Aug 09 2008
A long and boring thesis about monitors and acoustic treatment (part 5, where we’re at now!)
Part 5 is where we’re at. If you want to skip the first 4 parts that’s great, so long as you take what I have to say right now as gospel.
“I WISH I WISH I WISH SOMEBODY WOULD HAVE INSISTED TO ME THAT I START WITH MONITORS AND PROPER ACOUSTIC TREATMENT ON DAY 1.”
Seriously. For something like time that I thought was “free” I wasted a ton of it. Avoiding what I should have started with in the first place.
Not counting the sub, I spent $700 on monitors and treatment. Thats less than I paid for my guitar. Less than I paid for my computer. Less than I paid for software. I could have taken that time I wasted and worked at McDonalds and still come out way ahead in time and money, and better musical results.
Okay, where we’re at. In part 4 I detailed the first Auralex kit I got. It worked wonders, but also gave me insight that more would be better. I got the second kit and re-did things a little bit. First, I did a little more research, since I had hit all the obvious spots the first time around…where to put the next round? From a mid-high frequency point of view, expanding what I had already done seemed to be the way to go. So I expanded the sides (to expand the sweet spot I could mix and listen in), added a bit to the front wall, and a bunch to the back wall to absorb more there. The sides I ended up using the ceiling tiles to attach to, and I actually glued them to the doors. I figure I can deal with scraping the gunk off the doors when the time comes!
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- Ceiling tiles, cut around the knobs, and glued to the door
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- Finished pinning up the tiles
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- The back wall, expanded
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- And God said, "let there be acoustic treatment"
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- The "bass train" lives low in this corner
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- MoPad
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- The sub...isolated!
You are supposed to use 2 per monitor, but I found 1 would work fine on the RP5’s…and I used the other pair and the various wedges to isolate the subwoofer as well. My verdict on these is they do help as well, and are worth the price.
How to measure the result? From a listening standpoint things got more “smooth” sounding. The bass sweep once again got much better. There’s still some differences in volume between notes (you can never have too much bass trapping), but it’s pretty small. The stereo field improved a bit, and by expanding the size of the treatment on early reflection points I can move around more. The amount of absorption in the room is a big difference, now the room has good sound most anywhere you go. This is great when other people are here, and really makes for a nice listening environment. A side benefit is the room is considerably quieter than it used to be in general. Not like a vacuum, but, quiet!
The real measure, however is two-fold…time needed to track and mix, and the quality of the result. A while ago I started tracking my time on different activities to see if I was getting better and faster, and to see where I could improve workflow. This is where I realized how most of my time was spent “verifying / redoing” things.
I’ve done 2 tracks from start to finish since I put the current treatment up, and both came out of the monitor mix sounding great with nothing out of whack. I think they sound better, probably because I had a clearer view of what sound I was recording in the first place, and a clearer view of the mix. And both took about 20% less time to get done than the ones I did before them. Even the bass came out where I wanted it the first time on both, so while not perfectly flat in the room (I don’t think you can ever get to perfect!), it’s well tamed and I don’t find myself guessing at the level…I just mix it to where it sounds good and it is now!
Where to go from here? I’ll have to see what the feedback is on the latest mixes, but at this point I’m satisfied with my environment. If I had occasion to add more I probably would, but it’s starting to get crowded in here! Percentage-wise I think I’m around the minimum coverage you’d want for a good mixing environment, though the vaulted ceiling probably buys me a little bit and a couple odd features of the room help as well. I think this configuration will hold! Now it’s time to make some music.
(continued)
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