Analyzing your room and monitors

[NickT]

With the monitor problems I had, this just came to mind in a conversation with Cary.

I will have to do a setup of my monitors again because I played with the volumes. This is a pretty involved setup with the sub and nearfields. These are the tools I use if anyone is interested.

The Real Time Analyzer:

http://www.allen-heath.com/US/ViewProductdownloads.asp?search=Real%20Time%20Analyser

The calibrated mic:

http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHECM8000

Sub placement and setup:

http://www.abluesky.com/p_s_gb/p5s8.html

SPL Meter:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103667&cp=&origkw=spl&kw=spl&parentPage=search

I don't endorse these product, they are just what I found work for me.

The sub setup is tricky and a google search will give you alternate setups.

Hope this helps! 

NickT

[Gerk]

Good reading Nick!  Behringer, Cary's favorite!

Sub setups are indeed tricky.  I had a buddy with time/phase alignment software on his laptop come over (think it's called SMART) and we did some tweaking in my control room recently.  Helped a lot to get the sub worked out both position and level wise, I thought I had done a decent job setting it up by ear too

Mark

[Cary]

Good reading Nick!  Behringer, Cary's favorite!

Sub setups are indeed tricky.  I had a buddy with time/phase alignment software on his laptop come over (think it's called SMART) and we did some tweaking in my control room recently.  Helped a lot to get the sub worked out both position and level wise, I thought I had done a decent job setting it up by ear too

Mark

Oh no... I'm uncovered!

I have one of those mics!   

[Gerk]

LOL.  Well, for $50 it's pretty hard to beat as it does the job!   My old Peavey one was way worse and 4 times as expensive LOL.

Mark

[digitaldrummer]

check out the "Bink Audio Test CD" on this link too.  Free.

http://binkster.net/extras.shtml

a CD full of test tones at various frequencies.  If you play this and walk around your room you can identify where some of your problem areas are...  and drive your dog crazy too.

Mike

[Davidinoz]

My dogs are gonna love this

[DoozerDan]

Maybe I just sitck to playing guitar for awhile..........

[CosmicDolphin]

You know I hate to dig up a 5 year old thread but....

I just did some analysis on my new room here.........

I actually made a thread on gearslutz in the hope some experts can read it 

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/670456-rew-my-new-room.html#post7257611


CD

[CosmicDolphin]

This one shows it much better 

[Gerk]

Did you get any advice at GS?

This last one is interesting.  I don't have any idea how to properly interpret results so I'm no help to you.  The last time I setup a room a buddy with the gear and the knowhow came over to help me LOL.

Curious, do you have a sub?

[CosmicDolphin]

Did you get any advice at GS?

This last one is interesting.  I don't have any idea how to properly interpret results so I'm no help to you.  The last time I setup a room a buddy with the gear and the knowhow came over to help me LOL.

Curious, do you have a sub?

Yes, my first plots I posted didn't have enough S/n ratio so I had to drive the monitors way louder than I'd ever played them before to really get a good sweep of what happens at the various frequencies. 

That last one is just up to 300hz, I'm understanding how to read it better now. Just imagine the top line is the frequency response, but the bits that come toward you ( this would work better in 3d ! ) are how the frequencies are decaying over time. This plot shows up to 1500ms and you can quite clearly see a number of bass frequencies that are still present when the others have stopped ( 20 ,60 & around 100hz all look to be ringing on after they should)  You can't see it in this one but there's some other's between 1 & 4k which they reckon is the sound bouncing off the desk !

So the next step is to figure out what causes it and try to make it better. the theory is it's the wall behind my monitors, I don't really have much LF treatment but I do for mids & highs which seems to work. They are reccomending superchunks in the corners at the moment which is a good budget option I think.

I don't have the time or money to do anything this side of Xmas I don't think but wil lkeep you posted. At least I know a bit more about the measuring software and how to interpret it.

BTW - No I don't have a sub

CD

[Gerk]

Ok good, I was reading them correctly then

Yes 70 hangs in there as well.  Was going to say subs are awesome to have sound wise, but for this kind of thing they complicate things that much more as placement is crucial.

I suspect 1.6k as being problematic.  I dunno why, but it always is in my experience.  It's also one of the most sensitive spot for human ears I think.  The waveform there did look funny though, so I think you're right ... it's just a glitch of some kind of reflection that's happening there.

All-in-all not that bad to tell the truth, it doesn't look like you've got big problems in the low end anyway.  Also I always found with mixing low end it's all about learning your setup and no matter how much tweaking happens or how close to perfect you get it -- it's still going to come down to knowing your setup. 

Not many people I know mix at the SPL level it would take to really push air to make it worthwhile to get the bottom end that tweaked out.  The difference between enough and too much at lower volumes can also mean drastic differences when you have tens of thousands of watts pushing a wall of subs   Also at those kind of levels noticeable spikes on the bottom end range become ... well ... MUCH more noticeable.

[CosmicDolphin]

I don't think I could mix witha sub , they're fun to have in the home theatre system but my music room is way to small to ever bother with one.

Here is the plot for 1k - 6k  and is showing the sound reflecting off my desk. At lower levels it was way less pronounced. I'd never get anywhere near these levels in normal use.

Like you say there' s no such thing as a flat room rom, you just have to do the best you can and then learn how to deal with it. As long as I know the potential pitfalls.

I will have a go at improving the bass , it's quite cost effective to make those 'superchunks' to go across the corners. Don't really have the money to buy commercial bass traps at the moment but at least I know how to measure and interpret the info now.

CD

[Gerk]

Home made bass traps are where it's at.  In my old room I made some out of cardboard and foam (not even acoustic foam).... bass traps are a lot more forgiving when it comes to the foam part of things   They are more about interrupting the "flow" than anything else I find.

The higher end sample looks pretty good.

I no longer have a sub attached on my setup, but I prefer mixing with one ... otherwise I can tend towards being quite bottom end heavy.  I guess that's what happens when you're a bass player!   My current setup is less than optimal for mixing but at the end of the day it works.  I'm not really mixing much in the way of anything serious at the moment so that's fine for me, but if I decide to get serious about it again I'll have to move my setup because the current spot is a bit wonky (short throw in a pretty narrow but long room area).

[CosmicDolphin]

Home made bass traps are where it's at.  In my old room I made some out of cardboard and foam (not even acoustic foam).... bass traps are a lot more forgiving when it comes to the foam part of things   They are more about interrupting the "flow" than anything else I find.

Yeah, I have a book ' Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio ' and I was re-reading the chapters about bass trapping etc because it's all about doing stuff for little or no money that will help.

I'm going to hang a rug behind the monitors as suggested as a no cost bass trap and see what it does 

CD