Hi everybody I just moved into a bigger apartment where finally my studio has its own room everything is neat and in place, with some nice big studio monitors just ready to boom my ears. As soon as I started setting up the gear I notice that there was a bit of echo on the room…it is a 3 X 4 meters room with one of the walls having a big glass window.
Well you can imagine … horrible sound reverberation is happening and the bass kicks awfully hard. I found that the high frequency are sounding nice, but the bass gets muddy and awfully loud. In order to listen to a track properly I need to use the mixer and cut a lot of bass… not useful when wanting to produce
I live in Chile where not a lot of fancy isolation and absortion material can be found easily, neither online. I was looking into something like this to cover the walls and roof but dont know if they will really eliminate or at least help to absorb bass sound waves:
The floor is carpet so I think it is ok.
My old room was very similar but it did had a bed inside also, which was doing some absorption and also I had one hollow wall that was acting as a bass trap I believe. But this one is just solid concrete, and a bit of glass which is very reflecting I think. I will install some thick curtains for the windows soon. Please if you have any suggestion on how to absorb the bass with reachable materials or how to solve or improve this please let me know.
big soft comfy couch, will dampen the bass a bit, also book shelves help diffuse the sound stopping standing waves which cause the bass build up you mention
Pro studio rooms are built with no two surfaces parallel to each other, and there’s a bunch of things you can do to fix this.
Set up in the corner of the room rather than along a wall with a parallel wall behind you. Drapes and pinboards on wheels can be useful for breaking up the shape of the room:
Yes I have setup on the corner, but defenitly have not thought of having a pinboard to have more angles! I does make a difference when I open some closet doors behind so they create different reflection angles.
Also one strange discovery that I came up with was that after using my heater for a while the boominess decayed a bit. I think that hot air makes sound travel faster and seems to cause the reverb tail to be a bit shorter… strange physics finding … When the room is very cold I find it sounds the worst.
Some great tips! I will look into this during the week
You should consider getting some bass trap in corners, cover the window when you mix, the couch idea can help, check the noise reduction co-efficient of your material, never setup against the wall (console) there a sweet spot in the room a litle bit more further than the midle depending where your speakers is positioned.
ALOT can be done but its mostly depending on how much money you want to put in it.
And for photojojo links… on the last post from BentoSan resume its well for the bass absorbtion materials
Cover that window! The pin boards are a good idea, too. Might have to look into those myself. Put some more furniture in there. Anything to break the room up.
google “room modal analysis calculator” and run the dimensions of your room through it, that will tell you what frequencies you need to look out for and help you treat your room accordingly.
Theres also some good stuff called “Ridgedback fibreglass” that is really good for treating rooms with
everything is neat and in place, with some nice big studio monitors just ready to boom my ears. As soon as I started setting up the gear I notice that there was a bit of echo on the room…it is a 3 X 4 meters room with one of the walls having a big glass window.