Where to place sound treatment?

[iDumi]

I moved to my own apartment at the beginning of this spring, after years of renting various places and for at least another couple of months the living room, where I make music is going to be pretty much empty. I will be buying a sofa soon, but other than that, furniture will have to wait until the missus and I raise some cash. It's a rectangular room, 5.45/3 meters and my desk is placed across the room from the window, on the shorter side.

My issues with this empty room is the horrible sound. In two places along the length of the room, the lower frequencies completely cancel themselves out and right in front of the desk, where I sit and a couple other places along the length of the room, the bass frequencies are boosted like crazy. Safe to say I can't make music on the speakers, it sounds like shit.

At the beginning I didn't even have curtains, and now since I do I noticed a very slight improvement, but nothing worthwhile.

I am going to get some of this treatment material but I'm not sure where to put it. I was thinking 2 pieces behind each speaker (they have rear facing bass ports) and another one, higher up in between the speakers... is this OK?

[kx.001]

bass traps will usually go in the corners. the foam tiles usually deal with higher frequencies don't they?

If you're handy with DIY then you can find instructions for making your own bass traps online to sort out the problem frequencies according to the size of your room..

[iDumi]

bass traps will usually go in the corners. the foam tiles usually deal with higher frequencies don't they?

Ehm, I don't know, maybe... I just happened across these foam tiles, as they are called apparently, at a friend's place who no longer needs them so he's giving them away.

If you're handy with DIY

Oh, but I'm not, not one bit.

[MikeInOttawa]

bass traps will usually go in the corners. the foam tiles usually deal with higher frequencies don't they?

He's right. The foam isn't going to help you with your bass issues. I had the EXACT thing happen to me- I moved from a place where I had to use my son's bedroom for my music gear, which had thick carpet, a bedspread, and drapes, to a place where I had a room just for my music gear, which is great, but it had no treatment and sounded really bad. I ended up getting 4 GIK244s off my local Craigslist and hung them in the corners. They made a HUGE difference.

[kx.001]

http://www.realtraps.com/art_small_rooms.htm

talks a little about whats going on. They sell wooden basstraps if you have a look about, but they're more expensive than the foam ones.

[iDumi]

Darn it to hell!

I need to get me a thick carpet, a sofa and a bedspread.

About those bass traps, if you only have 2, where do you place them - the wall with the desk, or the opposite one?

http://www.realtraps.com/art_small_rooms.htm

talks a little about whats going on. They sell wooden basstraps if you have a look about, but they're more expensive than the foam ones.

I've watched his audio myths workshop and some more of his videos a while back. Sensational stuff! However, I live in Romania, Eastern Europe, so even shipping the stuff here would be insanely expensive... and I'm dirt poor for the time being...

[kx.001]

The corner of the room - all standing waves will have full energy at the edge of the wall, and the corner will catch the waves between the three different sets of walls.

[iDumi]

I understand that, but I'm asking in which of the 4 corners.

[MikeInOttawa]

I understand that, but I'm asking in which of the 4 corners.

The two corners towards which the monitors are facing. The sound is mostly going forwards, so this should have the best impact.

You can still use the acoustic foam you got for free of course. Check out the Gearslutz studio acoustics forum.

[kx.001]

As we're in the DIY forum, that seems to be the way to go. Anyone you know handy with a hammer? I don't think a simple broad-band bass-trap is very difficult to make - a triangle of wood with a sheet of rock-wool to absorb the energy.

And I don't think it matters which corner if you're going for a broadband reduction - if you're making a trap for a particular frequency it will have to be on a wall that that frequency will be resonating off though.

(Although this is from my hazy memories of uni, so I could easily be wrong, as I quite often am.. )

[MikeInOttawa]

As we're in the DIY forum, that seems to be the way to go. Anyone you know handy with a hammer? I don't think a simple broad-band bass-trap is very difficult to make - a triangle of wood with a sheet of rock-wool to absorb the energy.

Again, I think you're quite right. If you can get a few simple tools, bass traps seem pretty easy to make. It's getting the right insulation (703 FRK , Rockwool, etc) that seems to be the big problem.

[iDumi]

I'll see if the sofa I'm getting this coming week(s) and a rug will remedy this problem... if not, I might have to build my own bass traps.

Thanks for the input.

[kx.001]

if its a new place, what furniture do you have already? general living spaces tend to make rooms sound better than an empty untreated room a bit anyway. well placed bookshelfs and stuff will help

[iDumi]

It is indeed a new place (my fiancee and I were finally able to buy our own place, yaaay) and the living room is empty. I mentioned this in the first post - the only things in that room are my desk and a fold-able table the missus sometimes uses as a desk. Nothing else, just some thin drapes and empty walls.

So yeah... I'm hoping this is where the problem lies.

[kx.001]

wait and see then - hopefully it'll be workable at that point if you compare mixes on other systems as well. If you're worried then use a sine wave generator to sweep through low frequencies and see what that shows up and you'll have a better idea where problems lie..