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Author Topic: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!  (Read 8109 times)

Arran Black

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Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« on: March 06, 2009, 05:46:06 PM »

Hey guys. Im a 1st year  at Bath Spa Uni studying music production and performance and am in the planning stages of what I hope will be a very interesting AND successful project.

One of my modules requires me to analyze the acoustic attributes of a performance space and I have thought of a way to kill two birds with one stone. A partner Collage of the Uni “City Of Bath Collage” which I have some involvement with has a fully functioning but completely un-treated studio room. My plan is to analyze the room for my project, then go on to create a report in the hope of securing the funding to implement some acoustic treatment.

Unfortunately my knowledge on how to treat a room is limited and recent, so I would love any impute anyone can offer. I can also use any recommendations in my final report.

I have attached some pictures of the space and as you can see it is seriously lacking in anything that could absorb and sound. The room diameters are (H=2.2m W=4.7m L=5.9M) the walls are made of a dens plasterboard, the floor is wood laminate and the  roof is sum sort of plaster (it is a false roof, there is a good foot of space above the tiles that could be filled with something)

? I feel analyzing the space with some sort of software would be a good idea. Any recommendations (Mac only pleas. Windows scares me)

? Any suggestions on any measurement’s or tests I should/ could do would be appreciated also.

Manny thanks.
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Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2009, 07:58:36 AM »

Arran Black wrote on Fri, 06 March 2009 23:46

Any recommendations (Mac only pleas. Windows scares me)

 http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/fuzzmeasurepro.h tml

I'm a pc user myself, but this here little program makes me wish I were Mac. Very similar to the PC-based free tool RoomEQwizard, but IIRC unlimited length of measurement.
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2009, 10:47:29 AM »

That’s a fantastic little app. And only $90 for students if I want to upgrade. Thanks for the suggestion. I will take some measurements on Monday and post them up.
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Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2009, 03:48:04 PM »

Excellent. We love data. Smile
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compasspnt

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2009, 05:56:48 PM »

Looking forward to the measurements.

And hopefully some input here from people to help!

Good luck.
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #5 on: March 09, 2009, 03:44:19 PM »

I took some measurements of the room and have attached them. My knowledge is not so good on this, so I am struggling to decipher them. Any help would be much appreciated.

Attached is the Frequency Response
index.php/fa/11586/0/
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #6 on: March 09, 2009, 03:45:38 PM »

Attached is the reverberation timeindex.php/fa/11587/0/
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Thomas Jouanjean

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #7 on: March 09, 2009, 04:18:17 PM »

Are those "office" ceiling tiles we see in the picture?

It's really fun how you can see their print on the RT measurement, and the RTA.

Could you export a 0-250Hz graph "zoom" of your RTA measurement?
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Thomas Jouanjean
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Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #8 on: March 09, 2009, 04:21:42 PM »

Aaaahhh, now this is something we can talk about. Data. Smile

Just to make sure we're reading your data correctly: could you tell us a bit more about the setup you use for taking measurements? The type of speakers you use. How you set up the speakers and mic.
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #9 on: March 09, 2009, 07:31:11 PM »

The data was recorded using a Studiospare 5 inch powered speaker into a Neuman TLM 103. The Mic was positioned at the centre of the room. The speaker facing the centre about 3 feet from the central wall (facing into the longest point of the room)

The below graph is a little more detailed than the previous ones if that helps.
index.php/fa/11600/0/
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #10 on: March 09, 2009, 07:33:12 PM »

Here is a closer look at the 10-250 range. Yes the roof is false with office style panelling. Can you see that in the data? Where? Im not so good with reading the graphs. RT60 is the next thing I need to get my head around. Thank god for libraries.

Also I have data for T20 and T30 if this is of any use. I don’t know what they are, but the app suggested previously has graphs for them.

index.php/fa/11601/0/
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Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #11 on: March 09, 2009, 07:53:56 PM »

Hey Arran,

A few concerns cross my mind.
1) The TLM has a cardioid response pattern. If I'm not mistaken, this means you'll miss out on a partial of the acoustic activity.
2) The TLM has a frequency response which emphasizes frequencies 3000 Hz and up.
3) I'm not finding any specifics on the 'Studiospares' speaker you refer to. Is it a custom build?

