I got myself an office yesterday. 440 square feet recently renovated in an older building. I'm going to be moving all my music and sfx production stuff over there because I'm sick of staying in my bedroom all day.

SO! I've been doing a lot of research into room treatment and the like, and will be trying to apply my skillz to this room. I'm going to get myself new monitors and a sub perhaps, and will be updating this thread with pics and what I learned and the like. There's a lot of people in this forum who are interested in getting their own rooms treated properly, and I hope this thread will be helpful to you. :3

If you guys have any advice, I'd appreciate it. Will post some pics of the office in this thread as soon as I take some good ones.

Here's one from a couple days ago. The desk isn't mine.

Wicked dude, green with envy!

Can't wait to see how this pans out :)

Dangerous windows. I suggest setting up in the center of the far adjacent wall to the windows unless there's crazy stuff on the walls not shown. That way you can put up panels for the first side reflections without covering those up.

Whats your acoustic treatment budget like? What do you already have?

Excellent. Congrats on the new spot!

F. Alton Everest's book is worth checking out if you haven't already.

Also, here is some free room testing software to drive yourself crazy with.

Everest's book is a good start! I'm just getting into acoustics properly in one of my course modules. We got a Dodecahedron speak - a bargain at EU15,000 euro!

If you're having difficulty laying out your room, Google's Sketch program is great CAD software. And if you've any questions on impulse responses, sound reinforcement or electrical questions/plumbing/air con questions (Which always seem trivial until you've to compromise your acoustic space by partialy dismantling it to undo things you've already done- doh!) then please ask me either here or in a PM or whatever!

Best of luck Rig!

awesomeness, dude! i hear ya when you say it sucks being stuck in the bedroom... i personally have a hard time with it, as i want to differ between work and play. play being at work, and work in the bedroom IF YA KNOWATTAH MEEEN YEA HIGH-DOUCHBAG-FIVE!

but yeah, definitley check out RoomEQWisard linked to above, it's a great and free piece of software!

best of luck!

Well, being stuck in a bedroom is not that bad. I say it just from my own experience.
Well, I'm married to a hot chick.

At 9/29/11 06:55 PM, sorohanro wrote: I'm married to a hot chick.

I'm not that, hot... Thank you for your passion, sweetie.

I'm feeling some good vibes from www.realtraps.com - anyone have experience with them?

At 9/29/11 10:29 PM, Rig wrote: I'm feeling some good vibes from www.realtraps.com - anyone have experience with them?

They seem just as pricey as anything else I've seen. I went with Auralex because they have the roominators kit which comes with 4 bass traps and 64 one square foot two inch deep panels for 400 bucks which is a lot better then realtraps. Youd probably want 8 bass traps for that office though, not to mention some 4inch thick absorbers and some diffussers. Maybe get diffusers and some thicker absorbers from realtraps and try two roominator kits from auralex.

Still not sure what your budget is though

I'm just going to say that I'm jelly.

Very jelly...

Nice room :P.

With windows

At 9/29/11 10:42 PM, LogicalDefiance wrote: I went with Auralex because they have the roominators kit which comes with 4 bass traps and 64 one square foot two inch deep panels for 400 bucks which is a lot better then realtraps. Youd probably want 8 bass traps for that office though, not to mention some 4inch thick absorbers and some diffussers. Maybe get diffusers and some thicker absorbers from realtraps and try two roominator kits from auralex.

First of all, my budget is $2k.

I'm not sure if a room this large needs diffusers. Another thing I had in mind is to not treat the whole room - I just might separate it down the middle with absorbers or something, to control the sound somewhat. This isn't going to be a live recording room, just a mixing and listening room. I'll set up a little area in the corner to be my vocal booth/foley space.

Tomorrow I shall go down to the office to take measurements, then I'll import it into Google Sketchup and share it with you guys.

Well the absorbtion is great for removing flutter echo and highly prominant room modes you will actually need some diffusers at some point to reintroduce activity into a room, or posssibly some reflectors if you find certain frequency bands are noticably missing.

i've been in studios where the treatment has been purely absorbative and the result is not a pleasant enviroment, if the sound is too dead it will actually make working fatiguing.

The good news is that with most absorbtion that high frequencies tend to get dealt the biggest blow and that windows actually reflect high frequencies and act as bass traps, so their impact on a room is not always as negative as people make it out.

