do you guys have your home studio acoustically treated?

[Santuzzo]

Hi,

do you guys have your home recording room where you mix your recordings treated with acoustic foam?
If yes, did you do any measuring? or did you have a specialist do that for you?

I want to get better at mixing, and I was wondering if it would be a good idea or even a necessity to put up some acoustic foam in my little recording/mixing room.
I watched some tutorials on YouTube and they did some measuring with recorded 'pink-noise' and then had a method where to place acoustic foam. All of that seemed pretty complicated to me (being the noob that I am at this). So, I was wondering if I should hire a specialist to help me with that? Or could I just get some foam and put it up myself in like the middle of the wall or at a fixed distance?

thanks!

[Thurston]

I'll be watching this thread. From what I've read you can't go wrong with bass traps in the corners to start.

[BroSlinger]

I have no idea what I'm doing, so I got some poseur foam on craigslist. I put it in line of any reflections. My room is big, and there's enough crap in the room to diffuse any rear deflections.

I think my mixes sound pretty good.

It all depends on your room dimensions. Materials used to build said room. etc.

I would also spend some money on decent monitors before I splurged on any serious acoustic treatment. Of course, I'm using some old Boston A40 bookshelf speakers for monitoring, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me. I just lucked out to have a big room.

TLDR: put some foam on the ceiling halfway between you and the monitors. put some foam on any close walls halfway between you and the monitors. Consider some foam yoga blocks under your monitors.

[ajaxlepinski]

Did a lot of reading about room acoustics, back when I built my old, analog studio, under a butcher shop in 1984.
It had a cement floor, cinder block walls and a sheetrock ceiling.
After insulating the walls with R19 fiberglass insulation and covering with burlap, i glued a single layer of office carpeting to the floor.
The walls were fine but, when you clapped your hands, you could hear a standing wave, between the floor and ceiling. So, I had to put Sonex tiles on the ceiling.
When you clapped, it made a high pitch zing sound that lasted a half second.

Long story short, the deader the better especially, in small rooms and when laying basic tracks.
If the room isn't large enough to produce a nice, room reverb, you want to kill all reflections.
Foam tiles work well and like Thurston said, bass traps are good to have.
During mixdown, it's good to have some reflections - that's why you see photos of studios with walls partially covered with foam tiles.

wood block diffusers look cool but they are heavy.

These days, I record in my bedroom and put foam around the mic to kill room reflections and I wing it with mixes.

Hope this helps and good luck!


+1 to Broslinger's suggestion about using good monitors. Good monitors are 98% of getting a good mix.

[newholland]

Nope. I monitor quietly from stand mounted speakers,but thats about it.

[Ostinato Rubato]

Food for thought,

Getting a room acoustically treated will only improve your mixes by .25%. If you ran a cost/benefit analysis on that you'd find you'll get better mixes buying nicer mics or even monitors/cans

[ajaxlepinski]

The idea behind using pink noise to check your room....

You run pink and white noise through your monitors and into a mic, positioned where you sit when mixing.
The signal goes into a spectrum analyzer.
The spectrum analyzer is used to tweak a stereo EQ that goes between your sound board (DAW) and monitor amplifier.
The EQ is used to flatten the stereo signal for any coloration coming from your board, monitors and room.
I guess it's nice to do but, I'm not sure it's worth the expense... especially since everyone runs out to their car to check the mix.
The best way to get a good final recording, is to play some pro-recorded tunes through your monitors, and you try to match your song's EQ and stereo spread to that.

[newholland]

Yeah.. learning your monitors and how they translate is the only way forward EVEN WITH great acoustics. Just gotta put in the time with your monitors and your ears eitherway!

[Ostinato Rubato]

If I could start all over with mixing again I would spend my time learning the following:

1) Record tracks with plenty of headroom
2) The power of hi-pass and low-pass filters
3) Using Paramentric EQ's
4) Use compression properly/sparingly
5) Use multiband compression

[Santuzzo]

Thanks a lot guys for all your input, much appreciated!

