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Post by Vincent R. on Sept 30, 2021 8:22:14 GMT -6
After years of hearing many people comment about the overall sound of my room and my own aggravation with it, I'm currently planning out an upgrade to my room treatment. I reached out to GIK as well as Auralex and received a bunch of advice and after a number or years using some cheap Foam-by-mail 3" pyramid foam I'm going to upgrade to some nice GIK panels 242 Acoustic Panels and 244 Bass traps. Before anyone tells me I can make them myself for cheaper, I know I can. I just don't have all the right tools or the time. My room is 21' x 19' with a 3.5' little bump out by the stairs. The ceiling is only 7' tall. I've come up with a plan that replaces all my current cheaper panels on the walls, adds a few more, and puts some 2" panels on the ceiling. Its the most I can really afford to do on the ceiling due to the limited height. Below is my Room Layout showing the panels, some of my big furniture, etc. I'd love to hear some thoughts. 2D: gikacoustics.roomle.com/t/planner?mode=2D&id=hqvmbjd2v12prlypgjz1xlqd7i5hadb&shared=13D: gikacoustics.roomle.com/t/planner?mode=3D&id=hqvmbjd2v12prlypgjz1xlqd7i5hadb&shared=1 |
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Post by Ward on Oct 1, 2021 5:39:34 GMT -6
Small and short rooms benefit from diffusion.
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Post by Vincent R. on Oct 1, 2021 6:09:33 GMT -6
Small and short rooms benefit from diffusion. Well, I do have the two large book cases. Should I swap a couple of these absorption panels for diffuser panels? |
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Post by Ward on Oct 1, 2021 6:28:36 GMT -6
Small and short rooms benefit from diffusion. Well, I do have the two large book cases. Should I swap a couple of these absorption panels for diffuser panels? Book cases at the back of the room are GENIUS! Follow the grid pattern of a diffusor build plan by arranging books in the (something like) 11323112132121313 etc pattern...according to size. They break up and absorb stray unwanted spatter. An overhead fractal diffusor can make your 7' ceiling sound like 12' |
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Post by gouge on Oct 1, 2021 7:16:44 GMT -6
Without knowing everything about your room, There are a bunch of things you can do but I don’t understand where your speakers are. Can you clarify your mix position? Also are you recording in this room too. Is this a multi purpose room. There may be a better furniture layout?
With a low ceiling I would avoid diffusers and go for absorption. Try 244 above couches and mix positions and 242 elsewhere. Above the mix position add a 4” gap between ceiling and panel
On the walls I’d use 244 panels with a mix of 2 & 4” gaps behind panels. Then bass traps to room corners.
Looking at the gik spec, The 242 is better suited for commercial spaces and the 244 better for studios.
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Post by Vincent R. on Oct 1, 2021 7:47:52 GMT -6
Without knowing everything about your room, There are a bunch of things you can do but I don’t understand where your speakers are. Can you clarify your mix position? Also are you recording in this room too. Is this a multi purpose room. There may be a better furniture layout? With a low ceiling I would avoid diffusers and go for absorption. Try 244 above couches and mix positions and 242 elsewhere. Above the mix position add a 4” gap between ceiling and panel On the walls I’d use 244 panels with a mix of 2 & 4” gaps behind panels. Then bass traps to room corners. Looking at the gik spec, The 242 is better suited for commercial spaces and the 244 better for studios. There is a desk in the bottom of the diagram in the middle of the wall in front of a book case. That's my mix desk. The speakers are currently on stands on either side. This is a multipurpose room I'm using to record and mix. I've placed the ceiling panels above my mix and recording positions. |
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Post by bgrotto on Oct 1, 2021 9:28:58 GMT -6
Small and short rooms benefit from diffusion. It's worth mentioning that some (all?) diffusers require a minimum distance for efficacy, meaning that a small enough room would put the listener too close to the diffusor for it to be effective (and indeed, can actually sound considerably WORSE than the untreated room!). Tube-trap style diffusion would probably be an effective solution, since small rooms also suffer from poor bass response, and a tube trap can tackle both LF trapping AND mid and HF diffusion. |
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Post by Vincent R. on Oct 1, 2021 10:29:47 GMT -6
Tube traps could be a real option along the top wall of the diagram.
