Room EQ Wizrd (REW)

[Peter Batah]

Good day all.

I was wondering if you have had any experience taking room measurements with REW. I purchased the MiniDSP UMIK-1 microphone to assist me in getting a better idea of how well or how badly I did in acoustically treating the smallish room that I will be working in.

I assume that one of things that I should consider in order to get as accurate a reading as possible is to make sure that the signal (pink noise sweep) that I am piping through the DM is not be colored by the console at all. Your thoughts?

The way that I am setup to perform this test at the moment is as follows:

UMIK-1 mic connected to a Mac Book Pro via USB.
Microphone placed where my head is in 3D space on a boom stand at the listening position
Point mic perfectly at the mid point between the tweeter and the woofer oriented horizontally
Startup REW, UMIK-1 is detected and I am asked to load the calibration file. Done
Launch Generator and SPL Meter – Use Full spectrum Pink noise -20.0 - Full Range default out / Left
Bring level up to approx 75db

 

[skier]

Peter,

I don’t know REW and will let those familiar with it advise you. But there are some basic, general points that you may or may not already know and I offer them here in case they prove helpful. If things don't test well and sound good, you should check and do the following before you attempt to further treat your room with any hardware or software or the tuning will be more difficult. Here we go:

1. For most of us, we have the spaces we have when building a home studio. They’re usually smaller rooms than we’d like and small rooms cause the most problems. Hopefully, your room dimensions are not multiples of each other. The worst I’ve seen was a friend in a 8 x 8 foot room with an 8 foot ceiling. It was supposed to be a walk-in closet and was all he had. It really stunk as a recording space, never worked well and it made his mixes stink. He finally converted a corner of his basement and found that his music was much better after he moved there and re-mixed his songs. ( A few of his songs still weren’t very good, but it had little to do with his space. But hey, he was a friend.)

2. In a small listening space, you really must use near-field monitors, not mid-field. I presume you have near-fields, but I just want to make sure.

3. The spacing between the monitors and the distance you sit from their apex is determined by their design, so you want to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for the very monitors you have. Many are similar and the general guidelines make work ok, but you should get the best performance by following the manufacturer’s advice.

4. Make sure the angle of the left speaker facing you matches the angle of the right speaker. The manufacturer will usually advise the best angle to use.

5. It’s very important that the walls on the left and right of your listening space are as identical as possible. So you want the walls to be the same (both parallel, or if not, tapered similarly).

6. You want the distance between the left speaker and the wall it is near to be the same distance as the right speaker is from the wall on its side – in other words, you want the speakers to be centered between your two side walls.

7. The speakers should be either vertical or horizontal – whatever the manufacturer advises. Some speakers can be used either way. I’m just saying that you again want the speakers to be used as designed.

8. If you can place them horizontally and decide to do so, be sure that if the woofer of the speaker on the left is closer to the wall than the tweeter, that the woofer on the right speaker is also closer to its wall than its tweeter.

9. You want the wall behind the monitors to be the same distance from the back of each speaker. And angled wall that is closer to one speaker than the other will cause you additional problems.

10. In all of the foregoing, you should notice that it’s important to be consistent between each side. If you can’t because you have no choice, such as the left wall has a window and the right wall doesn’t, then you have no choice but to do the best you can; but following these guidelines as much as possible will give you the best and most consistent performance possible with your speakers in your room.

11. Often in small spaces, especially if the side walls are not far from the speakers, you’ll be hearing early reflections from the side walls that will interact with the direct sound reaching your ears and this will cause comb filtering, smearing of the sound, etc. These will usually be of the higher mid and high frequencies depending on how close those walls are. In these cases, you’ll want to add sound absorption material on each wall between the speakers and you. To determine the proper location, have someone slide a mirror along the wall starting at the speaker and move towards you at ear level (start with the left) and when you can see the left speaker from your planned listening position, that’s where the absorption material goes. Do the same for the right side.

12. Use quality foam; don’t even get involved with egg crates or foam designed for other purposes. The right foam will cost more, but it is specifically designed to absorb audio signals - you only need to buy it once. And the foam should be at least 3 inches think – 4 inches is better.

13. You may also have to treat the ceiling if it’s a low one.

14. And you may also need foam on the wall behind the speakers if they’re close to that wall and/or you experience flutter echo. Clapping your hands from the listening position is one way to test for it.

Small rooms have many more problems with the low frequencies than do large rooms. But I won’t go into that in this post because it’s much more involved.

