Garage Studio Build

[roscoenyc]

A lot depends on the speakers you have too.

I learned of the 38% thing from Ethan at Real Traps http://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm
It helped us a lot at our old studio and we've incorporated the measurements into our new place too. We have ADAM P33A's on Sound Anchor stands.

That said, at my home rig where I have much more modest monitors (Eve Audio SC205's) they sound very good close to the wall.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

The speakers are pretty crap at the moment. KRKs that have been in the "must upgrade" list for a long, long time. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I know them really well and money is always a bit short.

That said, the lion's share of my mix gets done on auratones.

[wren]

To go into MoreSpaceEcho's link in a little more detail, if you care and don't know and want to maybe do the calculations yourself:

Putting speakers against the wall, or close to the wall, is going to help a lot with low end cancellation because: sound moves at 1127ft/sec., and you calculate the wavelength by speed of sound divided by frequency. If you're rounding roughly (sound moving a foot a millisecond, or 1000ft/sec.), that makes the wavelength of 100Hz about 10', the wavelength of 250Hz about 4', the wavelength of 1kHz about 1', etc. The lower the frequency the less directional it is, you know this I'm sure, so 100Hz is definitely going to be radiating out from all around the speaker. If the speaker is 2.5' from the wall, 100Hz will radiate out from the rear of the speaker, travel 2.5', hit the wall, and travel another 2.5' back, meaning it's traveled 5' total by the time it makes it back to its point of origin. 5' is half of 10', which is the wavelength of 100Hz - half the wavelength is 180 degrees out of phase, so all the reflected 100Hz that makes it back to the speaker will result in major cancellation at 100Hz.
If you're 6" from the wall, the reflection off the back wall will be 180 degrees out of phase with 500Hz (6" + 6" = 1'; 500Hz wavelength is 2'), which theoretically is less of a big deal. Of course, being closer to the wall also means the reflection coming back is going to be much louder and will therefore cancel more, so you have to take that into account, but absorbing 500Hz is easier.
Hopefully that makes sense and is moderately interesting to someone.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Of course, being closer to the wall also means the reflection coming back is going to be much louder and will therefore cancel more, so you have to take that into account, but absorbing 500Hz is easier.

Just to quibble a little, 500hz is gonna be coming out of your speakers in a more directional manner than 100hz (which is going to be totally omni), so there's gonna be less of it radiating to the front wall and reflecting back. So I'm not sure if it would really be louder. But regardless, a problem at 500 is way easier to treat than 100!

A quick easy way to test the low end response of your room: load a basic sine wave patch (the default bass synth patch in reaper is perfect for this) and play a chromatic scale starting from around a low B. If you do this in a room with no treatment it'll be horrifying, some notes will be doomsday loud and others will be almost inaudible.

Anyway sorry for the O/T Dave, didn't mean to hijack your thread!

[A.David.MacKinnon]

Anyway sorry for the O/T Dave, didn't mean to hijack your thread!

No apologies needed. I'm reading with great interest. I'm going to do some tests and experimenting but the thought of being able to stay up against the wall an attractive one. Every inch count in a 12 x 20 room.

[wren]

Of course, being closer to the wall also means the reflection coming back is going to be much louder and will therefore cancel more, so you have to take that into account, but absorbing 500Hz is easier.

Just to quibble a little, 500hz is gonna be coming out of your speakers in a more directional manner than 100hz (which is going to be totally omni), so there's gonna be less of it radiating to the front wall and reflecting back. So I'm not sure if it would really be louder. But regardless, a problem at 500 is way easier to treat than 100!

To continue pedantic hijack (sorry!):
That's true, and I almost wrote that, but my final thought was that more directional still isn't necessarily directional - a lot of studio monitors are too small in size to have much directionality even at 500Hz, and if you're talking about something as small as an Auratone, ~500Hz is probably going to be pretty close to omnidirectional so I didn't want to make it a blanket statement. Generally speaking, you're totally right that the increased directionality of 500Hz is probably going to mean that its reflections are much quieter, but that does depend a great deal on the speaker, and if you have Auratones next to larger monitors there's probably going to be a pretty significant difference between them re: the directionality and reflections of 500Hz.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Yeah, it does depend on the speaker, and I think things do start getting omni not far below 500, so we're mostly in agreement.

There's some new speaker designs out now with rear-facing woofers and onboard DSP that are designed to mitigate the effects of the room considerably. I'm old fashioned and think plain old passive speakers with separate amps in a really great room is the way to go, and I'm also skeptical of room correction and DSP in speakers....BUT....I'm old fashioned. And I'm probably wrong and these things are the way of the future.