behind the speakers as you can.

Put some more wherever you can. Looks like lots of hard surfaces. You said youre not interested in bass, which is handy !

In terms of recording, ideally bloke would be in corner, facing out, with lots of absorption behind him.

youll not fuck up freq response too much with asymmetry, but stereo imaging will be weird. it might be better to have the sloping bits behind you - will give an extra bit of diffusion. Id also mount them on mopads or similar, stop the table resonating.

(ps im an acoustic consultant by day)

scooterjack · Post by **scooterjack** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:54 pm

for recording vocals, buy/make something like this

.

It will make a world of difference. It would help to build some movable acoustic panels out of rockwool/acoustic foam to place behind and to the sides also. All can be done relatively cheap when compared to studio time, and still produce a quality recording, and it will be miles ahead of just a semi-treated room.

b-lam · Post by **b-lam** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:27 pm

Thanks very much you two!

Been looking into a reflexion filter so good to hear it's a worthwhile investment. Will keep an eye on ebay.

I'll also have a scout around for rockwool and see if I can do the mirror test and pin some bits up, is there a particular size of panel you need for it to be effective?

scooterjack · Post by **scooterjack** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:35 pm

B-LAM wrote: I'll also have a scout around for rockwool and see if I can do the mirror test and pin some bits up, is there a particular size of panel you need for it to be effective?

i'd go at least 2" thick and make them hangable so you can move them to around the vocalist when needed

Sharmaji · Post by **Sharmaji** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 10:52 pm

the relative lack of parallel surfaces in your room works to your favor; from then on, it'all about absorbtion. since you've got a ton of close corner's you'll probably have some low-end build up; some homemade bass traps or even a few well-placed sofas/chairs/etc could work for you.

if you've got the space--which it looks like you do--spend $100 on drywall and 2x4s and build a vocal booth.

sE is a great company and the reflexion filter is a pretty tremendous product... it's also $300.

justin roche · Post by **justin roche** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:16 pm

http://www.studiospares.com/Top-Navigat ... oacoustics

ideally, deaden the room.
If you can afford, buy or make an isolation booth as this is far superior to recording in the same room your working.

Ideally, you want to isolate the source that your recording as much as possible from any other sound sources.
If you make your own booth, make sure that the booth is large enough to suit your purposes.

As the guy above says, the irregular shape of the room works in your favor because of the nature of sound (reflecting), especially with regards to low frequencies, as parallel walls cause problems because some sound waves will bounce between the two parallel surfaces and build up to create "standing waves" which give an inaccurate representation of your recording.

The less parallel surfaces you have, the better, and ideally, you could do with as much sound absorbing material as possible.

If you can not afford to buy top quality material that absorbs and defracts all frequencies, then perhaps you could consider fitting both your recording space and your mixing space with acoustic wedges which are designed to deaden the recording environment as much as possible.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to afford to do this myself, however, if I had the money, I would certainly fit my home studio with the best sound proofing and deadening materials that I could afford.

I would also buy at least one or more of the books listed below, and read it cover to cover in order to be as educated as possible.

If you are not that serious yet, or like me, do not have the money,
perhaps try and work out the best solution.

http://www.studiowizard.com/
i read in sos some years a go, that these guys will design a solution to match your budget.

Books and mag articles.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Build-Budget-Re ... 530&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sound-Studio-Co ... 530&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basic-Home-Stud ... 530&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Recording- ... 530&sr=8-5

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Build-Budget-Re ... 530&sr=8-7

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Studio-Recordin ... 530&sr=8-8

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may04/a ... 0504-5.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul00/a ... oustic.htm

non_typical · Post by **non_typical** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:44 am

Paradigm - that mirror points thing sounds really interesting. Please elaborate man

paradigm_x · Post by **paradigm_x** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:03 am

Non_Typical wrote:Paradigm - that mirror points thing sounds really interesting. Please elaborate man

Sorry, missed this

Its pretty straightforward. Sound acts like light (at HF but lets not confuse things)

The main 'damaging' reflection is the first one, off ceiling and side walls. This will have the most energy, and hence most likely to affect the direct sound.

If you sit in your normal listening position, and get a mate to move a mirror around, where you can see the tweeters is where the first reflection will 'bounce' from. Hence, if you absorb this reflection, you will cut down the most damaging reflection.

non_typical · Post by **non_typical** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:37 pm

Wicked cheers, that's Uber-helpful

Sounds like a plan...

paradigm_x · Post by **paradigm_x** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:13 am

you can also draw it out as a diagram, mirrors are just much quicker.

kill those 2 (3) reflections and youve got rid of almost half of the damaging energy.

b-lam · Post by **b-lam** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:54 am

Thanks for all the replies, I knew there would be some knowledge lurking in here...

Went out to grab some rockwool from wickes last weekend, so making some panels this weekend hopefully.

I'm going to make two panels for the mirror points, I'm thinking that 600x600 tiles are going to be ok for this?

For recording, I stumbled across this to hang some duvets on and stick in a corner: http://www.palmcitystudios.com/timobrie ... booth.html
pretty handy I think!

I also looked into the reflexion filter (and alternatives) and came to the conclusion that because it's not going to be a perfect sound anyway, I'd try my hand at making something similar.
Going to use some rockwool and make three framed panels (600x600 again) to mount behind the mic.

If the sound is still too room-affected with blankets behind and panels in front, then I'm going to try hanging rockwool above the singer, and make some larger panels to go on either side.

Let me know if I've got the wrong end of the stick here, but this seems like it could be a viable option for getting a nice recording...

r · Post by r » Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:38 am

instead of shaping your room acoustics try this :

get 2 friends and tell them theirs lots of beer for them if they do a little job for ya.

Ok, here's the deal. put your monitors on your ipod and let your friends walk through your room slowly. Why? Because your ears can hear better where the best acoustic is. Math doesnt gonna help you always cause YOUR ears have to work with it, not that sciencebook of yours bout acoustics. So try to move them slowly through your room so you can hear where the dead spots and sweet spots are. Mark them on your floor with a sticker so you can decide later on where to put the monitors the best.

Imo if the source isnt right it hardly can be fixed. Eqing and acoustic adjustments are just colouring in your speakers so you ears think they hear stuff that isn't there viceversa.

Just my little thing to do. Start from the beginning, don't edit later

cheers

delirium_p · Post by **delirium_p** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:11 pm

This mayb a bit of a long shot too and unfortuantely i cant draw out not diagram but my room is similar to the diagram thats posted above , but the walls are also slanted on the right side as wel as the left and the only place my monitors could go ( wel wen i get a pair that is ) is on the right side up against the sloped walls , would this be such a bad place to have them?

scooterjack · Post by **scooterjack** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 6:38 pm

B-LAM wrote:
I also looked into the reflexion filter (and alternatives) and came to the conclusion that because it's not going to be a perfect sound anyway, I'd try my hand at making something similar.
Going to use some rockwool and make three framed panels (600x600 again) to mount behind the mic.

If the sound is still too room-affected with blankets behind and panels in front, then I'm going to try hanging rockwool above the singer, and make some larger panels to go on either side.

should work a treat

just make sure you put the back of the mic closer to a wall so you've got some airspace behind the vocalist. The pattern of the mic and the panels should keep out the vast majority of reflections from the facing wall and the airspace and blankets should do pretty well on the rest.

defintitely a good start, big up on the DIY

Advice on acoustics needed for a difficult shaped room

Advice on acoustics needed for a difficult shaped room

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