improving sound in a VERY small room

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db120
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improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by db120 » Wed Dec 05, 2012 10:12 pm

Have a 7x7x7 room I'd like to improve the sound in. I thought about putting these behind me covering floor to ceiling.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x12x12-12-Pk-B ... 484c689942

Also, thought about bass traps in the corner in front of me and a piece of dampening foam squarely behind the monitor in front of me? Please discuss.

vitalispopoff
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by vitalispopoff » Wed Dec 05, 2012 10:35 pm

+ open a spreadsheet and start counting: the standing waves, RT60, and sound absorption.
+ locate the spots of the first reflections (walls, floor, ceiling)
+ check speaker spacing and balance between all used speakers and Your spot.

things to remember:
+ the standing waves are crucial in range beetwen the lowest one and ~300Hz
+ spots of the first (and early) reflections are to be suppress at first
+ all corners between walls, wall and floor, wall and ceiling are 2D sound mirrors, between two walls and ceiling/floor are 3D sound mirrors. These places naturally produce more bass resonance.

and by the way - 7x7x7? what is the length unit?
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H20nly
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by H20nly » Wed Dec 05, 2012 10:39 pm

i've read that square rooms are the worst.

make sure you put your monitors dead center along the wall and a few feet away from the wall will help as well. if you offset them (a little left or a little right) you will have weirdness in the way that the sound waves travel/reflect. the room is small so the effect of this will be amplified by the lack of space.
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

db120
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by db120 » Wed Dec 05, 2012 10:47 pm

vitalispopoff wrote:+ open a spreadsheet and start counting: the standing waves, RT60, and sound absorption.
+ locate the spots of the first reflections (walls, floor, ceiling)
+ check speaker spacing and balance between all used speakers and Your spot.

things to remember:
+ the standing waves are crucial in range beetwen the lowest one and ~300Hz
+ spots of the first (and early) reflections are to be suppress at first
+ all corners between walls, wall and floor, wall and ceiling are 2D sound mirrors, between two walls and ceiling/floor are 3D sound mirrors. These places naturally produce more bass resonance.

and by the way - 7x7x7? what is the length unit?
I'll try to figure that out. The room is exactly 7 feet height, length, and width.

Have the monitors on the desk so I'll try the other suggestion of in the corners.

Thanks for the replies so far, anyone have other suggestions or thoughts on buying foam like the link above?

vitalispopoff
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by vitalispopoff » Wed Dec 05, 2012 11:24 pm

Good Lord

213cm^3 ?

Ok, I'll tell one thing to let You know what You're dealing with: sound speed is ~1115f/s, so, to get a reasonable sound at 20Hz, the distance between listener and a speaker has to be around 14 feet.

Your first resonances are probably:
+ about 24Hz (4)
+ about 27Hz (6)
+ about 40Hz (3)

as for the higher - it will be their harmonics, and because the room is stricly a cube, standing waves nodes are along the same lines, more of that - You have one common node for all that waves in the room central point.

for the 1st reflection spots Id' suggest thicker absorbers (~ 4 inches?), like these below (except they're corner abs.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPK264QT ... ure=g-hist
also it is worth considering to hang one behind each speaker.
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memes_33
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by memes_33 » Wed Dec 05, 2012 11:45 pm

shitty room dimensions, dude. don't waste your money on those flimsy tiles (by the way, absorbers have nothing to do with soundproofing!). you need to invest in bass traps! at this point, a decent set of cans is probably better than trying to work in that room! when your in the room and you clap, does it have this flutter echo delay sound that tails off?
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vitalispopoff
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by vitalispopoff » Wed Dec 05, 2012 11:55 pm

memes_33 wrote:shitty room dimensions, dude. don't waste your money on those flimsy tiles (by the way, absorbers have nothing to do with soundproofing!). you need to invest in bass traps! at this point, a decent set of cans is probably better than trying to work in that room! when your in the room and you clap, does it have this flutter echo delay sound that tails off?
first things first: early reflections cause comb filter effect which degrades the sound, also absorbers are easy and cheap. To build a good resonator one needs both - good theoretical background, and lots of patience.
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Sage
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by Sage » Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:32 am

vitalispopoff wrote:
memes_33 wrote:shitty room dimensions, dude. don't waste your money on those flimsy tiles (by the way, absorbers have nothing to do with soundproofing!). you need to invest in bass traps! at this point, a decent set of cans is probably better than trying to work in that room! when your in the room and you clap, does it have this flutter echo delay sound that tails off?
first things first: early reflections cause comb filter effect which degrades the sound, also absorbers are easy and cheap. To build a good resonator one needs both - good theoretical background, and lots of patience.
Should add that higher frequencies are more prone to reflecting around a room, takes a lot more to stop lower frequencies, so those tiles aren't useless at all. But yeah, a cube room is essentially useless.