I think I forgot to clarify that I'm most likely not ever record anything in my 'home studio' (it's just a small room with a recording PC, an interface, monitor speakers, etc, so calling it a studio may be a bit of a stretch really) with a mic. I do have a Shure SM57 and I tried recording an amp with that, but the results were not so great. So I'm recording guitars direct with either a modeler or plugins.
My concerns of acoustic treatment would only be for the sake of mixing.

I do think I have decent monitor speakers, they are Yamaha HS80Ms, I did some research back then when I purchased them years ago and form what I read online those seem to be decent quality entry-level monitors.

I am not planning on putting in a lot of money into acoustic treatment, maybe just stick some foam absorbers or diffusors (?) on the wall.
But if this is just something that's going to make a minimal difference as some of the posts above suggest then I may just not do anything about it and leave things a they are.
I don't even have my monitor speakers on the exact ear-level height, so maybe that's a more important step to take care of

[Santuzzo]

somebody on Facebook pointed me to this video which I'm watching now, it's long but it seems to be very interesting:

[video]https://youtu.be/1d9WmjTJniI[/video]

[Santuzzo]

So, having watched that YT video I posted above, I'm seeing myself confronted with the fact that my little 'home studio' is anything BUT ideal or even suitable for mixing. due to the small size I can't set up the monitors with a fair distance from the wall, I can't set them up in the middle and I can't set them up length-wise. So I'm wondering if any type of small scale acoustic treatment (like putting up some bass traps, or some absorbers or diffusors) would even make a difference at all....

[BroSlinger]

The less ideal the room, the more you need treatment.

Sounds like you need to put foam everywhere.

[Santuzzo]

The less ideal the room, the more you need treatment.

Sounds like you need to put foam everywhere.

[ajaxlepinski]

Dude, it's not all that bad... you don't really have to change anything....
Just listen to some pro recorded music through your monitors and mix your tunes so they sound the same as the pro tunes.
If your tunes sound the same as the pro recorded tunes, on your system in your existing room, then there is a good chance they will also sound good on other people's listening devices.
Even with your room deficiencies, with practice, you can make good sounding mixes....
You will have to listen to your mixes where you listen to music on the regular; home stereo, car, cell phone, etc.
After listening on on your stereo, car, iphone, you decide what needs tweaking and then you remix.
Do this a few times and eventually you'll wind up with a good final mix. Making a good album is really about how much time you have to put into it.

I take my tunes over to my buddies house, who has a bichin stereo with a sub woofer.
I'm always surprised to hear all those low frequencies, that I can't hear at home.

Another option is to do all the basic tracks at your place, make a data disc and bring it to a pro studio for a pro mix.

Getting a good mix takes time, even in a pro studio. It just takes more time and more work on your own.
Tom Scholz made the first Boston album in his basement.
From the photos and video footage that I've seen of his original studio, it didn't really look well treated.
You may not like the music but, his mix was stellar.

[newholland]

truly what ajax is tellin ya is the truth. your relationship with your monitors and knowing how they translate (aided by other speakers and systems you're familiar with) will get you where you need to go.

if you need to treat a room radically with nearfields as your monitors, you're listening way too loud. i mean-- some of the best live albums ever made were recorded in the room with no treatments or in a bbc live van.. not to say they were MIXED that way-- but great engineering took place anyhow. hs80s are what i use, and i trust them, but i seldom get them loud unless it's just for fun. but mixing critically i get to maybe 90db max in a 12x15 room, and i have mine on stands about the edge of my desk, and roll my chair back about 5 feet. gives me a great picture as to what's goin on- but i just can't blast em, and my plaster walls and glass windows are ANYTHING but ideal.

[Santuzzo]

Thanks guys, very good points!
Oh yes, Boston does sound great!

I may look into getting a bit of foam for absorption and/or diffusion on the most critical spots and then just accept the situation as is.

I want to start recording my 2nd EP soon and this time I want to get a better mix than I did on my 1st EP, which is why I started looking into this.

Thanks again guys, I appreciate all your input!

[Tortuga]

I built a studio in my garage, which I use for everything (rehearsing, recording, jamming, mixing, blowing off steam, etc). The room is an almost square box (14' x 11') with a low ceiling (~7-1/2'). NOT a great environment for quality sound, but it's damn near soundproof (not pissing off neighbors or killing cats), and it's open for my use 24/7.

