OK Steve, I got it now. Not sure where you got the 8" part, but I guess that is not really important. Is it a calculated number based on my 11' wall, a number that matches my 8" woofers, or just a standard "rule of thumb"?

Doing 5.1, eh? Good luck, we'll all be there soon I'm afraid!

I find with my LCD + CRT setup, I have the CRT set up for the mixer page as well. When I record guitars in the same room, I just turn off the CRT to eliminate pickup buzz, especially with single-coils. I would imagine that big TVs like you are talking are going to be worse, but I'm sure you know this and have got it all planned out! Before I got the LCD, I would have to turn off *both* screens when tracking, and that was always a bitch since you never knew where you were...I guess kinda like the old days with analog tape!

DH,
There are issues I have with some of what Steve has told you. While he is correct on the points he has brought up, his approach is a little arbitrary in some cases. While what he says is true in situations that are dedicated to studio, in a home studio application, sometimes one needs to take a more "guerilla" approach. Then there are a few things I just simply disagree with. (sorry, no offense Steve)

…."find a PAIR of TALL diffusers (or bookcases with books) and place them "catty corner" in the corner made by the right hand wall of the closet, so that they are 45 degrees to the wall. On the non-closet side, place the other unit symmetrically, just as if there were a closet on that wall also. This is not ideal, but at least it would make things symmetrical."

The issue I have with this approach is by placing the diffusers as suggested, you will be shooting the sound waves into a point of compression… Rule #1 Never fire into compression… I was told this by John Storik. Rule #1, his words…

"Put just the bass traps in the corners (after taking down all your painstakingly placed other foam) and do the CD/SPL/RTA testing. Add sparingly until you get CD's/mixes to translate. Quit."

You need to apply the foam treatments exactly as I specified! No fudging. I am absolutely certain of this….

"LEDE rooms are kind of older vogue, but still work...."

This goes to the last statement, LEDE room s are an older design developed to make a room that was unsuitable for monitoring useable. Newer designs rely more on building the room specifically for the task at hand, audio. You don't have that luxury. You need to make the most out of the space you have. An LEDE approach is the way to go. Of this I am also convinced!

"Keep in mind this universally accepted and very useful trick during all this - ANY surface that is within 10-11 feet of your head that you could place a mirror flat against and see either speaker in the mirror when your head is in mix position, needs to be absorbed or diffused. This includes floors AND ceilings, as well as console surfaces, sides of CRT's, ANYTHING."

This is almost the same thing as saying set up a LEDE configuration…….

"The only other way I could think of that might help your setup without moving nearly everything, is if you were to build an extension of the short wall of the closet; looking at the drawing on your site, it would need to go from the bottom right corner of the closet, across the room toward the keyboard station, to a point at least 3-4 feet behind your head when seated at the mix position. this would restore some symmetry, and allow you to finish checking out responses."

I concur!! Whole heartedly. I believe this is that approach you need to consider.

"Still, except for modes at 140 and 280, an 11 x 12 x 8 room doesn't look too bad on the
spreadsheet"

Yes, this room falls within accepted Sepmier ratios

"Plus after all that work putting in that dedicated circuit against the one wall, it is going to be exposed for all the world to plug in vacuum cleaners, and who knows what else! I need to find a way to cover that outlet box so everyone knows it is off-limits!"

My way, you get to keep it!

DH, You never replied to my question, 'Where are the other 1/3rd of the bass traps?"
You need 2 rows, one on each side of the corner traps, of the 4" blade foam.

Lastly Steve, I hope I haven't insulted you. I don't mean to step on you toes. All the information you have brought to the table has been absolutely correct but I think the concept of application may have gotten away from you for a moment….. Fats

Hey Fats & Steve:

I appreciate all of everybody's help, and I understand that there are many different ways to skin a cat!

My current plan is to move the mixing table to the short wall, I think this takes care of most of my issues, and makes everything a lot easier in the long run...including LEDE treatments. Certainly the symmetry issue is easier to resolve. I can find a way to deal with the electricity, it just won't look as clean.

At this point, I don't think I am going to build the short wall, even though I can see the benefit to that, the basement needs to remain a multi-use area when I am not working on music, and by cutting the room in half, it just makes it seem too small and claustophobic!

Fats, your comment:

DH, You never replied to my question, 'Where are the other 1/3rd of the bass traps?"
You need 2 rows, one on each side of the corner traps, of the 4" blade foam.