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Post by tkaitkai on Oct 1, 2021 12:07:21 GMT -6
Tube traps ALL the way. They are miracles for small rooms.
If you buy the ones with adjustable stands (ASC calls these "Studio Traps"), you can use them in a QSF configuration around the singer/mic for recording, and then move them around your mix position for monitoring. Get 8 - 10 of them and never worry about room acoustics again.
You could also go nuts and do the whole Attack Wall thing, but for most people, that's probably exorbitantly cost-prohibitive.
As far as panels go, I would never spend money on commercial stuff when I can make equally effective panels for a fraction of the cost. You don't have to be handy, either — I absolutely SUCK with most DIY stuff.
You don't even have to build frames! Just buy a box of rigid insulation panels (i.e. Rockboard or OC703), wrap them in low thread-count bed sheets, and seal them taut with hot fabric glue. Not having a frame makes them WAY more manageable. You can literally just screw some cheap metal brackets in the wall and rest the panels on top of those.
Happy to share some photos if you want.
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Post by OtisGreying on Oct 1, 2021 18:18:53 GMT -6
Tube traps ALL the way. They are miracles for small rooms. If you buy the ones with adjustable stands (ASC calls these "Studio Traps"), you can use them in a QSF configuration around the singer/mic for recording, and then move them around your mix position for monitoring. Get 8 - 10 of them and never worry about room acoustics again. You could also go nuts and do the whole Attack Wall thing, but for most people, that's probably exorbitantly cost-prohibitive. As far as panels go, I would never spend money on commercial stuff when I can make equally effective panels for a fraction of the cost. You don't have to be handy, either — I absolutely SUCK with most DIY stuff. You don't even have to build frames! Just buy a box of rigid insulation panels (i.e. Rockboard or OC703), wrap them in low thread-count bed sheets, and seal them taut with hot fabric glue. Not having a frame makes them WAY more manageable. You can literally just screw some cheap metal brackets in the wall and rest the panels on top of those. Happy to share some photos if you want. I was looking at this. It’s the Standard kit by Asc right? About 10k, expensive, but it looks like the building in where I currently work in is going to be sold soon to a new owner and I’ll have to leave. I imagine you could take these basically to any room and get great acoustics is the idea right? Seems pretty nice, I’m gonna have to move my entire set up to my plain old living room or bedroom so maybe this is the ticket. I’ve seen them used in a big barn studio as well where great records have come out of. |
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Post by tkaitkai on Oct 1, 2021 18:54:29 GMT -6
I was looking at this. It’s the Standard kit by Asc right? About 10k, expensive, but it looks like the building in where I currently work in is going to be sold soon to a new owner and I’ll have to leave. I imagine you could take these basically to any room and get great acoustics is the idea right? Seems pretty nice, I’m gonna have to move my entire set up to my plain old living room or bedroom so maybe this is the ticket. I’ve seen them used in a big barn studio as well where great records have come out of. Yep, the Standard Kit is basically ASC’s default setup for the Attack Wall. But you can pretty much experiment with different amounts and arrangements of tube traps to create a different variation of an Attack Wall — they’re all basically some combination of monitor stand tube traps, Studio Traps, and sometimes regular tube traps. If you can, maybe look into getting them used. I have what ASC calls the Quick Sound Field (10 Studio Traps arranged in a semicircle around either your monitors or mic/talent) and I only paid about $1800 for all of them. Would have set me back $7k if I bought them new. |
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Post by gouge on Oct 2, 2021 0:16:33 GMT -6
vincent.
if you let me know your speaker model amd the location of the columns..
i can sketch something up for you.
