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Post by eddiespaghetti on May 7, 2019 18:24:03 GMT
Hi everyone. I'm more of a lurker, but big fan of Ethan's and all the free education and myth-busting he provides the public. So thanks for that, Ethan.
Ethan, on more than one occasion, has posted that for very small mixing rooms not to even bother measuring, because the answer is ALWAYS the same.. BASS TRAPS, as many as you can fit.
So for my roughly 8'x14'x7' room I plan on using Safe-N-Sound and making 6" deep bass traps for all 12 corners (as many as I can fit).
However, what about the first reflection points, ceiling and front and back walls in general? Should these be 2" - 3" panels with a gap? Or should they be the same 6" bass traps I'm making for the corners? And if so, should they have a 6" air gap from the wall/ceiling as well?
I'm not too concerned about space, as long can squeeze in the door, I'm good. I'm all about making this very small room as acoustically "accurate" as possible.
Thanks much!
Eddie
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Post by Michael Lawrence on May 7, 2019 18:57:41 GMT
Hi Eddie -
Welcome to the forum. I'm not the acoustics guru around here so I'll start by saying that if you haven't, definitely read through the stickied posts here, which will cover a lot of what you're asking about.
I agree with Ethan's sentiments that a small room can always be improved with more bass traps. I'll just add that a measurement can really help you identify obvious issues and allow you to pinpoint treatment (or other) solutions that will give you the most improvement.
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Post by peterbatah on May 7, 2019 20:50:19 GMT
Hi everyone. I'm more of a lurker, but big fan of Ethan's and all the free education and myth-busting he provides the public. So thanks for that, Ethan. Ethan, on more than one occasion, has posted that for very small mixing rooms not to even bother measuring, because the answer is ALWAYS the same.. BASS TRAPS, as many as you can fit. So for my roughly 8'x14'x7' room I plan on using Safe-N-Sound and making 6" deep bass traps for all 12 corners (as many as I can fit). However, what about the first reflection points, ceiling and front and back walls in general? Should these be 2" - 3" panels with a gap? Or should they be the same 6" bass traps I'm making for the corners? And if so, should they have a 6" air gap from the wall/ceiling as well? I'm not too concerned about space, as long can squeeze in the door, I'm good. I'm all about making this very small room as acoustically "accurate" as possible. Thanks much! EddieHello Eddie. I am looking forward to your results as I am in basically the same boat. I was planning on going 6" Safe'N'Sound as well but wasn't quite sure how to treat the first reflection points. If I decide on 6" for the FRP I may put them on stands. In fact, in order to create the gap (back of panel to wall) which seems to come highly recommended I may just put all of the wall panels on stands. More work but desired results. Best of luck brother! |
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Post by Hexspa on May 8, 2019 1:47:55 GMT
Ethan has a point. For a room that small, you don't have the luxury of deciding if you should treat a surface - it's only a matter of how thick. A room of those dimensions is not only small but also suffers a multiple dimension in 7' and 14'.
Ideally, you'd have fluffy absorption of at least 1/4 wavelength in thickness so that's about 1.5-3'. Since that's not realistic, just use as thick as you can manage for every surface and you'll be as good as you can be. |
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Post by eddiespaghetti2 on May 9, 2019 3:24:33 GMT
Ethan has a point. For a room that small, you don't have the luxury of deciding if you should treat a surface - it's only a matter of how thick. A room of those dimensions is not only small but also suffers a multiple dimension in 7' and 14'.
