Hi, I'm wanting to add a bit of acoustic improvement to my home recording set-up and need a bit of advice.
I currently just have two acoustic tiles - one behind each monitor. I was thinking of adding a removable panel to my left where the open window is. I know I'm not ideally positioned in the corner, but I can't change that so will just have to work round it.
1) Should I add the panel on my left - or will this confuse matters if there's no symetrical panel opposite?
2) Should I put a panel to the left hand side of the left monitor (my left hand side as facing the monitor)?
It would make sense to me to fill the open gap to my left as that doesn't seem ideal, but maybe others think differently?
My room looks like this:
Comments
I would also consider a heavy curtain for the French doors to damp them down a bit. But to be honest it is what it is,
The speakers are too close together for anything other than really close in monitoring in which case you would struggle to get enough volume up to cause the kind of issues acoustic panels would help with.
If possible I would rotate the desk 90 degrees to the left and position it so that the monitor was in front of the serving hatch and then get a couple of speaker stands and widen out the speakers (I[m saying speakers instead of monitors to try and avoid confusion|)
Interesting about the hatch. I was already planning to fill it in some way but it sounds like that may be counter productive!
The old trick is to sit at your listening position and get someone to place a small mirror on the reflective wall. when you see the speaker , thats where a tile should go.
I would still look at the ceiling as well, you will get some bounce from that. Also the bass will be unpredictable in that corner so a home made bass trap in the corner might help
I wouldn't expect miracles but there are some small improvements you could make
The bass is a separate issue because the wavelengths are longer so corners should be trapped (I'e dense foam) as a rule of thumb but of course every room is different and every set of monitors is different and there is a certain amount of suck it and see.
And the ceiling tile directly above the monitors? Just a standard acoustic tile for this?
My home studio setup has compromises too and the best thing I've done in recent years is buy a pair of Shure SRH1440 headphones (they were around £165). I'm not a lover of working on cans but a mixture of using my speakers (at very low volumes in my case) for the donkey work and headphones for the finer mixing details has resulted in better results.
Standard acoustic tile but if you are a bit handy insulating fibreglass and some cloth and you can make your own that look a bit nicer
One thing I occasionally do to make the wall nicer is get some canvas prints done and build out the frames a little then pack them with rockwool. and your acoustic tile is now a nice picture... less grief from the missus
I've got a pair of Audio Technica ATH-50 headphones which I use a lot for mixing. I do like using the monitors as well though, just for some persepective and I also find the headphones quite tiring on the ears for long periods.
I asked on the forum for advice - have a read of this thread for recommendations -
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/64498/recommendations-for-headphones-for-mixing-200-budget