Taming a terrible room with a small Mackie mixer?

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cities
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Taming a terrible room with a small Mackie mixer?

Post by cities » Tue Mar 06, 2012 11:39 am

For the near term, I've got a very sub-optimal monitoring situation, where my speakers are too close to the walls and corners in a small room and there's some sort of weird reflecting going on, causing the bass to sound really, really weird. Treating the room isn't really an option, unfortunately -- this is what I have to work with for now.

I was thinking one way to create a workable situation is to buy a small Mackie mixer and use its EQ to tame some of the weird bass on its way to the speakers. My thinking is if I can suppress some of the bass and keep the monitoring levels really low I might be able to get some sort of usable sound. Not the perfect solution, obviously, but what do y'all think -- could this help enough so I can at least use my speakers? Right now I'm basically depending on headphones for mixing, which is problematic in and of itself I know.

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Post by kayagum » Tue Mar 06, 2012 11:52 am

Make sure your speaker wires aren't reversed.

If that's OK, monitor at lower volumes.

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Re: Taming a terrible room with a small Mackie mixer?

Post by vxboogie » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:07 pm

cities wrote:For the near term, I've got a very sub-optimal monitoring situation, where my speakers are too close to the walls and corners in a small room and there's some sort of weird reflecting going on, causing the bass to sound really, really weird. Treating the room isn't really an option, unfortunately -- this is what I have to work with for now.

I was thinking one way to create a workable situation is to buy a small Mackie mixer and use its EQ to tame some of the weird bass on its way to the speakers. My thinking is if I can suppress some of the bass and keep the monitoring levels really low I might be able to get some sort of usable sound. Not the perfect solution, obviously, but what do y'all think -- could this help enough so I can at least use my speakers? Right now I'm basically depending on headphones for mixing, which is problematic in and of itself I know.
First thought would be "No". If the issue is reflections(potentially more problematic at higher frequencies) and room modes(potentially more problematic at low frequency). If it's that bad, use good headphones to get as close as you can, then check it in other environments.

Room modes will still be evident regardless of the volume and trying to EQ it will change and potentially make it worse at other locations, sometimes only inches away.
Mark - Listen, turn knob, repeat as necessary...

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Post by dfuruta » Tue Mar 06, 2012 1:11 pm

"Taming a terrible room with a small Mackie mixer" made me think of a circus act.

Surely you could put up some moveable acoustic panels? You can go a long way without making permanent alterations to the room.

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Post by cities » Thu Mar 08, 2012 10:34 am

Thanks for the responses everyone -- my takeaway is that EQ isn't likely to solve the problem, which is good information to have. I think my best solution is just to monitor at super low volume and make sure to check mixes with other systems in other locations.

Thanks again!

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Post by cavemusic » Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:45 pm

Seems to me a good solution is get a good pair of headphones. IMO, that will give you a better idea of what's going on in the mix, rather than try to deal with an acoustic mess of a room.
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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Thu Mar 08, 2012 5:25 pm

dfuruta wrote:Surely you could put up some moveable acoustic panels? You can go a long way without making permanent alterations to the room.
this. if you can afford a little mackie you can afford some 703. post a pic of your room and we can give you ideas.

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Post by blungo2 » Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:24 pm

I was gonna suggest a decent pair of open back headphones as well. There are a couple plugins that try to make headphones seem less headphoney. They kinda work, but i gave up on them.

edit: i don't think monitoring at super low volume is a solution either.

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Post by Scodiddly » Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:33 am

The room is going to be what it is - I wouldn't even try to equalize my way out of bass problems with a state of the art digital speaker processor, let alone a simple bass-treble EQ. Maybe you can stack couch cushions in the corners when you mix?

You're going to have to diversify - make it easy to take your mixes out for reference in your car, on a friend's stereo, etc. Going ultra low volume might be interesting, since it'll change how your ears perceive bass (Fletcher-Munson curve).

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Post by JWL » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:33 am

Agreed with the above. The problem is, bass response is skewed via comb filtering, so you will have high peaks and deep nulls, and the peaks/nulls will be at different frequencies at different points in the room.

So even if you EQ for one point (the listening position), what if you have, say, a +10dB peak at 75Hz and a -15dB null at 78Hz (problems close together like this are quite common). And this doesn't even take into account the theoretical problem of boosting a null point.... a null is by definition zero, and when you boost you are trying to multiply.... and multiplying anything by zero is still zero. Not to mention the extra stress you will impart on your amplifier(s) and speaker(s).....

So yeah. "Fixing" a room via EQ? Bad idea imho....

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Post by kayagum » Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:10 am

Original Poster: so how's it going?

To elaborate on my post (done quickly from work): checking polarity on your speaker wire is important if your "weird" bass sound is phasey or hollow. How do I know? Hmmmmm... from past experience?

If you're getting crazy nulls and boosts, JWL is right on with the EQ. My comment on low volume monitoring is also part of the equation. At higher volumes, you'll only reinforce/exacerbate standing waves and nulls. At lower volumes, you'll lose some of the aforementioned Fletcher Munson curve , but mixing choices are easier and more apparent. The light bulb clicked on for me when I read an article about Alan Moulder and Kevin Shields ( maybe even from TapeOp mag!) that they didn't blast their monitoring. Also works well in small untreated rooms (my first setup was in an eating nook in my studio apt)

When I did sound design work, I tended to make panning and spatial decisions on monitors, most eq and edit/splice/comp/noise tail decisions on headphones, and definitely tested on car speakers, boomboxes and cheap computer speakers before bringing it to rehearsal. And it worked great, and I didn't need a fully treated room to do it, even though that would have been nice and save me time with fewer tweaks of the knob. Classic case of the "fast cheap good pick any two" business rule.

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