Ideally, you'd have fluffy absorption of at least 1/4 wavelength in thickness so that's about 1.5-3'. Since that's not realistic, just use as thick as you can manage for every surface and you'll be as good as you can be. "Multiple dimension in 7' and 14" Can you elaborate? I've read a ton on room acoustic treatment, probably almost every thing Ethan has written, and can't recall reading anything about that. I know a square room is bad, but even in a small room I thought you want longer length than width. Maybe I didn't write it out yet. My exact room size is 8'.5"-W x 13'.8"-L x 7'.4"-H. Maybe it's just semantics. As you and Ethan seem to agree, just stuff as many bass traps as I can in the room. So basically plan is to use the Safe and Sound 3", double them up to make 6" traps place/hang in all corners and I guess, on as many of the walls as space allows, and I guess leave a 6" gap where I'm able to on the walls? Thanks for the help |
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Post by Hexspa on May 9, 2019 21:08:15 GMT
Well, 7.4 and 13.8' is better than 7 and 14'. It comes down to modal distribution. This is where so-called 'golden ratios' get their status. In a cube room, every dimension is the same. Hence, the three axial modes all reinforce the same frequency. A resonance happens where it's easiest and hard dimensions govern that. Regarding multiples and halves, 14' is about E2 and 7' is E3. Every mode is going to have harmonics so your 14' dimension is also reinforcing E3. Not only do you have double reinforcement there but, as far as I know, any dimension which is half a wavelength also reinforces the whole one. In other words, your 7' dimension is also creating a peak at E2. Furthermore, since you have this modal bunching, you have unsupported frequency bands. The result of this will be one or two large peaks and a bunch of sagging. That's just SPL because there will also be more ringing at the peaks and less where there's no support. Consequently, you get an uneven bass response which is the opposite of desirable in a music space. The fact that your dimensions are not exactly half and double is better. How much better you can only verify with an acoustic measurement. Regardless, you work with what you have and 6" rigid with a 6" gap on most if not all surfaces will definitely help.
I want to add that it's not just ratios which matter. Though the inherent volume of a small room doesn't make much difference, the reason you hear about certain minimum volumes is because the physical increase in distance due to the ratios is larger. If you have a 1200ft3 room, say, vs. one that's 2500ft3, a ratio of something like 1:1.15:1.7 will produce a more even distribution in the larger space. Besides that, the further the boundaries from sound sources and receivers, the weaker and more separate the reflections resulting in less interference. Additionally, more surface area gives you more options as far as treatment and usability goes.
For what it's worth, I do remember Ethan talking about this. Regardless, it's just logical that if a small cube room is worst and a large room with ideal dimensional distribution is best - and ideal distribution is never something like 1:2:2 - then it follows that something like 1:2:x isn't as good.
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Post by eddiespaghetti2 on May 10, 2019 23:41:17 GMT
Well, 7.4 and 13.8' is better than 7 and 14'. It comes down to modal distribution. This is where so-called 'golden ratios' get their status.
In a cube room, every dimension is the same. Hence, the three axial modes all reinforce the same frequency. A resonance happens where it's easiest and hard dimensions govern that.
Regarding multiples and halves, 14' is about E2 and 7' is E3. Every mode is going to have harmonics so your 14' dimension is also reinforcing E3. Not only do you have double reinforcement there but, as far as I know, any dimension which is half a wavelength also reinforces the whole one. In other words, your 7' dimension is also creating a peak at E2.
Furthermore, since you have this modal bunching, you have unsupported frequency bands. The result of this will be one or two large peaks and a bunch of sagging. That's just SPL because there will also be more ringing at the peaks and less where there's no support. Consequently, you get an uneven bass response which is the opposite of desirable in a music space.
The fact that your dimensions are not exactly half and double is better. How much better you can only verify with an acoustic measurement. Regardless, you work with what you have and 6" rigid with a 6" gap on most if not all surfaces will definitely help.
I want to add that it's not just ratios which matter. Though the inherent volume of a small room doesn't make much difference, the reason you hear about certain minimum volumes is because the physical increase in distance due to the ratios is larger. If you have a 1200ft3 room, say, vs. one that's 2500ft3, a ratio of something like 1:1.15:1.7 will produce a more even distribution in the larger space. Besides that, the further the boundaries from sound sources and receivers, the weaker and more separate the reflections resulting in less interference. Additionally, more surface area gives you more options as far as treatment and usability goes.
For what it's worth, I do remember Ethan talking about this. Regardless, it's just logical that if a small cube room is worst and a large room with ideal dimensional distribution is best - and ideal distribution is never something like 1:2:2 - then it follows that something like 1:2:x isn't as good.
Hexspa,
Thanks you very much for taking the time. I'm not against measuring, but it seems from all I've read, there is no point in doing so in my small room when in fact I plan on putting up as many bass traps as possible on all surfaces anyway. I'll just live with the results. Though, interestingly and someone concerning, others at a different forum have suggested I'm better off saving my money and forgoing the traps altogether and mixing on a good pair of headphones instead because,.. some claim,.. my room is simply too small to get flat enough to use for accurate mixing regardless of how much acoustic treatment is in it. Am I wasting my money? |
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Post by Hexspa on May 11, 2019 19:53:22 GMT
Ah, the old headphones-vs-speakers argument. The fact is that both have their pros and cons. Personally, I'm more of a 'both' kind-of-guy.
Here's the thing I know for sure: you're going to have a somewhat uphill battle with your dimensions in your bass range. However, with extensive treatment, you can more than likely have a very accurate mid-to-high response in your room so long as you keep your monitors reasonably close. Indeed, if you do actually measure your space and try to optimize it, it's highly possible that your bass range will fall within a reasonable tolerance as well.
I'm not in favor of the whole 'you have no chance, just quit' mentality. Acoustic treatment is all about improving what you have. Headphones are nice but they're not actually a total substitute for speakers in a room nor do they have the other acoustic benefits like being able to record in a space that absorption gives you.
In my opinion, you are definitely not wasting your money. To be specific, my Avantone mix cube is only flat down to about 90Hz in my room. Broadband absorption easily manages this range. I can hear distortion artifacts in audio with that mix cube that I can't hear with my DT-770 headphones. That should tell you all that you need to know.
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Post by eddiespaghetti2 on May 12, 2019 4:37:19 GMT
Thanks again, I appreciate the advice. One more quick question; What would the point of measuring to optimize the space be if I'm going to, like Ethan says and you seem to agree.. put as many bass traps as possible in the room? If for all intent and purposes every corner, the walls and ceiling are covered in bass traps, how could I optimize the room any better than that? I WILL measure if it's worth it, I'm just trying to understand if I'm missing something.
You've been a big help.
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Post by Hexspa on May 12, 2019 9:10:42 GMT
That's a reasonable question. Well, in my current room, I tried a few things which later proved to be counterproductive. One of these was 'treating the rear wall as much as possible' and another was attempting to gap my cloud 4x.
By treating my rear wall, at the expense of other surfaces, I further exacerbated an existing modal issue. With regard to the cloud, I needlessly created a null when a 1x gap proved to be much better.
So, in your case, you may plan X to get Y while you might end up with Y+1 or even Z instead. Rules of thumb are great starting places but only measurement and analysis will take you that last mile. Actually, come to think of it, measurements can also help you define your various options for speaker placement and listening position locations - you'll never know until you try and even a few inches can make a big difference.
Plus, squiggly lines and sine sweeps are fun.
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Post by eddiespaghetti2 on May 12, 2019 16:35:50 GMT
That's a reasonable question. Well, in my current room, I tried a few things which later proved to be counterproductive. One of these was 'treating the rear wall as much as possible' and another was attempting to gap my cloud 4x. By treating my rear wall, at the expense of other surfaces, I further exacerbated an existing modal issue. With regard to the cloud, I needlessly created a null when a 1x gap proved to be much better. So, in your case, you may plan X to get Y while you might end up with Y+1 or even Z instead. Rules of thumb are great starting places but only measurement and analysis will take you that last mile. Actually, come to think of it, measurements can also help you define your various options for speaker placement and listening position locations - you'll never know until you try and even a few inches can make a big difference. Plus, squiggly lines and sine sweeps are fun. You lost me until you said "squiggly lines and sine sweeps are fun". THIS is the kind of technical information I've been seeking! Something challenging I can really sink my teeth into! I shall do it, I shall measure!
PS. Any recommended free measuring software? I'm know, at least at one point, Ethan recommended a particular one on his site, but I can't seem to find it and that was a while ago.
And once again, thanks for all the help.
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Post by peterbatah on May 12, 2019 16:39:12 GMT
PS. Any recommended free measuring software? I'm know, at least at one point, Ethan recommended a particular one on his site, but I can't seem to find it and that was a while ago.
REQ (Room EQ Wizard) |
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Post by eddiespaghetti2 on May 14, 2019 2:34:10 GMT
PS. Any recommended free measuring software? I'm know, at least at one point, Ethan recommended a particular one on his site, but I can't seem to find it and that was a while ago.
REQ (Room EQ Wizard) Thank you, Peter. |
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