My recording room: A short and painful horror story, with a graph

[PBGas]

I used a monitor/room mic that came with my monitors to measure the room and how the monitors sound. I was able to make adjustments to my monitors and it made a significant difference on how I hear things now and how they sound on other systems.

My setup is less than ideal as it is an open concept room aka….finished basement/family room. I have done some treatment of the walls and ceiling to help tame some the reflections.

 

[IHateRap]

I'm too lazy to work on new music so I'm immune to the piss poor acoustics of my room. Best of luck though.

 

[nightlight]

Look asscrack jablonski, everyone here has told you what to do. The most basic obvious solutions. And you're just ignoring it like a straight up shitbum of the highest order.

Take your lazy ass to Walmart and buy a fucking shaggy carpet to put on that ugly ass floor. The fuck. It's not rocket science. You have an echo chamber. Or stop whining about the room with your Bill Nye the science guy graphs.

If you like playing guitar in a Holiday Inn bathroom, then by all means keep your current setup. First thing, obviously, would have been a rug on that clinical ass floor. Looking like an emergency vet clinic up in this bitch.

Insufferable graph-ass.

What the hell is an asscrack jablonski?

Rubbishing my flooring, who do you think you are?

If you think I’m just going to take advice from the internet without more research, you must be soft in the head.

I honestly think some bass traps, perhaps even active ones would benefit my situation more than a carpet.

 

[nightlight]

Go ahead, say another insult. I dare you.

 

[Ben Waylin]

Look asscrack jablonski, everyone here has told you what to do. The most basic obvious solutions. And you're just ignoring it like a straight up shitbum of the highest order.

Take your lazy ass to Walmart and buy a fucking shaggy carpet to put on that ugly ass floor. The fuck. It's not rocket science. You have an echo chamber. Or stop whining about the room with your Bill Nye the science guy graphs.

If you like playing guitar in a Holiday Inn bathroom, then by all means keep your current setup. First thing, obviously, would have been a rug on that clinical ass floor. Looking like an emergency vet clinic up in this bitch.

Insufferable graph-ass.

 

[nightlight]

I can live with a meme. We cool? Peace.

 

[ChuggNorris]

Go ahead, say another insult. I dare you.

Another insult. I dare you.

 

[Monkey Man]

Brother AJ, why not try the Waves option first?

That'll tell you enough about whether or not the virtualisation method works for you and you won't have to buy a "special" set of 'phones.

If all goes well, you'll still have the option of plunking down the "big bucks" for VSX.

 

[nightlight]

Another insult. I dare you.

Nah, I like to live my life guilt-free. I understand you are processing some grief at the moment, and everyone handles it differently. I’d just say that you should try to turn the righteous anger you feel into positive energy. It’s difficult, but I am sure you can do it. No one likes toxic personalities on the internet (like me, haha).

 

[nightlight]

Brother AJ, why not try the Waves option first?

That'll tell you enough about whether or not the virtualisation method works for you and you won't have to buy a "special" set of 'phones.

If all goes well, you'll still have the option of plunking down the "big bucks" for VSX.

I’ve always been a firm believer that buy cheap means buying twice, Nicky. I know that VSX has some big names using it in their studios for mixes. Would like to try them out, but maybe in a bit of time. Got a big renovation job coming up, which will set me back a bit.

 

[ChuggNorris]

Nah, I like to live my life guilt-free. I understand you are processing some grief at the moment, and everyone handles it differently. I’d just say that you should try to turn the righteous anger you feel into positive energy. It’s difficult, but I am sure you can do it. No one likes toxic personalities on the internet (like me, haha).

You're reading this the wrong way.


You're looking too far into this.


Grief and all that has nothing to do with putting some shaggy carpet in your tiled up echo chamber.




Go get a damn carpet.

 

[Monkey Man]

I’ve always been a firm believer that buy cheap means buying twice, Nicky. I know that VSX has some big names using it in their studios for mixes. Would like to try them out, but maybe in a bit of time. Got a big renovation job coming up, which will set me back a bit.

Yeah, always been a fan of the philosophy myself bro'.

