My tracking room sort of sucks

[AstroDan]

I'm rocking out in a barn/shed. It's actually a small, old oak barn, but was turned into living quarters complete with sheetrock, wood paneling, and a second floor. I took out half of the second story floor, which left me with a 15' high ceiling and 18' x 15' wide room to track in. I have a bedroom size room to moniter from.

The 15' high tracking room has a barn roof shaped ceiling (angled eaves) with sheetrock, and the lower walls have the wood paneling. The floor is cement and left bare.

The room sounds like it has a head cold. It's not a massive room, but I would figure the decent height of the ceiling combined with the bright, hard floor would produce results better than what I'm getting. Is it the angled ceiling? The sheetrock? The wood paneling? I feel this room may have a little potential, but it ain't there yet.

[surf's up]

Maybe you need to add some absorption. If the floor is bare concrete, and with the size of the room Im guessing you are getting some pretty gnarly reflections, which could be what youre going for of course, but if left untreated probably yields a pretty uneven frequency response.

Im no expert but you could probably add some bass trapping and broadband absorption and still have a big, live sounding tracking room.

You also might consider bass trapping (or maybe a diffusor?) in the angle of the ceiling since frequencies tend to bunch up in concave type areas, and especially low frequencies in corners.

[myfipie]

I would hang some 2 inch rigid fiberglass panels in the upper angel of the ceiling. Also I would add as many 4" bass traps as you could. Staddling as many corners as possible.
For the side walls it is more of a taste thing. The less you put in the more bright the room is. This could be a good thing if you are going for that sound. I myself try to get as much of the room sound out of the mix (unless it is a BIG room).

Glenn

[judecca]

The room sounds like it has a head cold. It's not a massive room, but I would figure the decent height of the ceiling combined with the bright, hard floor would produce results better than what I'm getting. Is it the angled ceiling? The sheetrock? The wood paneling? I feel this room may have a little potential, but it ain't there yet.

you should read this...... it helped out a-plenty in designing our room:

http://www.acoustics101.com/


ryan

[lsn110]

Also, there's a lot of really good info (and tools) here:
http://www.realtraps.com/info.htm

Ethan, who runs that site, shows up here from time to time and offers sage advice.

Another good resource is:
http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

Sounds like a nice workspace...and you should be able to tame it.

Good luck

[JWL]

One problem is that two of your wall dimensions are equal, which means those standing waves will reinforce one another.

Listen to Glenn's advice above. Add some absorption on the ceiling, and get bass traps in the corners. That alone will hugely improve the sound of the room.

[AstroDan]

These are great links, thanks.

I do need bass traps. I need to figure out some way to economize space when installing them. With drums, amps and musicians all in one room even an additional mic stand takes up space.