H20nly
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by H20nly » Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:45 am

this might sound crazy... but while i was researching sound proofing i found that sound has a hard time traveling through rubber. in response, i was at Ikea and saw that they had rubber backed door mats for .99 cents U.S. the other side has... basically outdoor carpet on it... so i bought a bunch of them and stapled them to the wall that i face while recording vocals... if you did something like this on the side walls and/or added some other types of filler... then covered them with thick curtains...or maybe two layers of thick curtains from wall to wall you could effectively change the shape of the room from a small square box to a small rectangle. if you monitor at low volumes and have added other means of soundscaping maybe you could get the desired result without spending your life savings to get there.

just a thought... do with it what you will.

what every you decide, good luck and i hope it works out for you.
LoopStationZebra wrote:it's like a hipster commie pinko manifesto. Rambling. Angry. Nearly divorced from all reality; yet strangely compelling with a ring of truth.

vitalispopoff
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by vitalispopoff » Thu Dec 06, 2012 1:01 am

Sage, You're absolutely right, but this does need to be done well, so it will more time - hemholtz resonators are easy to be screwed.

BTW: I've miscaculated those first standing waves - it is a half of the wavelength to be taken, not a quarter. The frequencies are 48Hz, 56Hz and 80Hz.


one more thing: the lowest freq wave goes along the room diagonal, the middle one along the wall diagonal, the highest acrosswise the room, which results (in theory) in the resonanse levels: the first one is -12dB and the second -6dB comparing to the third, but (again) this may differ, as:
1) this is completely closed environment, so double the sound volume is less than theoretical 6dB
2) the room is cubic, so frequencies overlap nicely.

There is one more thing that may be done - to weaken those effects (especially comb filter effect caused by early reflections) it s good to play sounds at lower volume levels

* * *

@ h20lny - that's a good old trick: heavy rubber curtains are said to effectively absorb the wave momentum if they hang loosely - imagine trying to move it by single punch…
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db120
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by db120 » Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:04 am

H20nly wrote:this might sound crazy...
Nope not crazy at all, I should have pointed out this is going to be total gorilla style. There's an IKEA not far so I'll see if they have that deal. I have about 8 drapes too. Gorilla recommendations are welcome.

@memes Yea, no doubt. We might even be neighbors so I'm sure you understand this sort of thing. Also, I should have said dampeners, I know those are totally different than soundproofing and I've corrected people when they misused those in the past. I'm more worried about quality/reverb/reflections than enclosing sound. And yes, I hear that sound, it's essentially like constructing a studio inside a bass bin.


@vitalispopoff so making the room more narrow and 4in dampeners behind the monitors are my best bet?


@sage "a cube room is essentially useless" :/


It's studio apartment and my other alternative is the 17x20 foot main room (5x6 meters) that's rectangular but has a corner with "half" an octagon of five windows jutting off one corner. So the question is, do what I can with the closet room, or use the living room with the 5 windows veering off the one corner? This is just a hobby so nothing has to be Monolake-level-detail, though I'd like it to sound decent if I record something.

vitalispopoff
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by vitalispopoff » Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:17 am

db120 wrote:It's studio apartment and my other alternative is the 17x20 foot main room (5x6 meters) that's rectangular but has a corner with "half" an octagon of five windows jutting off one corner. So the question is, do what I can with the closet room, or use the living room with the 5 windows veering off the one corner? This is just a hobby so nothing has to be Monolake-level-detail, though I'd like it to sound decent if I record something.

And You're starting with 7x7x7 room?

Actually there's nothing You can do make it well, and in 17x20x7 You've got plenty of the most important thing: space.

Don't waste Your time and money.
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fishmonkey
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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by fishmonkey » Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:49 am

7x7x7 is hopeless for music production. putting lots of foam in will overdampen the high frequencies and leave you with a horrible, boxy sounding room, making the bad bass issues even worse.

you'd be much better off in the bigger space (or using headphones)...

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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by ian_halsall » Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:25 am

H20nly wrote:i've read that square rooms are the worst.

make sure you put your monitors dead center along the wall and a few feet away from the wall will help as well. if you offset them (a little left or a little right) you will have weirdness in the way that the sound waves travel/reflect. the room is small so the effect of this will be amplified by the lack of space.
square rooms are worst because they are infinitely thin and you have nowhere to stand

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Re: improving sound in a VERY small room

Post by ian_halsall » Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:27 am

fishmonkey wrote:7x7x7 is hopeless for music production. putting lots of foam in will overdampen the high frequencies and leave you with a horrible, boxy sounding room, making the bad bass issues even worse.

you'd be much better off in the bigger space (or using headphones)...
I agree - completely fill the room with foam

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