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Post by OtisGreying on Oct 2, 2021 5:54:10 GMT -6
I was looking at this. It’s the Standard kit by Asc right? About 10k, expensive, but it looks like the building in where I currently work in is going to be sold soon to a new owner and I’ll have to leave. I imagine you could take these basically to any room and get great acoustics is the idea right? Seems pretty nice, I’m gonna have to move my entire set up to my plain old living room or bedroom so maybe this is the ticket. I’ve seen them used in a big barn studio as well where great records have come out of. Yep, the Standard Kit is basically ASC’s default setup for the Attack Wall. But you can pretty much experiment with different amounts and arrangements of tube traps to create a different variation of an Attack Wall — they’re all basically some combination of monitor stand tube traps, Studio Traps, and sometimes regular tube traps. If you can, maybe look into getting them used. I have what ASC calls the Quick Sound Field (10 Studio Traps arranged in a semicircle around either your monitors or mic/talent) and I only paid about $1800 for all of them. Would have set me back $7k if I bought them new. Man, great deal! Where did you find them used? |
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Post by Vincent R. on Oct 2, 2021 6:17:53 GMT -6
vincent. if you let me know your speaker model amd the location of the columns.. i can sketch something up for you. My monitors are Yamaha HS7s. The speakers are currently located on either side of my desk. They are 5' apart from cone to cone and 2'6" off the back wall on the bottom of the diagram.
The Columns are 7' 8" from the back wall on the bottom of the diagram. The column on the right side of the diagram is 3'11" from the right wall. The column on the left is 4" 4" from the left wall. They are approx 6' 4" apart.
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Post by gouge on Oct 2, 2021 7:36:18 GMT -6
Thx. Shouldn’t take long.
It’s midnight here now so I’ll get something sketched up tomorrow for you to comment on.
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Post by Vincent R. on Oct 2, 2021 10:32:00 GMT -6
Thx. Shouldn’t take long. It’s midnight here now so I’ll get something sketched up tomorrow for you to comment on. cool! |
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Post by tkaitkai on Oct 2, 2021 10:51:09 GMT -6
Man, great deal! Where did you find them used? I basically scoured the Internet for months and finally found a guy on Nashville Craigslist selling 10 of them. Ended up being Rob Dennis from Rack N Roll Audio, super cool guy. Rented a Jeep and drove 12 hours up to Nashville to pick them up. Yes, I'm completely out of my mind.  |
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Post by gouge on Oct 2, 2021 23:10:00 GMT -6
so here are my thoughts. please remember im not an acoustic engineer but i have applied knowledge to the design with some basic room analysis. this doesn't take into account existing ceiling lights. also please ignore the squiggles behind the couch / mix position. if the 6a traps and and tri with range limiters are outside your budget just use standard tri and 244. also what is the floor?, if it' a hard surface i'd add a rug at the tracking spot and the mix spot. speaker locations need to be tweaked once positioned. some room measure analysis would be worth while. when placing rear ported speakers against the wall there can be a bass boost so you may find your speaker eq settings are usefull. what i've sketched is concept based on rules of thumb. feel free to ask gik and others their view. now you have a scaled diagram you cam talk it through. scale is 1:50. not sure what that is in inches. forgot to add the treatment on columns only needs to be narrow enough to hide column. Attachments:
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Post by gouge on Oct 3, 2021 0:37:17 GMT -6
another comment is i would consider mirroring the entire layout so the mix position is at the opposite end where the stairs start.
that will get your ears further from the columns.
