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Advice for control/listening room

6K views 34 replies 5 participants last post by  guild 
#1 ·
Hi everyone,
I posted this over in REW thread but was pointed here as a better place for advice. I have a ground floor studio in our three story house which includes a live room, vocal booth and a control/listening room. I have been steadily preparing the various spaces over the past 5 months and have arrived at the time to work the control room.

Here are my REW measurements taken with the following equipment:

Alesis Monitor One Mk2 speakers powered by an old school Yamaha EMX150 desk

Tascam US-1800

Behringer ECM8000 using the generic calibration file

The measurements were taken at my listening position, ear height, 900mm from each speaker at 75dB

The room is 3m x 3.5m x 2.7m high and has limited treatment at the moment - 6 x SA600-75's from Sound Acoustics which were left over from the vocal booth - one between speakers, one each at first reflection and 2 stacked on top of each in the back two corners of the room.

I have also been cheating a bit with room eq using a Behringer Ultra Curve Pro DEQ2496 - used the same ECM8000 in the exact same position to create an automatic room eq.

I'm interested to hear what you guys think and if there are any suggestions further treatment wise (including anything which might reduce dependency on the Ultra Curve).

Here are the measurements without the Ultra Curve
View attachment Mar 25 15_53_02 no UC.mdat

Text Line Plot Slope Diagram


Green Tree Grass Plant


And here they are with the Ultra Curve
View attachment Mar 25 15_53_59 with UC.mdat

Text Line Plot Font Parallel


Yellow Plant Tree Willow Saccharina japonica


And finally a diagram of the room layout including guitars hung on the right hand wall :D There is a medium weight curtain that covers the main entrance and front windows.

Floor plan Plan Room Architecture Drawing


I'm looking forward to getting to know as much and as many people as I can,
Cheers,
Mick
 
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#2 ·
Being offset is giving you different response between left and right speaker. Door behind you makes it difficult to address cancellations off the rear wall.

35ish is modal as it does not change based on the EQ where the others do.

Decay time seems long in the 100 and down range. Upper frequencies seem short. Looks like too much thin absorption and not enough thick.

Bryan
 
#6 ·
Here are the left and right charts at 1/24 Octave smoothing. I've included both with and without the UltraCurve as I am still interested in treating the room to reduce reliance on it. I guess I'm keen to clean up anything it may be masking if that makes sense.

Here's the Left - No UC
Text Green Line Font Plot


And the Right - No UC
Text Line Font Blue Plot


Left - With UC
Text Line Font Plot Pattern


And Right - With UC
Text Line Purple Pink Font


Mick
 
#7 ·
This is a perfect example of why you need to set up symmetrically left to right in a room. The right speaker is obviously a much bigger offender. That's likely because it's set up pretty much 1/2 of the width of the room while the left is getting a ton of boundary gain from being corner loaded.

As you're seeing, you can't EQ out a modal null. You need to work with positioning to fix that null.

Bryan
 
#9 ·
Sometimes when you get stuck between a rock and a hard place like this, you have to resort to something drastic like sitting diagonally facing into a corner.

Treat the front corner and the diagonal corner behind you as well as your side walls more for boundary interactions than for reflections.

Bryan
 
#10 ·
Thanks for the replys Bryan and Jim,
The monitors are not crucial for recording but are when mixing etc so perhaps I'll extend the end of the work area with a collapsible shelf in front of the vocal booth door and move the right hand monitor to get the symmetry required. I'll do a temporary setup and measure and post the results tomorrow.

Any suggestions as to how far from the corners /vocal booth wall I should look to get them?
Cheers
Mick
 
#15 · (Edited)
Here is the symetrical measurements. Listening position @38% room length and speakers/listening point form 1000mm equilateral triangle...

I have also removed all of the temporary treatment from the room to givea clean slate to work from...

First left and right together with no UltraCurve
Text Purple Line Font Plot


Left with no UltraCurve
Text Green Font Line Plot


Right with no UltraCurve
Text Purple Blue Font Line


Both left and right with UltraCurve
Text Blue Font Line Handwriting


Left with UltraCurve
Text Font Line Plot Design


Right with UltraCurve
Text Blue Font Green Line


I'll setup the diagonal shortly and see what we get with that too
Cheers,
Mick
 
#16 ·
Here are the diagonal measurements. Speakers and listening point make a 1000mm equilateral triangle. The listening position is now facing the top left corner of my studio plan diagram on page 1 of this thread. No treatment in the room...