What is it exactly the graph named "COBC Studio 1 Energy" plots on the horizontal axis? The one with the horizontal scale from 0 to 11.

On the subject of RT60, RT30 and RT20. Reverberation Time (RT) is a measurement of the time lapse between the moment the source is cut off and the moment the reverberation drops by a set amount. This can be any quantity of dB's one deems appropriate, but the ones mentioned above (60dB, 30dB and 20dB) are the ones used most frequently. You can then have your computer analyse and plot the RT for seperate frequency bands, as you've done already in your graph.

Ps. Why have two separate guitars when you can have all in one?  Rolling Eyes
http://mccrappy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/12neckguitar.jpg
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Thomas Jouanjean

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #12 on: March 10, 2009, 03:42:26 AM »

You need an omni mic, can't measure properly with a TLM 103. They're cheap... A decent one is the Beyerdynamic MM1.

I was semi-joking about the ceiling tiles. It's just that my first jobs (feels like a century ago) included treating open office spaces. We always saw a dip at 500hz on the RTA as those tiles are "tuned" and centered @ 500Hz and would create those kind of shapes in the graphs.

But you need to remeasure with an omni...
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Ethan Winer

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #13 on: March 10, 2009, 04:48:40 PM »

Thomas Jouanjean wrote on Tue, 10 March 2009 03:42

you need to remeasure with an omni...


Yes, and when you print the graph, set the vertical range to something more reasonable than 100 dB total span. Better to have a 30 or 40 dB total span - as needed to keep it all on-screen - so the detail can be better seen. This looks like the graphs you see from microphone and speaker companies, with the vertical resolution so coarse the response looks flat even though it clearly is not. Laughing

--Ethan

Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #14 on: March 10, 2009, 06:37:30 PM »

I own the Beyerdynamic measurement mic. very happy with it.
What's the expression again? Something with good, bangs and bucks, I cant remember.  Razz
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #15 on: March 11, 2009, 12:38:05 PM »

Hey all. Thanks for the fantastic response. I believe the concluding note is “Take better measurement’s”. I should have no issues getting an Omnidirectional mic and I will run the tests again tomorrow. Where would you recommend positioning the mic and the speaker. Im assuming Mic in the middle of the room.

The Speaker im using is a Studio spare model, I cant remember the number, I will find out. But we used it for some tests a while back and it had a fairly flat response across the board as I remember, so it should be good for this I hope.

The “COBC Studio 1 Energy.jpg” graph is taken from Logic’s Impulse Response Utility. Im assuming its Hz across the top but your right its not labelled for some reason and the app itself seems to not want to give anything away.

Whilst im in the space tomorrow. Is there any other information you would like/ recommend that I find out. Any pictures you think would help if I took.

Manny thanks

Arran
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Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #16 on: March 11, 2009, 01:25:20 PM »

I'm a bit in doubt myself on how to position mic and speaker.

As far as my knowledge goes, for now all you need measured with a tapemeasure is room dimensions between solid boundaries ofcourse.

Take plenty of photo's for your own personal archive. In this digital age, quantity is hardly an issue. Smile
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Ethan Winer

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #17 on: March 11, 2009, 03:40:10 PM »

Arran Black wrote on Wed, 11 March 2009 12:38

Im assuming Mic in the middle of the room.


For a control room, the microphone should be where your head is while listening to the speakers. Ideally the response will not change around the room, but it always does. So what matters most is what you hear while mixing.