I know I haven’t covered everything, in fact, I left a lot of important things out, but these are some of the easiest problems to solve and I’m writing this on the fly tonight. Once you’ve done the foregoing and then taken some measurements, you’ll have better idea of where the problems are. Obviously, feel free to ask more questions.

I hope this helps you get started,

Jerry

 

[Peter Batah]

@skier Good morning Jerry. I trust that life is treating you well. I can always count on you to lend a helping hand (or finger). And, I thank you very much

1) As I believe that I stated in my OP, I am done with the room treatment. I am not going to be putting up any more absorption panels. Frankly, I don't think there is anymore room anyway

2) I am using near field monitors. I purchased the Focal Solo6 BE. And, from the little listening that I have done so far I am very impressed.

3) I made sure to create an imaginary unilateral triangle between speakers and to my seated position

4) I used a 30 degree toe in. I believe that this was the recommendation but will double check

5) Did my best here with what I had to work with.

6) Same as #5

7)Vertical. Manufacturers recommendation.

9)Roger that. Same distance

11)Performed the mirror trick early on. Absorption at first reflection points

12)I uses Roxul Safe 'n Sound in all of the panels. Thickness ranges from 3" - 6"

13) Ceiling cloud absorption panels 3 x 2' x 4" x 3". Pretty much covers area above speakers (SBIR) console and above my seated position

14) Behind speakers taken care of as well. 2 x 2' x 4' x 6"

It feels like I am in a cockpit or cocoon. Still very cozy though. The leopard motif was my wife and younger daughter's contribution. I was outnumbered and out voted

 

[Peter Batah]

Actually, I am planning on placing either a small bookshelf at the back of the room directly beneath the two 6" absorption panels. Or, a small couch that could seat two. A work in progress.

 

[skier]

Looking at the photos and dimensions you provided, this is a classic case of the small, non-ideal room, but it's the room you have. Such rooms are often quite problematic, but there is a silver lining: you can still often make one position in the room work well. And that's what you need to shoot for - to make your listening position sound as free of peaky nodes or nulls, and sound causing reflections as possible. You likely won't be able to make a large enough sweet spot for several people to be able to sit and hear an even, non-peaky or canceling sound field, but you can often make enough of a space for one person, and that's all you need, as long as that person is the one doing the mixing and/or mastering.

The primary test will be to see how the mixes you make sound on other systems in other spaces. When I was tuning my studio, I spent several months playing my mixes in my car, on my stereo in the Family Room, on another system in the Rec room, and on still more systems at friend's houses. In time, I was able to get to a pretty good repeatable sound by tweaking, changing absorbing foam locations, moving the subwoofer, moving the couch around (mentioned below), tweaking the sub crossover frequency, etc., etc. I knew I had a usable space when my mixes started sounding good to me in many different spaces. (I don't know how my mixes sounded to others, not all of my friends and family have good tastes in music, you know, but I'm now closest to those that said they really liked it ).

If you should ultimately conclude after mixing a few songs that this space doesn't feel as if it's working for you, another option is mixing with headphones. For decades, that's been considered a "no no". But lately, there's a re-thinking, especially with the latest technology in cans. Between the fact the sound is very linear across the frequency band in some of the latest phones, and the fact they can be comfortable for long periods of time, it's a new and exciting option for small studios.

FWIW, I have a small, but thick couch at the back of my studio. I wanted the seating position for visitors (though it currently is occupied by three guitars and a bass), but it really helped with controlling a booming problem I had at 60 - 80 hertz. It didn't eliminate it, that might have required a couch with 2 to 3 feet of cushion (never saw one of those), but it did reduce the problem, and I reduced the problem further with some judicious equalization (though it might have caused some phasing problem I haven't noticed, or can't hear, but hey, I'm not hearing it).

It'll be interesting to hear about what you learn from your room calibration testing.

 

[snafu]

Hi Peter,

of course I found your post only right now.
It just so happens my studio was measured using REW. Actually I was just instructed - the measurements were processed by a company in Berlin, germany.

The measurements were required for acoustic treatment of my studio - absorbers (type and where to place) and ultimately the response time where in the main scope.

Now, I am not an expert, but if you still have any questions, I'd gladly help you out.

cheers
snafu

EDIT: rad pictures by the way Eh, what's the secret of uploading pics? I never figured this out...

 

[Peter Batah]

@snafu You know what they say: Better late than never

What I do for pic uploads is use https://imgur.com/

Very straightforward. I can help if you want to try posting a pic or two.

Although I am sure that there are many others as well.

