So my room is made of concrete and the bass is a mess, there were standing waves and resonant ghost notes. I moved my speakers as close to the wall as I can (about 6-8cm) to try to mitigate all the standing waves which seems to have helped a bit. But now transients sound a bit smeared and the treble is relatively louder.
I impulse bought some acoustic panels and then later realized they are made for absorbing 2000Hz. First of all is this even a frequency I should be worrying about? Second of all where is it best to place them to absorb/scatter 2000Hz?
And if I place panels behind my speakers how many do I need behind each monitor if each is 30 by 30cm? (Attached a photo for show their size). Haven’t glued them on yet, just seeing how they sound.
I’ll definitely get bass traps but at the moment didn’t since I’d need to rearrange some things in the room.
Edit: for some reason the photo is refusing to upload at the moment. Will attach it later
On their own they are unlikely to make much difference, where they are is probably ok. If I were you i’d get STUFF into that room! Things on the walls, shelves up with books, pictures on walls, Fill the wardrobes up and take the doors off?! Sofa would be good. Use headphones to check bass.
Right now you are mostly guessing. That’s not going to work. What you need to do is buy a measurement microphone and do a careful analysis of what is going on in various points of the room. Then, hang up treatment and measure again and see what changes. It’s a long and difficult process and this is the reason that professionals charge good money for this. Hanging up treatment without doing this is really going to do more harm than good, because you aren’t really fully understanding what is changing. What I would do is invest in a very good set of headphones and try to use those as much as possible for your final mixes.
As far as these panels go I only got them because I noticed my treble got smeared and dominant after moving the speakers towards the wall. They do seem to have addressed the issue a bit, the high end now sounds a bit drier which is what I wanted.
As far as headphones. I’ve got a pair of M50 and DT770, they’re great for listening but not particularly happy with either even for coarse mixing decisions. I’ve been looking at those slate VSX headphones wondering if they are actually useful for mixing or if it’s just marketing nonsense. (Anyone have them who can share their opinion?)
Not trying to discount what you are saying but I highly doubt that the small amount of paneling you have installed in the picture has made any significant difference in the high end. We sometimes like to trick ourselves into thinking we are hearing things that aren’t really happening; it’s a well known psychosomatic effect that many engineers have felt. Paneling placed directly behind the monitors like that isn’t going to have much of an effect on the high end frequencies, especially because you have very few panels installed. It does depend on how big your room is and where you are positioned. In fact I would guess that where you sit in the room is going to have a far greater effect on what you hear coming out of the monitors than any paneling you install yourself. There’s a well known rule of the law of 38%, I would look that up.
I’m not familiar with either of the headphones you mentioned but I would highly recommend the Sennheiser HD650. They are incredibly accurate and used by a lot of engineers I know and trust. I’ve used them exclusively for mixing for several years now and I think it’s drastically improved my mixing and mastering.
Before you invest in bass traps I’d start by getting some moving blankets and seeing if placing those around has much effect. And where.
Much easier to adjust and move around as needed. Then you can make more informed choices based on what you find out.
Plus, moving blankets are much cheaper, can be easily found pre-owned, and just as easily sold, unlike bass traps. And you can always use them for moving stuff.
Hard to say for sure, but it looks like you’re working with a smaller room and are already in the corner too. I’d skip the bass traps too, you’d need too many to be practical unless this is a dedicated music room in most cases. I’d also agree that with where you have the current acoustic panels, they’re likely not really doing all that much.
I think I would start with just moving your gear and listening position around and hearing how that affects things. Sometimes just a few inches in any direction can have a big impact on how things sound, more so than you might think. So I’d see where you can improve the way things sound just by placing the gear in a few different locations, even if only by a little. It’s free and helps teach you to train your ear if nothing else
Thanks to everyone for the detailed advice. Yeah I was wondering if it’s placebeo, though I can definitely hear an obvious affect if I hold one panel about 2 feet to the side of my head. So I was wondering if making a square of 4 of each (total of 8) to put behind each monitor would do anything? Or am I better of placing them on the sides in “mirror” positions? As I mentioned in my first post after moving my monitors close to the wall the treble frequncies became a bit louder (smeared incoherent hats and their reverb became far more noticable + drum transient lost definition) , and also these panels absorb 2000+ Hz. Unfortunately placing my moniyors any more than 1 meter from the wall isn’t an option due to space constraints (and wife ).
They are not in the corner of the room, they are dead center against the short wall of the room.
Wondering if maybe I should move them 1-2 feet away like they were before and then maybe put some socks in the bass ports on the back to tame the bass a bit? Or would that only make it quieter all around without fixing interference?
There’s a lot of science behind making a room really neutral and all that, but a lot of mileage can be had out of some homemade IKEA absorption panels and some diffusion for the higher frequencies.
An absorption panel in each corner, a bit of diffusion opposite and behind the speakers and enough stuff in the room to prevent too many flat or parallel surfaces will help. It won’t fix everything, but it’ll help.
But regardless of what you do, the most important thing is to understand your recording space. If you know its shortcomings, you can go some way to mitigating them.
. There are already plenty of shelves with books and also a couch. And the wardrobes are full.
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