Setting Up and Acoustically Treating a Mixing Room - GIK Acoustics Tutorial
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- Опубліковано 28 лип 2020
- This video explains common strategies for setting up and acoustically treating a successful mixing and mastering room.
Creating a Mixing and Mastering Room is very similar to how you’d set up a listening room or home studio. However, with a mixing room, it’s even more important that the sound you're hearing is an accurate reproduction of the source material, with little or no coloration from the room you are in. You don’t want to spend hours tweaking a mix only to find out that you overcorrected for the room's influence on the sound. The bass being way off -- either too loud or too soft, or both at different points -- is the most common sign of an inaccurate mixing room, but there are others. A well-treated mix room allows you to do your work more quickly with less frustration, with better overall results.
Starting with a dedicated room with good dimensions is always the best place to begin your setup. Small or square rooms will be more difficult to treat. Same with rooms that have odd geometry or windows.
Place your speakers and listening position in an equilateral triangle with the listening position facing a short wall and centered between the long walls.
The High and mid range of a speaker is directional but bass tones will reverberate in all directions. Placing the speakers as close as you can get them, but not quite touching, can help alleviate this. You’ll also want to make sure your speakers are at ear level. Angling the speakers up or down can cause the perceived sound to change if you move around even a little bit in your listing position.
You also want to be careful when placing your speakers on your desk as this can create an additional reflection point on the desk.
Decoupling your speakers by placing them on isolating stands can help keep whatever surface they’re standing on from creating unwanted vibrations.
The First step for treatment is naturally the first reflections. Any surface between the speakers and your ears can create a first reflection. That means walls, floors, and ceilings. Even spots on your desk can be treated if they create a first reflection.
Treating your corners with bass traps will improve the low end response as this is where bass tends build up the most. Remember it’s not just the vertical corners. The corners along your floor and ceiling can also be treated to improve bass response.
If you’re unable to place your speakers against the wall you’ll want to place thick bass traps behind them to absorb their omnidirectional sound.
The back wall can be responsible for large peaks and nulls, not only in the low end but in the mid and upper frequency range. Thick panel traps (such as Monsters) will restore a smooth bass response across the room. The back wall is also a great place to start experimenting with scattering and Diffusion.
Diffusion can also help achieve a better sound, but the smaller the room the more careful we have to be with diffusion, and diffusion probably doesn't make sense for the smallest rooms.
Remember, a Mixing room should give you as little room color as possible. This means placing acoustic treatments in all the key locations, using a good mix of absorption, bass trapping, and diffusion,so that the sound at the listening position is as close to the original recording as possible.
As always, follow these guidelines to get started, but be sure to experiment and test what works best for your space. Our designers are always here to help you get the most out of your room setup and treatment. Hit us up on our website or sketch up your room in our Free Visualizer Tool.
This video is great, concise and quick, but still got all the information you need
I recently filled my studio space with GIK Acoustics bass traps, mostly bstock as Im on a budget, and the difference its made is huge. Cant thank GIK enough! :)
How to order b stock family just need a pair thick bass trap fir the Lm and Lows
what is bstock?
@@BrewerShettles basically a return item that was open slightly use going for a alil cheaper price because the last customer didn't like the sound or what ever reason they return the item. so they re sale it at a lower rate.
any advice on reflections for a soundbar my mirrors are covered in white
What's a good room dimension size? I have a 20x20 and trying to figure out the best mixing space
Should the studio monitors be straight or slightly angled towards your ears?
I'm confused... why does nearly every other piece of advice state that your speakers have to be several feet away from the back wall. What am I missing? It would definitely be more convenient if it's best to place them up (nearly) against the wall.
Close to the wall or far from the wall is better than anywhere in between. It's to do with the wavelength and refection time. Always put absorption behind the speakers, even if you don't do anything else, it makes the biggest difference (from my experience).
I've heard the same. Most speaker companies suggest around 2-3 ft space between and not to put back them up a wall. Especially if they are rear ported
@@repawnd1 you are 100% correct. Thank you for answering this one. :)
@@gikacoustics6360 @repawnd what is the threshold below which you're better off putting it right next to the wall? What is "far" and "in between"? Thank you!
@@natee2798 Well, this general advice may be for giving the bass port a chance to breathe, possibly not related to minimizing SBIR.
Can anyone tell me the true name of the XLR box you would install in your wall so that the mic signal can pass through the mic room into the engineering room? Every studio has them, don’t know what they’re called
I’m looking for one that’s easy to install and I’m not finding quite what I’m looking for
I’m looking for one with 1/4” connectors too
You would need two XLR Wall Plate’s and two 1/4” connecter wall plates. You would save money by buying blank wall plates with the number of connections you needed already punched out, buying the individual connectors and corresponding cable, and wiring it your self. Install the connectors to the wall plates then run your cables through the wall. Now, solder all of your connections together. Install wall plates to the walls. Don’t forget to test the connections.
how small is too small? 10x10?
How to treat a room if you don't have proper sidewalls
And how to fix bass trap if there is main door in the corner ?????
I would use our free acoustic advice service. All rooms are different ofcourse
@@davegik As dave said I would highly recommend using our free advisers to look over your room and see how it can be treated.
Speakers against the wall NO GO. and only 15% of rooms only have problems in the corners. man, marketing so strong nowadays. its hard to find accurate info on this topic. but possible.
Playlist 420 - For sure, I believed that speakers shouldn't be up against the wall for many years, until I actually started to test it. In general right up against the wall -- most designers call this a "pseudo-soffit" design -- works best in small rooms. There are exceptions of course, like if you have dipole speakers, but the SBIR is minimized with the speakers either right up on the front wall, as close as you can get without actually touching, OR at least 3-4' away from the front wall. The latter is usually not practical in small rooms.
I've never before seen a claim that only 15% of rooms have problems in the corners, and certainly not by any knowledgeable or experienced acoustics professionals. Where have you seen this assertion? In my experience physics works 100% of the time, not 15%. That said, the point is not to always target corners, but rather to always target the bass hotspots, which are most often in corners (complex-shaped rooms notwithstanding). You can learn more about finding bass hotspots here:
www.gikacoustics.com/bass-traps-when-and-where/
James L., GIK Designer
@@GIKAcousticsLLC 15% , Source Acoustics Fields , Dennis Foley
both acoustics pros and both saying contrary things = me lost
@@YFEmaxi Acoustics is definitely a debatable topic, What you should do is test both out yourself and see which one YOU like to hear and which one helps YOU the most
@@YFEmaxi Welcome to the extremely broad, nauseating, and heated topic of acoustic treatment made worse by everyone wanting a studio, but nobody's willing to pay for it and/or convert their house or bedroom into one. All in all, the only want to know and learn what YOUR room does is to test it yourself. The CATCH 22 of it all is this: you don't know what you don't know, and in order to know what panels do to your room before you buy, you need to buy the panels first.
Someone needs to buy about $5000 worth of various panels, set up a trailer full of them, ready to go, and be for hire. If you like what you hear, then you order the equivalent in panels.