I need room setup/experimentation ideas

[Snarl 12/8]

So many questions. I guess, based on the fact that I have so many idiosyncratic things going on in my setup.

My room is shaped like a huge L, but with one leg of the L actually being sortof triangle shaped. I can only really set up in the non-triangle leg of the L. The triangle is basically a hallway to the back of the basement. I have a "one room" studio where the mix setup and all the instruments are together. My main monitors are also triangle shaped EV Setry 1a. Designed to mounted flat on a wall so the baffle is angled down. These speakers each weigh 74 lbs. (Hard to experiment with different positions, move them up and down, etc.)

So, a while ago, I moved my mix position slightly and heard a huge improvement in detail, but realized this was basically random placement and I could maybe do better if I was more methodical. I downloaded a CD of test tones and started measuring loudness of the different tones in different spots in the room and what I'm finding is depressing. I can't find a spot, that works out logistically where the bass isn't weak. I realized last night that using music was easier for the experimenting than the test tones and it's pretty obvious when you crank the Fishbone when the bass drops out.

Also, I took down a lot of the room treatment (to make things more obvious). But I can't actually move all the amps and drums and stuff out to do this. So every major speaker move requires shuffling the gear around. And all that gear moving around affects the acoustics.

What would you do if you were in my position? How would you go about finding the best spot for the mixer/monitors? Then, how would you find the best spot for the drums,bass amp, etc., etc? I'm starting to think I'm really effing screwed. We're thinking of moving, so I can't really justify building a wall to simplify the geometry. Can I use my smaller nearfields to test each spot? I'm getting worn out. Or do I really need to try my main speakers in each spot? Up against the wall (as they were designed) the midrange sounds amazing. I'm hearing things in this CD I'm using that I haven't noticed in 20 years of listening to it. The imaging is great, but the bass sounds shelved at 130. Turning up the bass didn't really do anything either. I can hear good detail in the bass, do I just need to get used to it being lower? I'm not sure I can mix my stuff without getting some good pounding going pretty early in the process. I'm a drummer. Should I shlep my amps, drums, mixer, etc. up the stairs out of the space to really figure this out? Or is there some simple way of doing this that I'm too stupid to figure out on my own.

Is the spot your ears are at or the speakers the biggest deal? I've started wondering, when I look at these control room pictures you see on the interwebs how they can have their auratones, NS10s, focals, and mains all in the perfect positions? Maybe there is a limit to how many different monitors can really be useful in a mixing setup.

I just thought of another question. Could it be my "superchunk" bass traps, that I've left in place for the testing, that are causing the consistent drop in the low end? How else could it be in so many places throughout the room?

Sorry for the long ramble, this is really confusing and demoralizing the hell out of me.

Help me TOMB, you're my only hope.

Thanks,

[Gregg Juke]

Hey-- You stole my stealing the Star Wars line from that other guy that used it...

Karl, what if you just got a sub-woofer and a good set of headphones to check against? If you have good reference CD's, and are used to listening to (a lot of) music in that space, maybe you don't have to reconstruct your whole life?

How bad are the dimensions? The L-shape sounds a little weird, and the bass traps might be contributing to your quandry, but I know two things:

1) Some guys would kill for a space with non-parallel walls, which it sounds like you have (or could pretty easily modify to?).

2) No room that is not purpose-built will be perfect.

3) The more you listen in that space, the easier it will be to have "corrective hearing," but if you keep moving things around, you'll never get it settled enough to nail it.

4) I think the more speakers/headphones/playback you have available, the better (they all sound different)... same deal with video, we're learning (looks great on one monitor, not on the other; great on DVD, but not as a Real Audio video file; good in Vegas, but not encoded in such and such...). You've got to shoot for the middle and give it your most educated guesstimate, because nobody will be listening on the exact same system as you anyway...

OK, that was four things. Counting was never my strong suit. But I'd hate to see you end up with a hernia.

