Soundman2020 - Studio Design Forum

Hi. I'm looking for feedback on my plan to rebuild my studio after a flood. There is a presentation attached with all the detail on the room, treatment and acoustic measurements. I hope to hear from you! Thx.

as mentioned and answered in your gearspace thread - keep the closet (yes - but not doors). and some limitation on the backwall absorption depth.

first and foremost - find the right spot for your speakers & sub. using REW and time/effort to locate the best possible positioning (sometimes merely inches), that will also define what is left to adjust and proper first reflection etc. this of course only really matters if you're doing mixing vs composition and recording.

maybe explain the limitations on what you can do to the room so people aren't simply making recommendations which will ultimately not serve your goals.

Thanks for the reply. I have essentially no limitations in the space. I'd like to be able to use the closet for storage but I can live without it. I've always expected that the window would be covered so I'm not concerned if it is. Obviously natural light is nice. I'd like to keep the couch but it can go if it is a problem. Construction would be a challenge but can be done.

When you say find the best spot, you mean move things around and make multiple measurements (obviously) but what criteria am I using? When the room is empty, the Topt and spectrogram are all jacked up. Am I looking only at SPL and make it as flat a possible? Are the certain frequency ranges that are more important. I assume <300 Hz is primary, but acoustics is aways so much more complicated than my understanding.

for the "fitting to space" activities - you're moving the speakers and sitting position to find the best < 250hz location - using an omni mic and ~80db sound level (wear ear protection during the sweeps is a good idea and also step back away from the mic) should do it. sometimes it's a few inches to make the change from ok to good. what you're trying to realize in this, is the combination of modal responses and SBIR.

"flat" at this stage (unless you're lucky) is ±5-6db (i.e. a 10db-12db swing) without room treatments. if you have to choose between a flatter low freq vs flatter higher freq - choose the lower one e.g. if you have 50hz reasonable flat and a 170hz not so flat, go with that as the 50hz will generally be harder to tame.