Both left and right with no UltraCurve
Text Font Line Plot Pattern


Left with no UltraCurve
Text Green Font Line Plot


Right with no UltraCurve
Text Font Line Pink Plot


Both with UltraCurve
Text Font Blue Green Line


Left with UltraCurve
Text Font Line Plot Pattern


Right with UltraCurve
Text Purple Blue Violet Line


I look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions.
Thanks heaps,
Mick
 
#18 ·
Really hard to AB those with so many graphs in between. Any chance you can just use overlays so we can see each one AB diagonal vs original on the same graph? For now, let's just look at both channels no eq.

Bryan
 
#19 ·
Hi Bryan,
Thanks heaps for persisting with this. Here are the AB charts. I have done 2, original offset v diagonal (but the original still had the temporary treatment in place while the diagonal doesn't) and the symetrical v diagonal (both with no treatment).

Original (Black) v Diagonal (Blue)
Text Blue Font Line Plot


Symetrical (Red) v Diagonal (Blue)
Text Plot Line Pink Pattern


Thanks again,
Mick
 
#20 ·
Well, certainly different. Don't know that it's any better. In fact, the diagonal appears to have more nulls if you look at things with 75db being the midline of the response.
 
#22 ·
If you do the symmetric setup, at least you can test left to right, front to back, etc. and try to pin down where a problem is coming from to address it - assuming you can/are willing to treat where it needs.

Bryan
 
#25 ·
I'll see what I can source locally then. Given I am a novice and am not sure what to look for in the graphs do they show anything I should specifically address to begin with? Any insight/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Mick
 
#27 ·
Here are the symmetrical measurements with offsets measured 30cm (1') from the listening position

Center
View attachment Apr 17 12_52_31 sym CENTER.mdat

Left of center 30cm
View attachment Apr 17 12_56_22 sym LEFT.mdat

Right of center 30cm
View attachment Apr 17 12_58_16 sym RIGHT.mdat

Forward of center 30cm
View attachment Apr 17 13_40_38 sym FORWARD.mdat

Backward of center 30cm
View attachment Apr 17 13_00_11 sym BACK.mdat

Comparisons:

Center (Black) Left
Text Blue Line Plot Font


Center (Black) Backward
Text Blue Line Plot Font


Center (Black) Right
Text Blue Line Plot Font


Center (Black) Forward
Text Green Line Font Plot
 
#29 ·
Brown in the first one is the measurement 1" to the left of the listening position (center)

Blue in the second one is the measurement 1" back from the listening position

Purple in the third one is the measurement 1" to the right of the listening position

Green in the fourth one is the measurement 1" forward from the listening position

Sorry if I have misunderstood but I thought you wanted to see these compared to the listening position
 
#30 ·
Nice! I'm really interested in Bryan's input about how to "read" the measures of the different positions (i.e. is there a way to pinpoint where the problems are coming from with these graphs??).

That said, the blue one (backward 1 foot) feels like it would be a better listening position, as it is the one that helped the most with the bass problems. It kinda caused trouble at higher freq, but since it's a lot easier to cure higher freq than lower ones.... however I guess you can not really afford 1 foot back hehe :(

As far as acoustic material, if you can't afford the real stuff the DIY way can be affordable. Wooden frame, dense mineral wool, good thick fabric and some time can do the trick! Or take a look on Ebay for some acoustic foam. Just make sure the NRC ratings of the foam suits your needs, usually 4" thick does a honest job.
 
#32 ·
I would agree that back 1' seems to help most with the lowest problems and get you closer to the +/-5 desired. It does deepen a null farther up - likely a cancellation off the wall behind you.

Bryan
 
#33 ·
Ok, so time for some research into what treatment to go with. Given we are going with the symmetrical setup should I just start with the standard first reflection points (left/right/ceiling) or maybe focus on the rear wall. I have freedom to do whatever I want construction wise so if putting a temporary or false wall in front of the windows at the rear will help then that is no problem.
Thanks again,
Mick
 
#34 ·
I've done a fair bit of treatment and rearranged the studio as per this new layout...

Floor plan Plan Drawing Room Artwork


The speaker on the right is on a swivel mount so access to the booth is not obstructed.

I have treated the first reflection points at left, right and ceiling and have installed bass traps up the front left corner behind the speaker, across the ceiling/front wall corner above the workstation, across the ceiling/back wall corner and almost all of the way along the left and right/ceiling corners.

I have raised the speaker heights to 1320mm centers (from 1265mm) and have moved the listening position back 300mm. I am going to try lifting the speakers further to 1500mm on Wednesday to see if that makes further improvement.

Here is the comparison between the original 'Ideal Listening Position' (Black) and the measurement taken today after the above changes (Blue)

Text Blue Line Font Plot


I feel like I am making progress but am keen to receive further wisdom if its available...

As yet the back wall is untreated and is simply the curtain dropped in front of the windows. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Mick

PS. In case anyone is interested, here is the measurement taken with the UltraCurve activated and calibrated for the room changes...
Text Blue Line Font Slope
 
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