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Post by Vincent R. on Oct 3, 2021 10:29:18 GMT -6
so here are my thoughts. please remember im not an acoustic engineer but i have applied knowledge to the design with some basic room analysis. this doesn't take into account existing ceiling lights. also please ignore the squiggles behind the couch / mix position. if the 6a traps and and tri with range limiters are outside your budget just use standard tri and 244. also what is the floor?, if it' a hard surface i'd add a rug at the tracking spot and the mix spot. speaker locations need to be tweaked once positioned. some room measure analysis would be worth while. when placing rear ported speakers against the wall there can be a bass boost so you may find your speaker eq settings are usefull. what i've sketched is concept based on rules of thumb. feel free to ask gik and others their view. now you have a scaled diagram you cam talk it through. scale is 1:50. not sure what that is in inches. forgot to add the treatment on columns only needs to be narrow enough to hide column. This definitely gives me a lot of thoughts on how and where to place the panels. I can’t use the 244 bass traps on my ceiling. The ceiling just isn’t high enough. I’ll still need to use just 2” 242 panels. It’s probably not the most ideal, but it’s what it will need to be in this space. It still has to serve as a family space for my son. Also, a few of my friends I record frequently are 6’4 and literally couldn’t stand in the space if I have such big panels there. I may be able to get away with it above my desk though, so I’m definitely considering it. |
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Post by drbill on Oct 3, 2021 17:19:42 GMT -6
Vincent - for someone as serious as you are - a call to Jeff Hedback would be in order. He can work miracles on smaller rooms. And not nearly as pricey as some might lead you to believe. Worth every penny X 100 that I paid him. Good luck!
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Post by gouge on Oct 3, 2021 18:11:26 GMT -6
so here are my thoughts. please remember im not an acoustic engineer but i have applied knowledge to the design with some basic room analysis. this doesn't take into account existing ceiling lights. also please ignore the squiggles behind the couch / mix position. if the 6a traps and and tri with range limiters are outside your budget just use standard tri and 244. also what is the floor?, if it' a hard surface i'd add a rug at the tracking spot and the mix spot. speaker locations need to be tweaked once positioned. some room measure analysis would be worth while. when placing rear ported speakers against the wall there can be a bass boost so you may find your speaker eq settings are usefull. what i've sketched is concept based on rules of thumb. feel free to ask gik and others their view. now you have a scaled diagram you cam talk it through. scale is 1:50. not sure what that is in inches. forgot to add the treatment on columns only needs to be narrow enough to hide column. This definitely gives me a lot of thoughts on how and where to place the panels. I can’t use the 244 bass traps on my ceiling. The ceiling just isn’t high enough. I’ll still need to use just 2” 242 panels. It’s probably not the most ideal, but it’s what it will need to be in this space. It still has to serve as a family space for my son. Also, a few of my friends I record frequently are 6’4 and literally couldn’t stand in the space if I have such big panels there. I may be able to get away with it above my desk though, so I’m definitely considering it. i think you mean the gik spot panel which is 2". spot panel will still work for vocals which start around 100hz and will help with comb filtering. for the mix position i think you need something more substantial. there are room modes starting at 50hz with 80 & 100hz in the mix position and 40hz in the corners. it's best to deal with those if you can. there are also a bunch of reflections within 20ms that need to be dealt with from the ceiling but also the front and side walls. also pushing the speakers against the acoustic treatment on the front wall helps deal with SBIR from the speaker which you get in smaller spaces. |
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Post by Vincent R. on Oct 3, 2021 21:54:10 GMT -6
Vincent - for someone as serious as you are - a call to Jeff Hedback would be in order. He can work miracles on smaller rooms. And not nearly as pricey as some might lead you to believe. Worth every penny X 100 that I paid him. Good luck! That might not be a bad idea. |
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Post by Vincent R. on Oct 6, 2021 7:04:10 GMT -6
drbill , I sent Jeff an email. He was gracious enough to email me back. He did not want to take away from my budget with his fees and instead explained some of the inherent problems with my room and endorse my current plan as a huge step up from my current set up. He advised, "Ideally, I'd like to use scattering or diffusion given the styles of music and multi-function applications, but the low ceiling means that absorption is the right call...given your budget." Again, it was very gracious of him to reach out and offer some advice. I know who I'll call when I have a real space to build. I'm probably going to stick with my current plan and incorporate some of gouge 's excellent modifications to it. I should make a before and after video.
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Post by drbill on Oct 6, 2021 8:59:57 GMT -6
Nice. Good luck!
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