Ableton Forum

Might not be because of the room, could just be phase cancellation between the two speakers...
could also be a soundcard issue?

Take them to another room, same technical setup and see what happens there to make it easier on your troubleshooting.

Try to make your room/speakers/listening position symmetrical in the room. Also, I've found sometimes that turning the whole setup 90 degrees in the room can help or hurt a lot.

I posted this, the last time this question came up.


Got a few minutes?
Acoustic treatment.
Two types.
Acoustic treatment that keeps sound from traveling around the room, creating unwanted reverb, the 'spring' sound when you clap your hands(standing waves) or more so, reducing unwanted reflections to provide a smooth response from your monitors.
Let's call this absorbtion.

Acoustic treatment that prevents sound from leaving your room through the walls.
Let's call this transmission loss.

The key to both systems is that low frequency sound(let's call this bass) has a lot of energy and needs a lot of material to tame it. High frequencies require less material to stop vibrating.

You most likely don't have an issue with treble leaving through your walls. Maybe treble that bounces around to much. Also, bass that leaves through the walls is bass you're not hearing, it's in the mix but you can't tell.
Foam, blankets, duvets, cubicle wall dividers, carpeted walls, rugs and panels made with wood frames and filled with insulation and covered with fabric are great for keeping treble from hitting you from all sides when monitoring. Too much, and your room will be too 'dead' and unnatural.
Don't use egg cartons. They are used to hold eggs. They are also usually cardboard and will make your room sound like cardboard.

So we want transmission loss protection.
One thing vibrating will cause the thing next to it to vibrate as well.
If we are building a brand new building for a studio, we would build two rooms, one inside the other.
Inside room, from inside out:
2 layers of drywall
studs with insulation.
3 inch air space.
another stud wall insulated.
6 inch to 1 foot air gap
and a sturdy outer wall to finish. Maybe brick or plaster.
Also, a floating floor keeps the walls and floor from touching eachother, and the ground itself.

So, bass hits the wall and keeps going through. Now it has to contend with drywall, fibreglass, air and another wall and an air gap before leaving.

At home, your speakers sit on something. Feel it to see if it vibrates. Does the floor that thing sits on vibrate?
First and easiest is to 'decouple' your speakers. Any vibration you feel touching your speakers or their stands is sound that is leaving physically and you are not hearing. This is the bass your mix is lacking. This is what your neighbors are hearing.
Concrete under the speaker stands is key. Your speakers will immedeatly sound better. Or try a flagstone between the stand and speaker. If you use stands that are hollow metal posts, they are ment to be filled with sand. HiFi stores that have those stand that come with spikes on the bottom? Those spike reduce the surface area that is in contact with the floor, so less vibration goes through.

Posh stands aside, let's talk walls.

The trick to DIY transmission loss protection is layering. We want thick, heavy layers of stuff with gaps in between, transmission hates surface/air/surface situations.
Rockwool insulation and plywood are great tools for home studio improvement. Rockwool is usally 2 inches thick or so and is very compact.

Bass lesson #1.
Proximity effect.
Put your ear 3 inches from the wall and talk. My, how bassy you sound!
Bass primarily gets 3db louder when its hitting surface. That's 6db in corners and 9db in wall/wall/ceiling or floor situation. With a piece of plywood diagonally across the corner, wall to wall, we can stuff in behind the plywood to fill in the corner of the room. This is a bass trap. Wall/wall, wall/ceiling or wall/floor. Put these where you can. They TRAP BASS.
Neat, huh?
I could go on. Haven't even touched on diffusion. Everything you need is here: http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

Also, www.soundonsound.com has an awesome acoustics forum.

And for the story of a lifetime check http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?t=107
for Paul's Studio Build Diary. This guy goes all out!
end last post.

That being said, I'm in an apartment, I know my neighbors and their schedual. I've been in their place when my roomate has been playing my Vdrums. I spoke with the landlord before I moved in an advised them that I need a place to 'work' as well as live and the fact that my 'work' can be loud at times.
When everything comes together, it is nice having a cool apartment that I can write in. It will suck anytime I can't play drums at 1 in the morning becuase that's what I love doing but from time to time when I know the neighbors are out...

jer

what do you need basstraps for?...your closet is one allready

Maybe we could give more advise if we knew the size/shape of the room and how your stuff is currently setup?
It sounds like you are simply suffering from a bad case of proximity effect.

not sure if your room looks anything like these http://audio.tutsplus.com/tutorials/rec ... treatment/

maybe there is something here that will help

im sure i read something in a thread on here recently about being able to generate a sine wave from abe and then you can hear peaks and troughs of the sound depending where you are situated in the room - mmm .. something like that - maybe someone can remember this a bit better or know where the thread is

It's actually rather simple to do something about it, as your lack of symetry in the setup will produce exactly those problems you describe. Forget about the foam etc. but focus on placement.
These are simple rules, and hopefully you will be able to move some things around to achieve the following:

1. You desk needs to be centered on the shortest axis, meaning that it should be placed facing against the 2.5m wall as that will result in having the same amount of bass being reflected from both corners and partially eliminate the differentiated audio experience.
If it's impossible for you to make any kind of Broadband Absorber Panel or other sound adjustment installations, the "Symetry" bit is your best option... far from perfect as it's a compromise, but better than nothing.

2. Your monitors should be spaced apart in a imaginary triangle with equal distance between them and the "third leg of the triangle" being your head (in the listening position which in correct terms should be at around 38% of the total length measured, from the wall you are facing ).
More specifics is that the tweeters of you monitors should be level with your ears. If you need to place the monitors on foam make sure it's made for the purpose ie. a relatively high density, and not just whatever you pulled out from a mattress I have besides sand filled, spike resting stands, mounted my monitors on a dense foam product, called VT Feet from Valhalla Technology. (google to find it in your country)

That's all you can do if you can't employ some sort of DIY panels as any kind of pyramid foam, egg cartons or other miracle products will not benefit you a bit, besides emptying your wallet and look bad at the same time!

If you can't move do something drastic to correct your listening position, no amount of treatment is ever going to help you out, so get going with the sledgehammer and destroy all but you studio desk and gear. Let's face it, you don't need those other things to do a Timberland impersonation!!!

throw out the internet cable altogether, I think you'll find that'll help your music making time more than room treatment.

Tone Deft wrote:throw out the internet cable altogether, I think you'll find that'll help your music making time more than room treatment.

seriously, I think Tone is right. it's so easy to get distracted when your computer is capable of going online.. like I should be working right now, but instead, I am on this forum...