Tech Section > Your Room / Acoustic Treatment

How are you supposed to know

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ste20man:
Hi all.

I am near enough finished with my set-up now and am really happy with what I've got.

USA Fender Highway Tele, DS-1, You Dirty Rat. Fender Blues Deluxe, AT4040, SM57 Saffire 6, FL Studio, KRK Rokit 5's.

From what I've read though, every room should be treated acoustically. I've read a book recently by Mike Senior and he says if you don't sort out the room you lose half the price of your speakers right up front. That has really stuck with me and I think I want to tackle this now.

I have a major problem(I think) in that I am trapped in an alcove and have nowhere else to put my PC. If I were guessing then I would say this would cause major bass resonance issues. But being so new to this game I have no objective reference points or past knowledge with which to know.

I don't know how it's 'supposed' to sound ideally.

As I'm mixing it sounds good. But then again it could be due to where the speakers are, giving a false impression because of the rooms acoustics. If it was that I wouldn't know any different as I have no access to any cd players(Although I'm going to try my iPod) to guage what's different between the two.

I am also going to start comparing other records - Nevermind as an example as to what my sound sounds like, if you know what I mean.

If you guys could help me and look at the pictures of the my room on my flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ste20man/?saved=1

and give me your visual opinion on what could be wrong(Bass / Treble?) and what you would do to change treat this space as best as possible I'd be really grateful.

I have been looking around at soundproofing material and came across this company where I think this product could coverall behind the PC and speakers. To be honest I don't know why this particular bundle. To me it looks value for money but as to why I should go for this particular one, I don't know:

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/35735-auralex-d36-dst-roominator-charcoal-.html

Any ideas would be more than welcome. Cheers, Ste. :-)

stainless:
this is like the proverbial Pandora's Box- 

"rule of thumb"  <sigh> is that parallel opposing walls should not both have hard surfaces... and often it's "felt" desirable to not have a reflective surface at 'your back"

corners are problematic for low freq, so bass traps are used... and there's numerous designs and opinions on what works best, and my own completely un-scientific opinion is the wall construction of the corner walls (and ceiling and floor) have an effect of how well a design may work.

There are room mode calculators on-line that will allow you to get a general idea of what frequencies will be the most problematic in a room  of your dimensions, but keep in mind many of this are based on all flat walls (no windows, doors, book-cases, etc)

Generally you try and not set (your  ears) at a midpoint between 2 surfaces as this is where standing waves are going to be most of a problem.  I find some irony here as most of our rooms are such that if you sit in a comfy chair, your head is just about midway between ceiling and floor

what I did.... after buying several cartons of Aurelex foam and plastering it everywhere... with a couple layers of carpet on the floor..... and ending up with a room that needed reverb on everything... and still didn't sound all that great... was to get a sine wave generator (theres' software around that works pretty well and is free)-

With the generator set to produce a sweeping tone. set up a mic in your room to pick up the sound from your monitors (have to play with the levels to avoid feedback). Record a short 'blast' and then, 1 track directly to another track and the other via a mic set at about your head/ears height where you sit)  using a freq analyzer, compare the two tracks and look for differences (you may see spikes in the room that aren't on the direct, or conversely dips at certain spots and also look at the harmonics (multiples of the frequency).

Each type of baffle/diffuser, trap  his more effective with certain freq ( a wall diffuser or a 'cloud" isn't much help with low freq)

decide on what type of acoustic treatment you need and start placing it around the room, run the sine wave sweep again and see what helps and what doesn't

it's probably as much art as science as everyone hears just a bit differently.

The room correction software does somewhat the same thing, but EQ's the problem areas, so the monitors don't produce too much (or too little at those freqs)... many think this is basically masking the problem, and I suppose to some extent  that's true. I have the JBL monitors and sub with room correction. Despite my acoustic treatment it still places a narrow cut at 65 Hz (which was lessened, not made worse when I added the sub)

if you find you're always adding an EQ cut or boost at the same freqs, then you may very well already know what your problem freqs are.

i suppose if I had a point.... it would be there's no magic bullet, amazing sound room treatment kit that solves all your issues

just knowing the limitations of your room (and gear) goes a long way

sorry for rambling

ste20man:
That was great advice, I really appreciate it!    :D

stainless:
I may need you to explain it to me  ;D

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