Are you going to be attempting sound proofing within this same budget? Please say no.

At 9/30/11 01:47 AM, Rig wrote: I'm not sure if a room this large needs diffusers.

Well, the ceiling is not very high, so, maybe you need there some...

At 9/30/11 07:55 AM, Chris-V2 wrote:

i've been in studios where the treatment has been purely absorbative and the result is not a pleasant enviroment, if the sound is too dead it will actually make working fatiguing.

You get used to it. When I first finished putting up absorbers it felt like air was being sucked out of my head whenever i walked into the studio. But actually as a result I have extremely high tuned hearing for room noises.

At 9/30/11 07:55 AM, Chris-V2 wrote: Are you going to be attempting sound proofing within this same budget? Please say no.

Hah, definitely not. I'll worry about soundproofing once I build a studio of my own. This office will just be used as an exercise in room treatment.

At 9/30/11 11:09 AM, sorohanro wrote:

At 9/30/11 01:47 AM, Rig wrote: I'm not sure if a room this large needs diffusers.

Well, the ceiling is not very high, so, maybe you need there some...

True, but I'm not sure how high the ceiling is above the panels. I'll lift some up and see.

First off, get a proper frequency measurement mic like a Behringer EMC8000 and take frequency sweeps where you'll be sitting to determine what low-frequency modes you need to actually treat. Deal with the biggest offenders with custom-built (has to be done this way really) helmholtz resonators and then tune the rest of any frequency abberations (after setting up all your equipment) with say a Behringer Ultracurve DEQ2496. You'll need foam blocks 6" thick or more to break up and absorb lower frequency standing waves. The listening/monitoring position shouldn't exhibit any symmetry between walls/barriers (turn the desk slightly inward for instance to prevent exacerbation of the "ping-pong" effect of reflections between walls).

Also, for proper subwoofer application - look into a "distributed bass system":

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.
php?t=291904

I would additionally recommend buying an auralex gramma riser for each sub:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002D0 B4U/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539 851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201 &pf_rd_i=B001140OZ0&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DE R&pf_rd_r=1H4QHG4XWXRZTR7STW1Z

You'll want a minimum of (3) subs for best low-frequency results. Believe me - do this right and you will seriously not believe how good it will sound.

At 9/30/11 10:22 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: You'll want a minimum of (3) subs for best low-frequency results. Believe me - do this right and you will seriously not believe how good it will sound.

I believe you, but besides the cost factor, I'm in an older building with some other tenants right down the hall. I don't think three subs will go over very well. :P

As for the DIY Helmholtz resonators, I think I could do that. This SoS article inspired me to make my own traps anyway.

Alright, I went and measured everything. Here's something I did in Google Sketchup, and here's the larger pic.
I'm thinking that I should set up at the bottom, facing the wall. There are two windows on that right slanted wall that I didn't put in the drawings yet, but the dimensions are accurate. What do you guys think?

Obviously keep the slanted wall free, so that way when you're showing off your sick new track to the office bitches, people on the outside can look up and see those ladies shaking their goods from the window view

I think facing into the top wall near the door would be better as it gives you a bigger distance from the corners and it'll have less modal interference. I'd be afraid of having 2 corners of different shape that close to me as in the bottom as it could mess with your stereo field!

Your budget is to low for that room size unless you make DIY traps and such, not very difficult, their are tutorials on youtube.

At 10/2/11 12:29 PM, commandab wrote: Your budget is to low for that room size unless you make DIY traps and such, not very difficult, their are tutorials on youtube.

Yeah, I've decided to make my own. Yay for building! :D

At 10/2/11 01:19 PM, Rig wrote:

At 10/2/11 12:29 PM, commandab wrote: Your budget is to low for that room size unless you make DIY traps and such, not very difficult, their are tutorials on youtube.

Yeah, I've decided to make my own. Yay for building! :D

May I ask what material you plan on using?

100 Kg/m^3 Rockwool is the way to go. Anything to far above that actually tends to act as a reflector, isn't that a balls?

At 10/2/11 06:30 PM, commandab wrote:

At 10/2/11 01:19 PM, Rig wrote: Yeah, I've decided to make my own. Yay for building! :D

May I ask what material you plan on using?

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul06/ar ticles/studiosos_0706.htm
I'll drill holes in the side and am planning on using some thicker rockwool.

Cool, thats the top I think