Yeah, sorry, I remember reading that earlier, and I forgot to reply on that...I didn't understand the question...the "other 1/3 of the bass traps". Now that you add the part about the 4" blade foam, I think I understand what you are saying...I need to add 4" blade foam next to the corner traps...**on both sides of the traps***...kind of like what I did at the wall/ceiling junction?

You made a point Fats that this was a "home studio" not a professional studio. Very, very true!!! This really made me think about what I am doing here! This is not my livlihood, it is my love and passion! My goal is to get the room to sound the best I can, without going overboard, and without kicking the rest of the family out of the house completely! :) (Although, now that I mention it...!!! :) hehe! j/k)

I need to take care of the really *big* problems, and learn to deal with the minor stuff...that is life! I am not going to get this thing perfect, it is just not in the stars! I also don't want it to look so dang ugly that I can't stand going down into a "dungeon of foam"!!!

Check out this studio. It belongs to Paul White, who is the Editor of Sound on Sound Magazine, a highly respected UK-based publication:

(This is a cool interactive site, btw...move your mouse around to navigate...)

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/regular_htm/pwstudio.htm

His studio looks great (too clean for my tastes, but...). His acoustic treatments are disguised as part of the room decor...looks much better than my "foam dungeon" LEDE vision for the end of the basement...But notice that he does *indeed* have a LEDE setup! If you look closely at the walls, the front half is treated with "something" that stops at the mixing position.

Look at his speaker placement!!!!

I just want to make sure I don't *overdo* it. I want to be able to create good mixes, but also want the studio to be friendly and non threatening. I realize that this is always a trade off...back to the acoustics vs. ergomonics debate we had earlier.

Also, realize that I have been mixing in this basement for over 2 years without *any* treatments at all!!! If I can address the major issues, it is a hell of a lot better than it was before, and I can still always build that wall later if if comes down to it...

Here is my plan as of this very second (it changes rapidly!):

1) Move the mixing desk to the short wall
2) Rearrange the rest of the basement as best as I can to incorporate symmetry and sound absorbtion/diffusion
3) Move the corner traps to cover both corners behind the desk (actually only one corner needs moving)
4) Optimize my speaker placement
5) Run a quick RTA with the walls uncovered
6) Decide on a next course of action based on the results of steps 1-5...(LEDE?)

I know this probably won't make you happy Fats, and it is not that I don't want to take your advice, I respect your opinions greatly. I just need to step back a bit from this project, and perform a reality check. Covering every square inch of that back basement wall and ceiling all the way back to my listening position is just going to look "butt ugly"! I realize that I need *some* treatment, and maybe a *lot* of treatment! It is almost time to start all over again, and take this thing one step at a time...

I really appreciate you guys sticking with me on this for so long, and though all of the pain! :) I honestly believe that we will have it licked soon...we are getting close!

Hey, Fats - Just so you understand, let's take your last comment first - "Lastly Steve, I hope I haven't insulted you. I don't mean to step on you toes. All the information you have brought to the table has been absolutely correct but I think the concept of application may have gotten away from you for a moment….. Fats " -

If I were that easily insulted, I'd have spent the majority of 57 years crying in my beer (or Pepsi, more likely) - If you check nearly any thread in which I've offered acoustic advice, you'll see a disclaimer regarding where the advice is coming from, I.E. reading and study, about 90%, real world experience about 10%. Some of my real world experiences have been what drove me to the OTHER 90%, which is to read and study anything and everything I could find/afford on acoustic design, from dozens of useful websites (more recently) to about a dozen different books on studio and acoustic design, all in the hopes of making fewer mistakes in future endeavors.

James, I started out to first answer Fats in this post, sorry if I seem to be talking ABOUT you instead of TO you, that's not the intent, please feel free to eavesdrop (hehehe)

As I learn more from these sources, I try to apply it to ongoing design of my own (eventual) SERIOUS acoustical space, which will consist of at least 4 rooms, possibly 6; to include a relatively large tracking room, a fair sized control room, a drum room, instrument storage, 1 or 2 iso booths (if two, one will have a Leslie in it most of the time)When (if) I reach a point that I'm 99% certain of most of my choices, and ALL of the irreversible ones, I should have enough saved for a solid start toward a facility that will sustain me til it's time to "pat me in the face with a shovel", which hopefully is still a few decades away...