I built up bass traps in the corners before I moved anything in. Made a MASSIVE difference in overall echo. Amps, carpet, and the rest made it livable.

But, the room still suffers from flutter echo.

Started building broadband absorption panels a couple weeks back. The couple that I built (2' x 5') have helped a lot with cleaning up sound in the room, overall, and I plan to cover about half the available wall space, as well as the ceiling above my recording/mixing desk, with them. They are being placed in the early reflections zones, which I find by having my son run a mirror along the walls - anywhere I can directly see the monitors (primarily the side walls and wall behind the monitors) from my chair gets one of these panels. Same goes with the ceiling. I will also be building up a set of three 18"x18" diffusion panels that will be placed directly on the wall behind my chair, which are supposed to help artificially "lengthen" that part of the room. Plus, they look damn cool.

[BroSlinger]

I forget everything from this thread, but you could always hang some heavy curtains and put a rug down.

I would still glue some foam to the ceiling above you and the monitors though.

[JerEvil]

I have no room treatment and have struggled with the idea of getting some. I did order room room correction software that I need to get set up though.

[Santuzzo]

Thanks again, guys!

I will probably get some foam stuff to glue to the wall right behind the monitor speakers and maybe ceiling as well as the back-wall.

[GuitarBilly]

IMHO, it's helpful but not necessary. All you really need to do is learn how your room sounds. When I first started recording in my current studio, I took some of my mixes and masters and tested them in my car's stereo, which is where I listen to most of my music. After going back and forth a few times, I pretty much learned how a mix has to sound in my studio to sound good in the car. I know where the low end needs to be to be heavy without being boomy, where the highs should be etc.. So it's just a matter of tuning your ear to your room.

[crankyrayhanky]

IMHO, it's helpful but not necessary. All you really need to do is learn how your room sounds. When I first started recording in my current studio, I took some of my mixes and masters and tested them in my car's stereo, which is where I listen to most of my music. After going back and forth a few times, I pretty much learned how a mix has to sound in my studio to sound good in the car. I know where the low end needs to be to be heavy without being boomy, where the highs should be etc.. So it's just a matter of tuning your ear to your room.

+1

I have young kids sleeping so mix on headphones most of the time
I just found IK Master Match- it takes my decent mixes & makes them sound glorious!! Ozone has something similar too. It's outrageous

[Santuzzo]

IMHO, it's helpful but not necessary. All you really need to do is learn how your room sounds. When I first started recording in my current studio, I took some of my mixes and masters and tested them in my car's stereo, which is where I listen to most of my music. After going back and forth a few times, I pretty much learned how a mix has to sound in my studio to sound good in the car. I know where the low end needs to be to be heavy without being boomy, where the highs should be etc.. So it's just a matter of tuning your ear to your room.

Thanks Billy. Makes a lot of sense. So far I have not done any acoustic treatment, I may do so sometime in the future (just get some foam panes or whatnot and call it a day).

I have young kids sleeping so mix on headphones most of the time
I just found IK Master Match- it takes my decent mixes & makes them sound glorious!! Ozone has something similar too. It's outrageous

I have Ozone (an older version, I think Ozone 4 or Ozone 5), but I need to learn how to use it properly...... a lot of trial and error I guess.

[Tortuga]

I just finished installing 2" acoustic panels throughout my studio (walls only for now - ceiling is still being determined), and am absolutely FLOORED with the improvement it's made in the sound of my monitoring. Sitting in the sweet spot (monitors about 9" away from the wall panel, and positioned equi-distant to each other and to my ears, set on dedicated heavy stands) and listening to music sounds like the best pair of headphones I've ever used but way better. I'm hearing incredible tone and detail that I hadn't heard before from the monitors, and am extremely happy that it's been worth all the work.

If you can, I highly recommend it.

Here's a couple panorama shots of my panels as they sit now. Still need cloth coverings, but for practical use, they're done.

Looking at the desk



Looking behind the listening position