--Ethan

Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #18 on: March 13, 2009, 09:49:49 AM »

Right. I have done another set of sweeps this time onto an AKG C414 on the Omni setting. The speaker was positioned at one end of the room and the mic in the centre at around head height. index.php/fa/11641/0/
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #19 on: March 13, 2009, 09:51:45 AM »

index.php/fa/11642/0/
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #20 on: March 13, 2009, 09:53:03 AM »

index.php/fa/11643/0/
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Arran Black

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #21 on: March 13, 2009, 09:54:58 AM »

index.php/fa/11645/0/
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andrebrito

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #22 on: March 13, 2009, 11:09:49 AM »

I usually make two kind of measurements

1 -  mic on one corner, speaker on the opposite corner

This gives a general idea of the room

2 -  mic at listener's position, speaker at its normal place

Start working from here. I prefer to make measurements of each speaker at the time, and finally both at the same time
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franman

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2009, 11:41:51 PM »

and just to chime in:

we would typically concentrate impulse and freq measurement at the listening position as well.. this is how we experiment with location and fine tuning of speaker position.

I think Andre's suggestion of a corner measurement to get an idea of what the 'room is doing' is completely valid, but we are concentrating on what it's doing at the listening position.

We absolutely hunt around the room with a hand held RTA (or SPL meter) looking for modal peaks. This helps in deciding where to locate bass trapping particularly if you're considering tuned traps...

So that's the $1500 consult instructions... Of course, there's always the part involving 'what do I do with this information now'.... that's the 'fun' part!

FM   Cool
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Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #24 on: March 15, 2009, 09:00:07 AM »

Hey Aran,

It's a recording room we're talking about, right? Unless you set up a different objective, which ofcourse is prone to personal taste and demand, the goal of treating a small recording space (<40m
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Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #25 on: March 15, 2009, 09:42:39 AM »

Also, looking at your waterfall again... it strikes me as odd that your first 0,3 seconds seem to show no decay at all. Could it be a little hickup in your settings? I'm not talking about your hardware settings or anything, just your settings controlling how the data is displayed in the waterfall.
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Ethan Winer

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #26 on: March 15, 2009, 12:33:37 PM »

Sigert wrote on Sun, 15 March 2009 09:42

it strikes me as odd that your first 0,3 seconds seem to show no decay at all.


As I read it, that's 30 milliseconds, not 300. Waterfall plots of low frequencies are better shown out to a full second, or at least half a second. Whatever is needed to show the top 30 dB or so of decay at all frequencies. Below is a typical example.

--Ethan

http://www.realtraps.com/art_etf2.gif

Sigert

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #27 on: March 20, 2009, 06:28:32 AM »

0.03seconds is indeed a very short timespan. Could you post the zoomed in version of your waterfall plot, up to about 250Hz or so, length about one second or so.
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Paul LaPlaca

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #28 on: May 19, 2009, 10:25:56 PM »

Is this thread dead?

Very interested in the next step, how to interpret the data and what to do to correct any problems.

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Constantin

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Re: Treating a studio on a budget. Help!
« Reply #29 on: May 20, 2009, 03:40:08 AM »

Hi
i will try to give yiu a rough answer, but i´m not a real expert  Razz

When you first measure a not treated room , you have to save this measurements as a reference, with detailed dokumetation about the conditions.

Ethan wrote a nice acoustic FAQ what all rooms need, so you can first start with broadband basstrapping an treating the first reflektionpoints. This treating require no "before measurements" because you will need it anyhow.

After this, or before, you can start to find the best Speakerlocation for your roomsetup. Please note that Speakerlocation is minimum as important as treatment.
I remember barefoot has wrote a exeltool for showing the effekt of speakerlocation to the freq response at the listeningposition, some time ago. The name was wallbounce calculator i think. It`s just a 2 dimensional calculator, but gives you a rough idea what happens at different locations.

After this you have to meassure again, and can compare your reverbation time and freq. response with the old room.
Now you can watch for leftover problems in the room.

francis already gave good advise how to find good places for tuned basstraps.
Quote:

We absolutely hunt around the room with a hand held RTA (or SPL meter) looking for modal peaks. This helps in deciding where to locate bass trapping particularly if you're considering tuned traps...


When your problems are not the bass (i don`t think so) you can continue with with other pannels or/and diffusion to adjust the room like you want it.



I hope you can understand what i mean. i have some problems with the language  Embarassed



cheers
Constantin
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