Now, top to bottom:

Firing into compression - hadn't come across this, but makes sense. Note that I did NOT advocate hard mounting of these "diffusors", mostly because I wasn't sure what angle would work - only that the closet would be one of the "symmetry problems" -

"You need to apply the foam treatments exactly as I specified! No fudging. I am absolutely certain of this…."

Speaking only from my studies, I believe in only fixing problems that can be proven to exist. That's why I personally would proceed with caution when buying/adding foam. If your experiences have consistently shown otherwise, then you're ahead of me there. My studies also indicate to me that the smaller the room, the more bass problems. That's one reason I voted for leaving the room un-divided, even though it would be MUCH easier to balance the smaller room; also, too much absorption can be as bad as too little, unless you're going for a total anechoic chamber which has very little use for anything but measurements of individual components of a sound system. (This last comment from actual experience, standing in a large anechoic chamber at HH Scott in Mass. with Daniel Von Reklinghausen in 1966 - listening to each other's heartbeats in between speaker tests - really wierd...)

I've read that a control room needs to be deader with a shorter reverb time than a tracking room, so that you can hear what the tracking room is adding to the ambience - makes total sense to me, which is part of why I'm shooting for separate spaces in my future facility. The downside of making things too dead for a single room facility is that you need a more live space for tracking. LEDE, especially in James' situation, should handle this requirement well. (plus the L-shape at the rear, where his vocal area is drawn)

"This goes to the last statement, LEDE room s are an older design developed to make a room that was unsuitable for monitoring useable. Newer designs rely more on building the room specifically for the task at hand, audio. You don't have that luxury. You need to make the most out of the space you have. An LEDE approach is the way to go. Of this I am also convinced!"

I tend to agree with that also, but can see James' comment about the "butt ugly" thing - There are other absorbers to be made or bought that are less "aesthetically challenged" , such as pre-made panels of 703-type material covered in cloth, DIY versions of same, combined absorb/diffuse panels with 703/nice wood slats, etc -

"This is almost the same thing as saying set up a LEDE configuration……. "

Yes and no. A LEDE room (with diffusion at rear) will pass the mirror test, but if you do the mirror test and stick pieces of foam to the walls/ceiling ONLY where you can see a speaker, it WON'T be LEDE - it will be more live, because of less absorption.

"I concur!! Whole heartedly. I believe this is that approach you need to consider. "

While I agree that this way would be easier to accomplish a truly symmetrical sound field, I'm not at all sure that James' low (91") ceilings wouldn't make the single larger room more desirable, both from a bass buildup standpoint and for a larger room volume/more even modal spacing. Not to mention the "claustrophobia factor" - I've set up in two different small spaces, and I've always found that I needed more room just to be able to move around without constant vigilance against banging a prized guitar on a mic stand or equipment rack, or stepping on things that shouldn't be stepped on, etc -

Lastly - "concept of application may have gotten away from you for a moment" -

As near as I can tell from James' posts, the room is already, for one reason or another, light on bass and heavy on top end. While I'm not inclined to disagree with your recommendations for absorption, either from reading/study or from life, it's hard to ignore the fact that the room is already bass-shy. The main concept here for me is "does it sound right?" and so far, the answer appears to be "NO"...

I personally think the main reason for this is speakers/ears too close to or right on "nodal points", either node or antinode. James' speakers are within 2-3" of dead center top-to-bottom, and in the pix they looked to be (hard to say here) spaced nearly on perfect 1/3's of the left/right dimension. Neither of those axes should have either sound sources nor sound pickups placed there, or there will be serious boosts or cancellations present. I think this has been the main source of bass dissapearance. The excessive treble is probably due to not enough absorption on the side walls - while you and I apparently agree on that part, I've not seen any comments from you on the reasons for bass loss. Can you think of any reasons other than nodal positioning? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this...

James, hitting the basic points of your post -

First, realizing that for some strange reason, most people who take public pix of their studios feel it necessary to conform to some kind of "aesthetic" mold, some elements of Paul White's studio are obviously for "show" - the main example of this is the two acoustic guitars on stands next to the mix desk. Nobody in their right mind would leave those there while mixing OR tracking, unless they wanted a really wierd Helmholz thing going on intentionally.

