Hello Soundman Glad to be here..I am seeking help

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nickalpha
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Joined: Mon, 2020-Sep-21, 14:51
Location: Jamaica..

Hello Soundman Glad to be here..I am seeking help

#1

Postby nickalpha » Mon, 2020-Sep-21, 14:56

Hello Guys i need help with converting my living room to a mixing room. My Goal here is to create a mixing environment that i can mix in that will translate. This room is only for mixing no recording of any sort. I am just starting the process of treating the space. Currently the room as no Acoustic treatment. As for isolation i know i will not be able to get much since i am in a rented house, what i have done so far is to block up both windows and it as helped a lot in terms of some isolation. the Room dimensions are 17' 3'' Length 10' Width 8' 8'' Height and all walls are Concrete made of 4'' blocks with pockets filled with Concrete. Walls are 4'' thick including the ceiling. My neighbors get loud at times i get like 53 db with my meter at times i live on the same building. I live in Kingston Jamaica where some material are hard to find and expensive so any alternative would be welcome. My Monitors are the Kali Lp 6s Plugged into my digi003. My budget at the current moment is $500 US can push this a bit if needs be.

QUESTIONS

1. What treatment should i start with base on my rooms dimensions and my REW results.
2. Can this room be use and get to where i can mix and the mix translate.
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ericwisgikl
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Joined: Sun, 2020-May-31, 15:15
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina..

Hello Soundman Glad to be here..I am seeking help

#2

Postby ericwisgikl » Mon, 2020-Sep-28, 15:53

Hello nickalpha!

Could you attach your .mdat file in order to pay a better look to your measurements? Also, could you tell us how did you do those measurements? Where were speakers and microphone located at?

EDIT: Sorry, I had missed your attachment.

Cheers,

Eric



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Soundman2020
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Hello Soundman Glad to be here..I am seeking help

#3

Postby Soundman2020 » Mon, 2020-Sep-28, 21:58

Hi Nick, and a big Welcome to the forum! :thu: :)

Room dimensions are 17' 3'' Length 10' Width 8' 8'' Height and all walls are Concrete made of 4'' blocks with pockets filled with Concrete.
That's a fairly decent sized room, and the high ceiling is good. 4" concrete all around also means that you should get usable isolation: around 45 dB, in theory. If you need to increase your isolation, you could build a second wall and ceiling a little bit away from the existing wall and ceiling, without touching, and that could be simple wood framing with some type of heavy sheathing on only one side, such as drywall (also called "sheetrock" "gypsum board" or "plasterboard" in some countries), or plywood, MDF, OSB, or fiber-cement board. But that would be more expensive than your budget allows, so it probably is not an option.

You could also seal up that wall that you have: Firstly, by checking carefully for any cracks, gaps, or holes, and filling those with caulk. Especiay around doors, windows, electrical outlets, and any similar penetration through the wall. Then also by painting the concrete with masonry sealant, or even any good quality paint, that seals up the porous surface of the concrete. From the photos, it looks like the concrete is already painted, so that's good, but I would suggest checking your doors for air-tight seals. You might need to add rubber strips around all four edges, as well as a threshold plate, to do that properly, but it would be worthwhile.

Can this room be use and get to where i can mix and the mix translate.
It certainly can! It is big enough for that, and with careful treatment you can get very good improvement on the current situation.

what i have done so far is to block up both windows and it as helped a lot in terms of some isolation
How did you block those? It looks like you have wood panels (MDF?) attached to the walls over the windows. That can help, yes, but there is more you can do there, if you need more isolation. Is there something behind the wood panels? How thick are they?

Also, you have your air conditioner ducts passing through that window panel, but a lot of sound is going to leak through those ducts: they are just thin plastic hoses, basically. You could improve your isolation by a few dB, if you were to build some type of "silencer box" for those ducts, and also for the air conditioner itself. That's not so easy to do, and it would need careful design, but it could help quite a bit.

New Midas Measurement.mdat save again.mdat
I downloaded your MDAT, and looked at it a bit, and overall it is encouraging. It looks like it should be possible to get your room under control. Of course, right now it looks really bad below about 400 Hz, but what I'm seeing there is typical of what I would expect from a room like that, and most of it can be improved considerably with acoustic treatment.

By the way, did you follow these instructions, when you did that REW test? BLACK BOLD UNDERLINED:
how to calibrate and use REW to test and tune your room acoustics It seems that you had it about 10 dB too quiet, so it is possible that not all of your modes were fully triggered. But even so, there's enough information in your MDAT to see the big issues.

What you are going to need to "tame" your room, is firstly: Bass trapping. Lots of it! That means large, deep, thick insulation, and the best place to put that is in the room corners. There's a type of bass trap that is very easy to build, called a "superchunk" (you can find more info on that by using the "search" feature here on the forum), but that might be too expensive for your budget. The next best thing is to do "corner absorbers", which just means placing a large panel (floor to ceiling, 4 feet wide, and at least 6" thick) of low-density insulation, diagonally across the corners of the room. Like this:
Simple-Soundman2020-Corner-Absorber.jpg
Make a wood frame to hold it in place, and cover it with nice looking fabric. That is an effective bass trap. Put those in the rear vertical corners of the room, then fill in the rest of the rear wall, all the way across, with similar panels, but placed flat against the wall. Do the same in the front vertical corners, and also in the horizontal wall-to-ceiling corners.

Next, you will need to get your speakers and mix position laid out correctly. This might help a little with that: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=442 and also this: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=547 The idea is to find the optimal location in the room for the speakers and the mix position, where the acoustic artifacts are least objectionable.

You will probably also need a ceiling cloud, above the mix position, and smaller panels on the side walls, at the first reflection point.

Your budget should be able to accomplish most of that. The result will be a large improvement in the overall acoustic response, but it won't completely solve all of the issues: It's a start, but the room will likely also additional treatment to get it to the point where your mixes always translate well. However, even with this basic treatment, it will be a LOT better than it is now!

- Stuart -




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