I took my first measurements yesterday. It would be interesting for you and I to share / compare some of our findings. Perhaps, you can assist me in deciphering them. REW is very powerful and I am learning as much as I can via YT videos and reading their documentation. I am no scientist though

 

[snafu]

Perhaps, you can assist me in deciphering them.

Uuh - that's a tough one

I had to treat 2 rooms seperately - one recording room, one control room. Both at about 12m2. To some degree I can vaguely describe what these fancy diagrams mean
But I would have been lost without the help of professionals - gotta be honest.

So, here is a link providing the REW-metadata of my control room measurements (you can easily load them with REW) - so you may have look at the issues I had to fight with
Of course this alone won't be of great help - so, I will send you the result measurements tomorrow, as well as some pictures, and a blue print of my rooms. Unfortunately I lost the .mdat-file here, and only the .pdf survived. But all that good stuff is on another machine...

 

[Peter Batah]

@snafu Thank you for taking the time to send me this info. Much appreciated.

 

[-mjk-]

@Peter Batah I was looking at your studio floorplan again. It looks like a small basement commercial studio in Boston where I recorded years ago. The "bay window" like area is where the console faced (in reference to your floorplan). In other words, the "front" of that control room corresponded to the wall that is dimensioned as 74" on your drawing. The area that is dimensioned 88" looks like a small "machine room". I found the orientation of your studio very interesting in view of my experience with that studio in the 70s.

 

[Peter Batah]

@-mjk- If you want to make my day just tell me that you produced a Platimun album in that tiny commercial studio in Boston

In other words, the "front" of that control room corresponded to the wall that is dimensioned as 74" on your drawing

That seems awfully narrow. I have one windows that is along the long wall 166". I plan on hanging a thick blackout curtain that would end at the top of the absorption panel right

You will notice in the pics that I have attached to this post that there is another room in the basement. (actually there are others but not relevant) That room is separated by the 88" wall that you said looks like a small machine room.

If I I want really wanted to go full throttle (something that I wouldn't have hesitated doing when I was a wee lad) I would have opened up that 88" wall into the adjacent room which I now call the "Live Room" OR is it?

This is not a commercial endeavor by any stretch. I am just having a little fun in my twilight years. And, more importantly it is all about learning for me at this point in my life.

Now back to reading the Room EQ Wizard manual. You are probably thinking that I shouldn't lose too much sleep over getting that elusive perfect sounding room. I know that I am.

As I said, it's more about about the learning experience.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond to my inquiries. Immensely appreciated.

 

[Peter Batah]

@-mjk- This should give you a general idea of how I setup my modest little room. Did the best accordingly to my limited knowledge of acoustics (work in progress).

The sequence of pics go from my left when seated at the console around to the rear corner of the room.

 

[skier]

@Peter Batah I think you've got a good looking studio! As I said in a prior post, if you can tune the room to provide you with an even-frequency at your seated position, you'll have created a very workable studio for yourself. Small spaces are tough, but you can still put out great sounding recordings if you use them properly.

Most home studios are more heavily compromised than commercial studios just because we're forced to use a small space. What we would consider a big room in a typical house usually isn't one from an acoustic standpoint.In the ones I've visited and in my reading, they generally range from 300 to over 500 square feet (28 - 46 sq. m .) - those are big rooms. Compare the typical home studio at 80 - 200 square feet (7.5 - 19 sq. m.) and it becomes obvious why proper acoustic treatment is so important and also why our sweet spots will be so much smaller.

Regardless, I think you're off to a great start and a lot of fun!

 

[Peter Batah]

@skier Hello J. Always nice to hear from you. Thank you for the compliment on the room BTW. I must say that I am really blown away by what I am hearing from these Focals. Then again, and as I probably have said in a previous post, I haven't had any "Real" quality speaker in my possession for decades.

I read through the documentation that came with the speakers and found out that the cabinet can be placed in a horizontal position. Although, I have rarely ever seen anyone place them in that orientation. You would tend to see that done more with their big brother (Twin6 BE). Seen below:

I am very pleased with the results that I am getting from my absorption panel setup.
I have a few more items to throw into the room which I was planning on doing anyway.
Eg. small couch (two seat) or 2 singles at the back of the room. And, perhaps a small bookshelf along one of the walls. That's a BIG maybe though. All of that furniture really won't leave me much wiggle room. And, oh how I like to Wiggle

Proper lighting is a must. Very difficult to do any work in that room at night. Ambience can be inspiration. But, too little of it and all you end up doing is trying not to run into anything. Have yourself a safe and awesome weekend.