Other than that, it looks to me like Paul has used a type of "703" panel of sorts (the gray cloth covered panels in the front half of the room) and definitely has colorfully adorned bass traps in use.

By speaker placement, I'm assuming you meant height? They seem to be low enough not to be in a nodal no-no...

That's about all I saw to comment on that we haven't already discussed - other than the 8" thing - yeah, that was what I call a "SWAG" - which stands for a Scientific, Wild Ass Guess - The main thing I was aiming for was to get your speakers far enough away from nodal points in the room so that you could rule out that phenomenon as a reason for the "Bass-Go-Bye-Bye" problem. Since you have 8" woofs, placing the centers at least 8" AWAY from nodal points should keep the entire woof out of the node.

Fats, again; any day I learn ANYTHING is a good day, so you would have to work a LOT harder than that to insult me enough to counteract the "firing into compression" gem, thank you. Plus, I would hope that all our agendas here are toward learning and self-improvement, not just trying to look good (although, possibly Billy Crystal may have had the right idea with his comment, "Remember, to LOOK good is better than to FEEL good, dahling") Nah, I feel better when I learn something than when I hafta get dressed up...

Fats, comments? Especially on the nodal placement thing, or any other reason you can cite for bass loss?

James, you're right we ARE getting there - education is NEVER cheap, it either costs time, money, effort, or more likely all three... Steve

Not that easily insulted, eh??? How about this one:

"Your father was a hampster, and your mother smelt of elderberries" (Monty Python)

Hehe...or was it the other way around???

hehehe Bring it on, DNA WannaBe - actually, my Father was a Dumpster, and my Mama pooped elderberries, or at least they were about the same size - 'sides, I been not only insulted in but THROWN OUTA better places than this, and not always because of the dog poop on my shoes...

All seriousness aside, I overlooked what I hope was as obvious to you as it shoulda been to me, on the "disappearing Bass" subject - I know your monitors are active, and therefor this is LESS likely to have happened, but have you checked phasing on your speakers lately? Could you have possibly changed anything that might have reversed one channel? You might check that any TRS connectors are plugged in ALL THE WAY, and that the bass gets WEAKER if you change any wiring polarity -

If not, I'm still curious to see if Fats has any other ideas that haven't been brought up... Steve

Hey guys,
Sorry I took so long to answer, I've got my computer going and I'm struggling against that uphill learning curve of DAW recording...learning Cubase VST 5.1 and having a lot of fun doing it...making a demo of a song I wrote... up to 16 tracks so far with comps chorus phasers and eq's...sounds pretty good... I need some distance from it for a while so I took a break. I'll say one thing though, recording into a DAW is completely different than anything else I've ever used before. Some old tried and true chops are going to have to be abandoned....

Here's what I know about C/R set up without some serious architectural design....
Symmetry and LEDE... LEDE is a sledge hammer approach..
no matter what the problem may be in a room with enough trapping, absorption and diffusion you can get something useable. If you don't have 14' dimensions your not going to get a full 20kHz. note anyway but other than that it works reasonably well. But you can't fudge it. You need to do the whole enchilada otherwise your just chasing your problems from one corner to the next...."literally".... Steve you point about speaker placement and phasing is right on the money, I agree. 100% James I can understand your reluctance to cover everything in gray foam, you want to continue to live with your wife. There are other colors of foam available, beige is reasonably easy to live with in a multi purpose room. I told my wife my studio area was going to double as an entertainment room! ....... Fats

Hi Fats and friends,

My first post here. I started out in much the same boat, from a research perspective, as DH. I've read through (and printed) the mini-novel that makes up this thread and have to say, there is a ton of good, applicable information here.

The control and live rooms at my studio aren't bad, but they need work. The CR is actually the worse off of the two. From the many gems of info I was able to mine out of the thread, there's a lot of well-outlined, practical steps I can take to getting better sounding rooms - and consequently, better recordings and mixes.

Just wanted to point out that I appreciate the follow through that both you and DH have shown, and I'm sure it will help me as I tame and focus my rooms.

I'll be posting a topic regarding Dave Moulton's recent article in recording mag on control room acoustics when I have more time. In short, I was enthused after reading it because it showed in non-technical terms, how to build a monitor shell and treat a room. I would like to get your thoughts on it.

As an (almost) indestructible robotic humanoid once said "I'll be back..."

