Recording - March 2018 - 32

ROOM ACOUSTICS: THE BASICS
What is room acoustics?

Let's take a look at what sound does inside your room.
Room acoustics is a science, governed by the laws of physics, that
helps us understand and predict the way that sound behaves in an
environment. A space is said to have good acoustics if it provides the
sound environment conducive to the way we want to use it.
Low frequency sounds tend to spread out and permeate the room.
When a sound's wavelength is the same as the dimension of the room,
a room mode will occur. In order to create a mix that translates well
into other environments, you have to treat your room to lessen the
effect that these room modes have in your listening environment. This
allows you to hear what is coming out of your monitors and not what
you're hearing from the monitors PLUS the effects of the room.

Room Setup and Positioning

There are basic guidelines and rules-of-thumb when it comes to
general room set up and achieving the best, most authentic sound
possible. You want to examine where to position your speakers, your
listening position, and installing acoustic treatments - be it acoustic
panels, bass traps, or diffusors. Getting set up properly in your room
has a huge impact on the acoustic issues you'll face.

Early Reflections

TREATED EARLY
REFLECTION POINTS

One of the first areas of a room that is recommended for acoustic treatments is the early (first) reflection points. First reflection points are the first
points on your sidewalls, floor, and ceiling where reflections can bounce off
and come back to listening position.These reflections are loud and quick, so
they cause a lot of interference from low-mids to high frequencies and can
give irregular spikes in response and smearing of dynamics. Luckily,
reflection points are easy to treat with a few acoustic panels in the right spots.

Bass Issues

There are many different types of low frequency problems in rooms,
but most boil down to dips in response (leading to a lack of low end) and
peaks in response (leading to muddy / boomy sound), or a combination
of the two. The largest contributor to bass unevenness in most rooms are
the room modes, which cause standing waves. Appropriately dealing with
bass can be difficult; but typically it's best to treat at least two corners
with bass traps positioned floor-to-ceiling, and more corners if possible;
along with bass traps on the rear wall.

Late Reflections

Reverberation and flutter echo are the easiest problems to identify
in any room, and are especially prevalent in rooms with a lot of empty
wall spaces and hard surfaces. Treating both issues can be controlled by
using appropriate acoustic panels more or less evenly spaced throughout
the room, to get general dampening. However, reverberation can also
be dealt with by diffusion, which will help turn the excess decay into a
more controlled ambiance instead of removing the sound energy.
POSITIONING
In most rooms, you'll want to orient yourself so that you're facing
the shorter wall, with the longer walls on your sides. It's recommended
that you should start experimenting with listening position set to
about 35% - 40% of the way into the room from the front wall to
avoid the biggest dips and peaks from room modes.
For more on orientation and setup, visit: gikacoustics.com/
basics-room-setup-acoustic-panels-bass-traps/

A New Foundation

It is important to have a strong foundation to build on in any room.
If the set up in the room is less than optimal, results won't be as expected
and problems can arise. On the other hand if the general guidelines
above are met and understood, then identifying secondary problems
and solutions will be much less challenging and costly.

Acoustic Treatments

Where you place room treatments really isn't all that difficult to
figure out. There are three primary areas to consider:

A PROPERLY
TREATED ROOM

UNTREATED EARLY
REFLECTION POINTS
32

RECORDING March 2018

The team at GIK Acoustics can provide free Acoustic Advice as well
as a broad range of room treatments to address issues in your room.
Our business is to help you have the best sounding room possible.

http://gikacoustics.com/basics-room-setup-acoustic-panels-bass-traps/ http://gikacoustics.com/basics-room-setup-acoustic-panels-bass-traps/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - March 2018