 

[-mjk-]

If you want to make my day just tell me that you produced a Platimun album in that tiny commercial studio in Boston

Butchie Tavares (and backup band) Ellis Hall, Michael Dawe and many others did session work there, including songwriters Mike Kissel and Carl Bova. It was a great time to be alive, 22 years old with a 4-1/2 octave singing range, and in Boston.

That seems awfully narrow. I have one windows that is along the long wall 166". I plan on hanging a thick blackout curtain that would end at the top of the absorption panel right

Yes, in your room it sure would be. The studio I was referring to was larger than that. It was all glass, angled down.

I think you've done a great job with the space you have, Peter. I really like your acoustic panels you built, and everything else for that matter. For "not a commercial endeavor" it looks quite professional.

 

[-mjk-]

Did the best accordingly to my limited knowledge of acoustics (work in progress).

@Peter Batah I like how you treated the door. That'll keep the waifu from barging in while you're in the middle of a take!

 

[skier]

I read through the documentation that came with the speakers and found out that the cabinet can be placed in a horizontal position. Although, I have rarely ever seen anyone place them in that orientation. You would tend to see that done more with their big brother (Twin6 BE).

Looking at the woofers in your Focal speakers, it appears that the controlling feature in horizontal placement has nothing to do with your woofers because they appear identical. Rather, you just want to place them so the tweeter is on top on both speakers. What I would do is to try them both in vertical placement and see how they sound, then try them horizontally. You may, for example, find that you get a wider sweet spot when they're placed horizontally or some other characteristic is more appealing to you.

Proper lighting is a must. Very difficult to do any work in that room at night. Ambience can be inspiration. But, too little of it and all you end up doing is trying not to run into anything. Have yourself a safe and awesome weekend.

What I did was to place under-shelf lighting in my studio. That way, the mixer, synth, and everything else on the surface is adequately lit, yet the lighting is soft in the room. The ceiling lighting is recessed and I dim them.

For me, I feel most inspired when composing, playing, recording, etc., when the lighting is soft in the studio. The only time I use full brightness is when I'm working on equipment, installing new equipment, or vacuuming/dusting/cleaning (UGHH!). Otherwise, it's soft and appealing to me. Whatever places you best in the mood, that's what you should implement in your personal studio. For some, they like to work most during the day with bright sun streaming in. Like so many aspects of creating music, what's right in your studio is what works best for you, and it's not the same for everyone.

 

[-mjk-]

@skier I couldn't agree more about the lighting. I have networked lights with many presets. I even have a preset that flashes the lights when I've been working too late, lol.

 

[snafu]

So, this is my recording room from north diagonal...
https://imgur.com/o6oYbvw
to south diagonal
https://imgur.com/ZS240xN

And this is my control room:
https://imgur.com/undefined

Here is 3D-print to get you some orientation:
https://imgur.com/ANVtJOf

Now, as you already can see, I am short on space - never the less, you can make some beautiful music in here

As it came to acoustical treatment, I was kinda lost. The internet is full of half-truths, and sometimes complete nonsense. I couldn't go the long way and figure out everything by myself. As I said earlier, I lay my fate in the hands of some professionals in Berlin, and after all, I am very glad I did!

Since my "studio" is two rooms in my basement, I wasn't expecting too much, or better said: I was expecting quiet some compromises. And yes, there are some (no grand piano recording in here ), but I was certain of them right from the start.

So - here are my measurements, taken, when the rooms where finished, but untreated:
https://imgur.com/MnIayBn
orange was my room response back than - blue was the aimed value of T60 recommendation.

And the same for the recording room:
https://imgur.com/97WrkIR

After the acoustical treatments I measured again. company. This are their results:
https://imgur.com/17WfZW9
https://imgur.com/oQC1PiY

and the recording room:
https://imgur.com/BgMDZsU
https://imgur.com/V2vOW2L

All in all, I can't complain

Peter, I really dig your photos - you gave your room a nice touch, and I really like your choice of finish for your absorbers, the carpet and lighting! This looks like the kinda place you want to be when recording - nice job!

All the best,
snafu

EDIT: Sorry - just links, no photos; I did use "link" instead of "image"

 

[Peter Batah]

@Peter Batah I like how you treated the door. That'll keep the waifu from barging in while you're in the middle of a take!

One BIG "Do Not Disturb" sign. Oh, I added a locking door handle as well. That thing would topple right over and onto my head if someone barged in.