Hey, Jackson - I read that article in Recording, and was hoping they would have put it on their site the next month like Electronic Musician does - apparently they need more money, so want you to buy 95% of what you get. The only thing I saw on Dave Moulton's site that was even close was this slide

http://www.moultonlabs.com/slides/smallrooms/sld099.htm

Which is part of a 126 page slide show.

There are, however, a couple of other articles on Dave's site that open up a whole new discussion of what's best for CR's, etc, - check the home page under "articles" -

Now, all we need to do (unless you have unlimited funds and can just call Dave and order a set of those speakers like the Garden uses) is to find speakers that exhibit the wide horizontal dispersion mentioned in the Mix article (Dave's Articles page), and we're all set.

From what I read, it sounds like it's possible to retrofit most rooms (if they're not TOO small) to the concepts Moulton put forth - Deep broadband absorbers on front wall and ceiling, polycylindrical diffusors on side and rear walls, and a baffle front wall. That only leaves the quest for wide dispersion speakers, which might limit the chances of a "regular guy" getting all the way there...

Still, it at least makes for some very interesting reading - It's not like there weren't ENOUGH conflicting theories on acoustics :=)

BTW, welcome to RO; glad you found some helpful info, and I hope some of it can help you improve on your space... Steve

Hey, James, the last (serious) post from you was over a month ago - wazzup? Hopefully, you weren't swallowed by a bass trap -

Just curious how things be goin'... Steve

Hehe...No, I'm still around!

Here's the latest...My system was down for almost 3 weeks due to a system meltdown (Cubase SX 1.05 upgrade that screwed up my entire system).

Finally got back up and running, and was so far behind, that I have just been cranking out the work trying to get caught up to some of my earlier commitments.

Right now, I have finally completed the design of my new mixing desk, and will start building here during the Christmas break. Once that is done, i will tear apart the entire studio, and start from scratch. This will involve redo-ing all the acoustic treatments again...

Sorry for silence, I am almost ready to fill up the radio waves with my posts again!!!

I heard that the next upgrade for Cubase SX actually inserts a "U" into the SX.

...need I explain.

Hey, Hey, Hey! Watch it. !!! What's your prob with Cubase??? I think it rocks!!!
Fats :D

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It's my opinion, I'll play with it if I want to!

I also love cubase!!! Cubase SX (up to version 1.05!!!) is the most stable piece of audio software I have ever used, even better than 5.1 (sorry Fats!). My problem was with 1.05, and even more importantly, with their "rollback" procedure that *didn't* rollback!!! Long story, but I could never recover. I am now back on SX 1.03, and it is "Rock Solid" once again! :D

Here is an update on my studio redesign:

I have actually decided to make some *more* design changes to the desk that I am building. I went to buy some of the materials, and found out that for practicalilty's sake, I needed to change a few of the dimensions. Also, I was looking at a commercial desk that is close to what I am trying to build, and it gave me some ideas for improvements, so "it is back to the drawing board" as they say! I still plan to build the desk over the Christmas break...I get 2 full weeks off now! I go back to work on January 6th! Yeah!!! :D Of course all the holiday festivites might negatively effect the look of my desk! :d:

No Cubase beef here!

I've got an OLD version. So I don't even have any real world input.

I was makin a crack on the upgrade causing Mr.DoubleHelix's horror story.
It was an upgrade "fix" crack. Tis all.

And, isn't that "roll back" feature only good if you got the product at WalMart?

(Yes, another bad joke :D . As if I have an endless supply......)

4 Days until I git my stuff!!! GooooooooSanta!

Lets get this one started again.. this should do it :D he he he
Over in DAW world Steve (Knightfly) posted this nugget! :D on the thread titled,
"Topic: Granite Bay - where are they+are they worth it ," in reference to this topic.. I thought I'd drag it back here to keep in context and on thread.

"Now you know why I advocated piecemeal (incremental cut and try) placement when Fats was saying "just do it all" - (Schizen-tific method)"

Hey! Hey! Hey!.., That's not fair at all. In the first place if James had done everything I said in the first place (which I said he need to do ) what I told him to do, would have worked! :D :D :D (Sounds like a Red Green mantra, doesn't it?) I described a classic live end dead end set up. And I specified that there was a bare minimum that needed to be done,… and he never got all the way there…

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It's my opinion, I'll play with it if I want to!
:w: