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Hi everyone,

I have a space that is available o use as a mix/tracking room. It is not ideal. It is in a barn. It has 2"x 6" framed walls and ceiling with pink insulation and 5/8" sheet rock interior. The out outside of all walls and roof is corrugated tin. I am attaching a screen capture of a
sketch up for reference. The shortest exterior wall height is 6' 6" inches and the posing wall is 16' 7" tall . The length of the and width are are 16' 7" x 16' 7".

My question is where would be the best place to the mixing area and monitors.

I realize these are not ideal conditions. I will have bass traps in the corners and where the ceiling and tallest wall meet. There will be absorbers made with Rock Wool. I can add a couple of 2D Quadratic Residue diffusors.

Thought and input are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Karl

Comments

paulears Sat, 02/15/2020 - 12:14

I think I'd wait till the space is available and then try things with the room untreated. I've always followed the usual rules but I've got a long thin space that was divided into two small spaces and with the treatment I rather liked the coyness, but I have just done a partial rebuild and converted it to one long thin room, and putting the speakers on stands and playing music through them I discovered a new layout for me. I have my back about 2m from the rear wall, and the speaker are about half way down the room, firing back at me obviously. This gives me an open space on the other side of them, and I have but in a green screen wall, with a curve. Even weirder, the kit is not on the centre line, but leaves wider space one side to get racks and things through. Sounded promising in the tests but a bit muddier bass on the speaker nearest the wall. I built a membrane bass trap based on internet designs, and tried sliding it from left to right and behind me on my right next to the side wall worked best. So as the space behind me has 19" rack floor to ceiling on my left, a door central and the trap on the right - very lop sided, but ALL the tracks I have loaded in so far sound better and the bass is more controlled.

Your space looks very promising and I'd certainly want to try facing the biggest space, with the smallest behind me, treated well. I'd considered for my space, all kinds of layouts, but tie the side walls acoustic tiled to reduce the flutter left to right, and a bit of bass control, I think you'll find a way - and the bigger volume space will record in nicely. My space width wise on only 2.3m wall to wall and if I can get that sounding nice, I'm sure your bigger space will respond well.

kmetal Sat, 02/15/2020 - 13:52

Either way you have to treat the angled ceiling. At the peak, id use that as a location for a corner trap for bass. Then mount broadband panels on the rest of it. This treatment can stay the same regardless of speaker orientation.

Then id try facing the flat wall and the other wall, and see what i like better. Then start treating the rest of the walls with broadband absorption, rear wall with bass trapping and corners with bass trapping. It may also make sense to hang a cloud above the listening position.

You can get REW for free to do acoustic tests.

If possible id mount some panels on the walls or on stands or tables while auditioning speaker orientation. This is because the room is going to have some basic amount of treatment no matter what, so you can audition the orientation more within the context, leaving less guessing.

KurtFoster Sat, 02/15/2020 - 16:18

paulears, post: 463343, member: 47782 wrote: Your space looks very promising and I'd certainly want to try facing the biggest space, with the smallest behind me, treated well. I'd considered for my space, all kinds of layouts, but tie the side walls acoustic tiled to reduce the flutter left to right, and a bit of bass control, I think you'll find a way - and the bigger volume space will record in nicely. My space width wise on only 2.3m wall to wall and if I can get that sounding nice, I'm sure your bigger space will respond well.

no, no,no,no, NOOOOOO! NEVER fire into compression. it's why god made P.A. horns narrow at the driver and wide at the mouth.

strings1 Sat, 02/15/2020 - 21:53

kmetal, post: 463344, member: 37533 wrote: Then id try facing the flat wall and the other wall, and see what i like better.

These would be the parallel walls that you are referring to?

kmetal, post: 463344, member: 37533 wrote: rear wall with bass trapping

This referring to the tall wall right? or the short wall in front of me?

I know i asked this yet just want to make sure, Should I stay away from an 2D Quadratic Residue diffusors on the tall wall or parallel walls?

kmetal Sun, 02/16/2020 - 16:06

strings1, post: 463346, member: 41310 wrote: These would be the parallel walls that you are referring to?

This referring to the tall wall right? or the short wall in front of me?

I know i asked this yet just want to make sure, Should I stay away from an 2D Quadratic Residue diffusors on the tall wall or parallel walls?

I would start facing the non slanted walls. So straight wall in front, and behind you. (Lol just fyi) its often helpful to include a North/S/E/W indicator or label the walls 1,2,3 or watever, so we are all referencing the same thing.

The rear wall would be the one behind you when facing the speakers, which is where id focus the bass trapping.

Id stay away from diffusion completely. It requires a larger room than yours for a true diffuse field. Beyond that diffusion is extremely complex, not completely understood, and has no universal testing method to assess its effectiveness. But they do look cool.

Your primary focus is bass trapping, and broadband absorption. Bass trapping is critical in any room, and since your room has 3 identical dimensions, its as difficult as it gets. The upside is since the construction is fairly light weight, the bass can "vent" thru the walls, which will help even things out. Bass trapping is critical. The other upside is your ceiling height allows for plenty of Bass trapping up there.

The broadband panels tackle the mids and highs, so things are balanced and stereo imaging is good. By placing absorption on the slanted surfaces you can control the amount of sound that bounces off them and back to your ears. These sound reflections will interfere with whats leaving the speakers and skew what you hear if left unmanaged. You want a clear, direct path between your ears and speakers.

If you insist on a diffuser id wait till the end and add them slowly making sure they dont screw anything up. But by the time you get your room right you will probably not want to mess with it at all.

paulears, post: 463348, member: 47782 wrote: Parallel walls are ALWAYS bad, so if you can change that it makes a big difference and can flatten out the spikey room response nicely before you try to mop up or reflect/diffuse

They are not always bad. In fact its much, much less complicated to predict rooms with parallel surfaces.

Splayed walls, when correctly implemented really only help mids and highs, which is easily handled with absorption.

Parallel walls aren't always bad either, but in general, especially for control rooms or dual purpose rooms, its much easier to start with a predictable rectangle, and then incorporate angles on the treatment.

strings1 Sun, 02/23/2020 - 23:58

kmetal, post: 463344, member: 37533 wrote: rear wall with bass trapping and corners with bass trapping.

Hi everyone,

I have been real busy with work and life. I was going to make both corner and rear wall bass traps out of RockWool 60 at 4" thick. Given the chart below from RockwWool themselves It seems to the better of the 3 choices if i build at 4" and double the 2" thickness. Is this right or should I go with the RockWool 40?