I have the problem that my corners of my home studio room are not ideal for traps. It is by no means a pro studio in here and I’m pretty used to the room, been about a year in this configuration now. Still certainly having issues still and would like to add corner traps. My lows/mid-lows are always my weakest point.
BUT while the right corner is just fine, the left wall there only offers just 12cm to screw anything in, back wall on the left is at about 42cm.
So I can’t get traditional traps, and even tried to contact Output about their new ones which look a lot slimmer than traditional. They said they wouldn’t mount. I was considering getting fully custom ones built but not sure that would do the trick for those low freqs since they’ll prob be somewhat wedge-shaped.
What would you do? Just live with it? Only use one on the right? I am not sure if asymmetrical treatment is good for mixing though. Heard symmetry is always ideal, even if it suffers the room.
Do you leave that door open when doing your critical listening? The left corner in the picture isn’t likely accumulating standing waves (low frequency ones anyway) when that door is open. If open, I wouldn’t think there would be much acoustic energy to transduce and therefore no need for a trap. Just a thought.
rearrange the room. don’t know what’s opposite the mixing position here; maybe it’s more suited to traps.
get free-standing bass traps and just move 'em into position when needed. you’re likely fine playing and tracking without them, and just want them for mixing.
…u could think of heavy basstraps as free stands for ur speakers…
low end is non directional…so anything that shortens/breaks low room nodes will lead to a more neutral experience…
and yes, whenever u need to come to final judgements, leave that door open…
since the best way to check what might stick out to far out of a mix, is leaving the room and listen from next door…
while no room treatment will ever free u from the fact, that how any mix translates must be checked under various conditions…so cheap earbuds, some reference headphones, a common bouetoth box and a car hifi remaining ur checkboxes to be finally safe and sure…
You could close the door, then draw up and design a 45 degree absorber that you mount in the door. So it follows the door movement. And continue that trap above the door on the wall.
But building something that fits behind the door with a denser insulation material will work. Even if its not perfect.
thanks all! i will def keep the door open for final mix. never really thought about that, makes perfect sense. i think the freestanding traps will be the best option. i already move the left monitor so i can get in and out of that door, so the ritual’s already in place. good shout. i had thought of doing that before but got caught up in installing something. think that’s the move. thanks!
@chiasticon yeah couldn’t rearrange the room anymore. though i’ve certainly thought about it. it’s in my apartment and the basstraps i have in now make way too many huge holes, so don’t wanna mess the place up anymore but yeah did think aobut it also because there’s a table of synths behind me (where the photo is taken from) and it’s not a very inspirational setup. but yeah there’s a door back there too and again not enough clearance for traps.
re: mixdown check @reeloy , i always check on ear buds, phone, laptop, dj headphones, and mono google nest speakers. definitely caught a few bad mixes like that over the years.
But even given that, your room is tiny. There’s no amount panels that are gonna stop the bass in your room. You need MASS and space. I wouldn’t even bother.
I also have a small room covered in panels I’ve built. But it isn’t for mixing. It’s just to dampen room reflections so I get better vocal recordings. Stand anywhere slightly different in the room and the bass either amplifies or nulls.
Don’t waste your money on panels dude. Id just get used to the room and try your mix in random other places to get a feel for if it sounds good or not
These are not difficult to build yourself with some rockwool. I’ve made panels myself and also bought them premade.
I prefer to buy them premade these days because the time to build and wrap in a way that looks good is not more valuable to me than the money to spend on a professional to make them.
also quite fair. yeah small room isn’t ideal. i set it up long not wide and sometimes regret it, but yeah i dont think there’s any way this room will ever be perfect. tbh my mixes are quite decent, but even producing around 20 years now, i feel like my mixes have only been worth a damn just past 3 years or so haha. i’m on a serious grind right now to really get good with it. more focused on that than ever before. anyway good feedback thx.
Alright man, but it won’t actually trap any bass or help your sound. Purely cosmetic to look cool. Like saying you need to buy a 1000$ Gucci T-Shirt as armor for a sword fight.
Been considering building some completely needless “Sound Defusers” to put stylishly on my wall and look important though. So I guess I’m no better. I’ll call them sound worseners.
yeah just gonna crack on as is for now. accepting the fact that i need a new macbook pro anyway, so gotta buckle down and save for that instead. and time to upgrade to a rack Apollo interface… so yeah. there goes my year
The image is gone, so some thoughts without proper context:
Are there any “corners” between wall and ceiling (or even wall and floor) that could be treated instead of wall-wall?
When I treated my room, I wasn’t really on a budget, but I had to keep treatment to a minimum for aesthetic reasons. So my thinking was to get quality instead of quantity to get the most out of the treatment that was there. After a bit of research I ended up with some RealTraps MondoTraps.
I don’t have any with vs without measurements, so can’t really say how effective they are, though. But I would think a couple of those mounted diagonally across wall-ceiling (perhaps even with some additional mass hidden in the gap behind them (old clothes, for instance) could help quite a bit.
I use Genelecs with room correction tech built in (they call it SAM). Seems to work well. I don’t feel I have any low end issues in my room, but again, I haven’t really A/B tested, so I can’t state how well that works with any confidence.
weird the image is still visible to me.
actually since you mention it sonarworks has been recommended to me time and time again. might be a better investment than more treatment, considering my tiny room.
Small but important distinction.
but yeah did think aobut it also because there’s a table of synths behind me (where the photo is taken from) and it’s not a very inspirational setup. but yeah there’s a door back there too and again not enough clearance for traps.
