I've read the "faq" here, went through a lot of posts, but I still have issues unfortunately. I've been allowed to take a room here where I work and turn it into a "mixing studio". Primarily I will be composing (via VST's in most cases) and mixing things here, any recording will be guitars through Eleven (hardware version). So basically I kinda need to turn the room into a "control room" I suppose, so it doesn't have to be completely dull and treated like a recording room would be. All good and clean to this point, my problems actually began when I started to think about where to put acoustic treatment, how to treat it, and most importantly .. where the heck do I put my mixing desk at in relation to the room. normally it wouldn't be a problem, but the room is kinda wierd so ... pleaaaase help! Any advice will be greatly but GREATLY appreciated
So .. here's a diagram of the room with measurements (both feet and centimeters). Right now the room is completely empty except a wall heating unit and air conditioner (both "artfully" depicted in the sketch
).
I tried to actually scale the room in terms of dimensions, ie. 1 pixel = 1 cm.
My biggest problems (oh btw, I'm a complete novice at this, so don't hit me too hard with critique, I'm trying to learn here, but no matter how much I read, I still need some "practical" hands-on experience to actually and truly learn something .. and I don't have that yet):
1. Near the door, there's a really wierd corner thing (masterfully noted as "crap built corner" in the layout).
2. The wall opposite the door, the one with the window, is curved. No, i didn't slip with the line tool when I drew the layout, the wall is actually curved.
3. Heating unit and air conditioner, as I have NO idea how to isolate them properly. How can I treat them so they won't get in the way of my mixes?
4. Where in the world would be the best spot to place my mixing desk.
5. Directly linked to #4: how should I treat the room acoustically speaking? I was thinking using rockwool based panels for the sides of the mix position, corner absorbers for the upper parts (wall-meets-ceiling), diffuser in the back of the mix position (shelves + couch + diy diffuser above the couch). Not sure about the ceiling (I'll get to that in a bit and you'll see why), the floor, and the front of the mix position (behind the monitors).
Some details about the room now:
1. Floor is made from hardwood tiles (I'm sure there's a name for that, I just don't know it) and it's pretty shiny.
2. Ceiling is fake. There's like a 2.5 meter (diameter) circle in the middle of the room, where the main light is, that's normal ceiling, and the rest around it is lowered by 15 centimeters made of plaster (I think). So .. how do I treat that? As i'm not sure it could hold any panels in place.
3. Window and door frames are made of PVC. Door leads to a small hallway.
Most importantly! I CANNOT make any major modifications to the room! Ie. whatever I put in in terms of acoustic treatment, must be able to come off easily so I can restore the room to the original layout if need be (ie. if we move or something). So I can't take off the fake ceiling and I can't make any changes to the door / window / heat unit / air conditioner.
As for my mixing position, here's another layout with my thoughts on the matter. Please feedback me if I'm doing something wrong.
Originally I planned to put the mixing desk in point B. After a few considerations based on "hey people are gonna be coming in, they need space to actually come into the room" I decided to put the desk in point A.
That seemed logical enough after all my reading on the subject. Am I right?
Questions:
How do I treat:
1. Points C (corner+corner)
2. D (curved wall)
3. E (the wierd corner, on the wall with diffusors)
4. Heat unit
5. Air conditioner
6. Window (assuming I'll stick the desk in point A, do I put a curtain or something in front of the window and panel absorbers over it? or just absorbers directly on the window? or .. what? )
7. Door (since it's PVC and I can't change it). Except for ensuring a better seal when closing it what else can I do?
8. Hardwood floor. Do I put anything over it to cover it up, like a huge carpet or something? Or do I leave it blank and let it reflect as it does now? Especially considering I have no idea how to address the ceiling because..
9. Fake ceiling? Because I highly doubt it'll support a cloud (maybe it will, but since it's fake and light...)
(picking up again) How do I treat the above given that its not such a huge space (roughly 6 meters width x 4.5 meters length x 2.45 meters height) and the wierd construction of the room. (Btw, wall with air conditioner and wall with door (all the back wall) are fake walls, hollow on the inside as far as I can tell, and most likely theyre not treated in any way). And as you can imagine, since it's empty, and because of the floor and what-not, the room is currently extremely echoey
I hope I haven't bored anyone with this too much, I realise I wrote quite a lot here, and I'm also sure I probably left some things out. But even so .. I'd really appreciate some help on this matter as I'm still a bit in the dark
Many thanks for your insight, and many thanks for actually taking the time to read through this (even if you don't reply).
Cheers,
Andy
P.S. I'm based in Bucharest, Romania. Hopefully that meets all the "requierments" for this post :-s
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