In this case 'though, it's $69 for the Waves Nx Virtual Studio Collection (Chris Lord Alge’s Studio, Ocean Way Nashville and Germano Studios New York) and $50 for Abbey Road Studio 3, so $119 for all room models.

VSX is $500.

If Waves does the job for that price... and you really only need 1 decent studio model...

 

[PiggySmallz]

I went down this path twice before redoing the entire room down to the studs. I'm happy with the way it sounds now.

GIK acoustics was really easy to work with if you send them pictures of your room and a budget. I ultimately built a room that isn't perfect but my guitar amps sound a lot better in the room and mixes can be adjusted a bit more using room correction software. I'm about 85% done with the room in this picture.

 

[nightlight]

You're reading this the wrong way.


You're looking too far into this.


Grief and all that has nothing to do with putting some shaggy carpet in your tiled up echo chamber.




Go get a damn carpet.

It's the tropics. A carpet would just pick up too much dust and would be too difficult to maintain. And it would also make it difficult to clean the room.

Don't get me wrong, I think the floor condition is abysmal as well. It's just that after buying the house, we need to replenish some cash before we get the place renovated. Sorry if it offends your sensibilities.

That said, I'm not trying to keep up with the Kardashians. And couldn't if I tried. It's a working man's home, I'm not a scammer, I don't rob banks, I don't mug people. My wife and I work for a living.

Anyhow, I'll just ignore you and your advice from here on in. It's bad advice, first of all. A carpet would do nothing for my sound problems.

Second, if it's not grief that makes you lash out on the internet like a loon, I don't want anything to do with you.

Does that make sense to you? Or are you gunning for a piece of me?

 

[Ben Waylin]

I went down this path twice before redoing the entire room down to the studs. I'm happy with the way it sounds now.

GIK acoustics was really easy to work with if you send them pictures of your room and a budget. I ultimately built a room that isn't perfect but my guitar amps sound a lot better in the room and mixes can be adjusted a bit more using room correction software. I'm about 85% done with the room in this picture.

View attachment 341912

Looks like what would happen if Dexter were a home recordist.

 

[PiggySmallz]

Looks like what would happen if Dexter were a home recordist.

Ha! Wanted to prevent dust from getting everywhere

 

[Greazygeo]

ARC Studio by IK Multimedia has done wonders for my recording space. The room is decent but a big buildup in the low mids and drop off in the below 100hz. The rest is pretty flat.
Used to have to mix the guitars way forward and just barely have the bass guiitar audible…relearning that now. Mixes are translating much better now.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

That will tame some high end and thats about it.

Exactly, that is not " room treatment".. that's foam. Helps with some reflections as mentioned and then you still have all the low end. The only foam that performs is the auralex stuff that is expensive. Still no better than roxul. Doesn't sound like you are going to do much there. If you just want to handle reflections, carpet and a few thin panels. Also change your mix position.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I went down this path twice before redoing the entire room down to the studs. I'm happy with the way it sounds now.

GIK acoustics was really easy to work with if you send them pictures of your room and a budget. I ultimately built a room that isn't perfect but my guitar amps sound a lot better in the room and mixes can be adjusted a bit more using room correction software. I'm about 85% done with the room in this picture.

View attachment 341912

Gik always recommends thick ass panels overhead. They are probably right about that too. Love the look of your room.

 

[nightlight]

Necroing this thread. Thanks to my wife for always being so supportive, I have begun the process of treating my room.

Some bass traps are on the way, but I first got some 800kg/m3 fibre panels made by a Singaporean company for initial treatment. They look pretty nice too, so quite happy with them.

Another thing I did was move my monitors a bit further from the wall.

Only thing I'm wondering is whether I should have got more of them so that I could have added more of them behind my computer and perhaps a few more on the wall to my right.

Here are some new graphs. The first is of the room after I moved the monitors away from the wall.

The second is after I put the treatment on the wall in front of the computer and the wall directly behind:

I think it's a huge improvement, but that's just me. When I was listening to a fellow member's track, it was not only clearer, but the soundstage was also much improved.

Now just waiting for the bass traps to come in. I couldn't go for really expensive ones, but I got some that have decent mass and a lot of them to boot. Idea is to set a few up behind the problem monitor, and then add a few around the room to get those low end frequencies under control.