GJ

[Gregg Juke]

PS-- WHY do I keep spelling your name with a "K?" Sorry, I don't know (but it might have something to do with the other three Carl's/Karl's I know).

Sorry, mang.

GJ

[Snarl 12/8]

1) Some guys would kill for a space with non-parallel walls, which it sounds like you have (or could pretty easily modify to?).

C'mon, non-parallel walls is one thing, but I don't think anyone in audio would kill for a six foot ceiling in a weird-ass not even L-shaped room. In fact, the hallway is L-shaped because I built it that way to create a non-parallel music room, that I subsequently outgrew and couldn't use any more.

2) No room that is not purpose-built will be perfect.

I'm sure not even purpose built rooms can ever be "perfect." Is there anyone known for mixing out in the salt flats or somewhere? Wouldn't that be ideal, no walls?

3) The more you listen in that space, the easier it will be to have "corrective hearing," but if you keep moving things around, you'll never get it settled enough to nail it.

This was the assumption I "worked" (my output has grown less and less, I think, possibly due to the frustration of never hearing anything good out of the monitors) with for years. My recent experiment of moving my whole setup back 2 feet really opened my ears though. I tried, and tried, and tried to get used to the way it was and simply couldn't. I think if you null enough frequencies eventually you get a combed out sound that is simply unworkable. And I tried to work with it long enough.

I am worried that I now have (GAS) Good Acoustics Syndrome and I'm going to be chasing an impossible dream for too long (and hopefully not) too much money. I could see this looking for the perfect spot thing getting rather compulsive, especially since I lean that way to begin with.

4) I think the more speakers/headphones/playback you have available, the better (they all sound different)... same deal with video, we're learning (looks great on one monitor, not on the other; great on DVD, but not as a Real Audio video file; good in Vegas, but not encoded in such and such...). You've got to shoot for the middle and give it your most educated guesstimate, because nobody will be listening on the exact same system as you anyway...

I've got 3 sets of speakers and headphones. I'm gonna keep trying to find a good spot for the speakers. I thought about a subwoofer, but the turning up the bass and not hearing a difference made me think that wasn't the way to go. My "mains" have 12" woofers, huge ports and huge cabs and are rated to go down to 37Hz, which sounds about right from some of the things I've heard them do.

[Gregg Juke]

In the words of Archie Bunker, "I hope youse have a good groinocologist, dere..."

GJ

[Snarl 12/8]

As a kid I had 3 hernia operations. So, I hear you on that one.

[Snarl 12/8]

OK. So, I have a bit more "data." Turns out, in my case, I think cranking the Fishbone through the speakers while I move them around and stick my head in different places might have been the fastest way to home in on the sweet spot. Then I used the Bonham and some African funk to confirm. (All shit I'm very familiar with).

So, then I tried some test tones. Individual frequencies from 10-400. I only got to about 260 before my ears were dying. I play the frequencies with my Tapeop Omni where my head would go and watch the meters on my mixer. It's fairly flat (within 6-9db?!) for a lot of it. Way better than the multiple 30db fluctuations I was getting before. But, there's a huge null, the meter wasn't lit up at all, so I don't know how huge at 65Hz and again at 195Hz. There was not a null at 130 as I was expecting. So, I'm assuming this is from cancellation, because I could hear the 65/196 very well in other spots but it was clearly gone when I put my head by the mic.

So, how hard is it to target absorption at 65Hz and 195Hz without fucking up the general linearity I have going on elsewhere in the low end. Is that even possible in an impossibly fucked up basement room on a budget? Is that what I want to do in this case? Absorb at those frequencies so they don't cancel and I just get them straight off the speakers? It's obviously counter-intuitive to absorb the frequencies I want louder. Am I over thinking this?

I think I can work in that spot, I'm just willing to dial it in a bit better if there is the possibility. Does the above information indicate that there's an even better spot somewhere obvious? Or is it "normal" to have huge nulls at specific frequencies in a room.

I'm learning a lot about audio, at any rate.

Thanks so much,