Hi there "greyhound", and Welcome to the forum!
Wow! That's a pretty darn good set o initial posts, with all the details and doubts about your studio.
Your thread is fine in the "Design" section of the forum, since you are sort-of still in the design stage, for the acoustic treatment. I could move it to another section if you want, but I don't have a problem with it being here.
OK, on to comments!
The dimensions of the room are rather unfortunate, with horizontal dimensions of 12' x 12' and a 7' ceiling
Ouch! That's not a good arrangement... Square footprint with a low ceiling. That's a bit of a challenge, for sure!
In it's 'naked' state it sounds ***bad***!! Forget about tracking or mixing - it's hard to even have a phone call.
To be expected!
first wanted to upload the REW mdat file with measurements from the untreated room. I did my best to follow the detailed instructions posted on this forum, but am using a UMIK-1 mic so not sure if a sound card loopback made sense.
It's fine. For USB mics, you don't need to do the loopback, since there is no soundcard involved in the mic input, so there's nothing to connect to.
I downloaded your MDAT file, and it' looks valid, so you did it right!
Before getting into more details, I would be grateful for any comments on the 'baseline' REW files (ie to make sure I haven't screwed up the setup somehow).
Your data looks good, and matches what can be expected for your room. for a 12 foot square, theory predicts a major modal issue at 47 Hz. Your REW data agrees:
It also predicts another modal issue for the vertical axis at about 81 Hz: Check:
Also, a big modal dip at around 140 Hz.. check!
... and several other things that are very evident in your MDAT. So yeah. I'd say that you got a very valid reading, you are doing it right, and it matches reality quite well.
Left/right is in reference to listening position facing "front" wall.
Correct! some people get confused about the right way to refer to the walls in a room: You got it spot on. The front wall is, indeed, the one where the speakers: the wall you face when you are seated, mixing. real wall is behind you, left wall on your left, right wall on your right. That stays the same regardless of which way you happen to be looking in the room. Even if you turn your seat around 180°, the names are still the same as for when you are seating "normally". if you turn your seat around, you are now facing the rear wall, the left wall is on your right, and the right wall is on your left.
and here are some screen grabs from REW showing room dimensions
I realize that you did that mostly to show room dimensions and rough layout, but there's some issue with your speaker/mix position layout that should be fixed, to optimize acoustic response.
The monitor/listening positions here are somewhat arbitrary and based on the natural position when sitting at a desk.
I wrote some stuff about speaker placement a couple of years back, that you might find helpful:
Speaker setup, and the equilateral triangle The monitors are Focal Solo6
Those are nice! I've designed a couple of rooms with those. They can work very well.
There is no subwoofer and I'm not sure if one would even make sense in such a small room.
ANY size room can benefit from a sub! I've been meaning to write an article about that for a while, but never got around to it. There are several reasons why a sub is an excellent idea for a control room, or any size. In fact, subs are even more useful in small rooms, than they are in large ones....
Here are some photos of the room in its current untreated state. Note that the baseline REW measurements were done without the insulation materials in the room (I moved them in for temporary storage after doing the measurements).
Right! I figured that none of that was in the room for the tests. There's also several things you could do with your furniture that would benefit the room, and the acosutic response at the mix position.
Note the large desk along the "front" wall. It is about 10' long.
It's actually too big for that room. The desk should be as small as you can possibly live with, and any outboard gear you need can be mounted into the desk itself. The desk also needs to be as "open" as possible, so that it has the least effect on the room response. Large flat surfaces are a bad idea in a control room, in general. Here's a desk I design I use often in control rooms I design for clients. It can be adapted to different situations, fairly easily (eg, room size, console size, rack space, etc.)
The Soundman M1 studio desk I'm not saying you should copy that, but it does embody the concepts that you could consieder.
Also, I'd suggest getting your speakers off the desk and onto stands placed behind the desk, up against the front wall. In a small room, ou want the speakers as close as you can get them to the front wall. to minimize the SBIR problem-
The couch should stay in the position shown if at all possible acoustically.
Probably OK, if you need it. I could say a lot about couches, but I'm running out of time for today!
This view shows the door alcove and small bulkhead:
Both of those are fine: they are actually in pretty good locations, as they leave space for the treatment you will need.
Here is a view of the current monitor placement. I realize that affixing them to the desk is not ideal and am open to other placement options.
Right: Having your speakers firmly attached to the desk creates a whole series of problems that can be minimized by getting them off the desk. There are issues such as vibrations, comb-filtering, improper acoustic loading, projection into quarter-space, and even early-early sound (sound that arrives at your ears BEFORE the direct sound form the speakers). Not a good thing, if you can avoid it.
and was planning to use them for facing of 4" ceiling traps
With a 7' ceiling, you don't have a lot of space up there for a good cloud. I'm thinking that your best bet would be some type of acoustic coupler grid over an absorber with very good low frequency characteristics. I think Glenn actually has a design like that that I saw somewhere in one of the rooms he did. I may be wrong: I think it was Glenn....
as well as 4" and 8" traps along the walls.
Right, but only in the first reflection points, probably.
Plan is to put 19" deep bass traps from floor to ceiling in back corners.
19" isn't very much, to be honest. It's certainly better than nothing! But to get down into the 47 Hz range, youa re going to need something a lot deeper than that! You might even need a membrane trap, or perhaps a large Helmholtz type trap (needs careful design!). The wavelength for 47 Hz is 24 feet (half-wave is 12 feet), so you are going to need something substantial to deal with that mode: And since your room is exactly square (down to the nearest 1/8"!), that's going to be a nasty mode. You will likely need to target that in all four vertical corners, as well as along the side walls. I'm thinking that maybe deep superchunks in the corners plus tuned traps on the walls would be a good approach. Theoretically, you can get some trapping in about 10 inches thickness, but more is better.
Here is the material I can get locally for filling traps:
Do you have the acosutic specs for that? If not, maybe ask the manufacturer for whatever specs they have for it?
Overall, you have a tough room to deal with (You actually didn't need me to tell you that! You already know...
) But by optimizing the room layout and treating it heavily, you should be able to make it usable.
I know of some studio designers who won't even attempt to do a room such as yours: they have their own set of "minimum" requirements, and if your room doesn't meet all of them, then won't touch it. But to me that's a rather arrogant approach, and very disheartening for the poor guy who has no other options!
ANY room is better than no room at all, when you just have to mix, and ANY room can benefit from treatment, to a certain extent. Your room isn't terribly bad: just not optimal. I have successfully designed and treated even smaller rooms (the smallest so far is 97 square feet, compared to your 144 square feet), so there is hope for your place! I sometimes wonder if those designers who won't touch rooms outside a certain range just don't know how to deal with small rooms, or are scared of even trying! Or maybe they don't want to be associated with a room that isn't perfect.... Not me! All I can say is that smaller rooms are harder to treat, really small rooms are really hard to treat, but any room can sound better with suitable treatment, and most rooms in a typical home can be at least somewhat usable when treated well (with the possible exceptions of broom closets and Harry Potter style cupboards... ). Your room is certainly not in that category, and stands a pretty good chance of being quite acceptable!
- Stuart -
. The main application is to prepare guide tracks for remote collaboration and some passable demo materials for sharing on social media. Mainly acoustic guitar and vocals but also some spoken word. I do understand I am looking at some significant compromises, and the priority is for a room that is pleasant to play music (and speak) in.
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Glad you got through that OK. Whew!