Prost!
You can make some clever considerations, like many in the thread have suggested, but Tom here also has a valid counter argument..
hmmm.. there at least two other poeple mixing his music to make sure it sounds good on big theatre speakers.
and his room doesnt sound bad or isnt "treated", its just not dead. there are hundred of thousands of dollars worth of difussorss in that room... in the form of modular synths
bob kats had the argument that poeple nowadays mix in nearfeld monitors... which is esentially big headphones.
Usually I argue the opposite - that things like bookcases do act sort of like diffusors - but it's probably worth pointing out that real quadratic diffusors are quite a bit more refined than just stuff that scatters the sound around!
Katz. Actually, I'd argue that they're very different from headphones.
I made the soundtrack for a film, did the sound design for it AND mixed it on a pair of Behringer 2030Ps with a room in which I was sitting towards the longest side. I had some shitty acoustic treatment in the vein of foam plates against the walls. The walls themselves were hollow as the shits.
Threw Sonarworks on it. Job done. If I had known this earlier, then I that would've been my first purchase. Ever.
Said movie plays in cinemas at film festivals around the world now. It sounds fantastic and exactly as I intended in my room. No adjustments were needed.
Seeing that movie on a big screen, hearing the sound being translated perfectly...
That told me enough.
and daniel james mixes also with behringers in an open semi treated room. i image like him and you , most poeple mix some sort of in between that and a full treated studio. and every situation and person is different argueing different laveles of grey areas in a field not very easy to get a tangible result.
solutions like Sonar Works or Dirac simply offer an option which wouldn't be there otherwise. IF you room is small and only limited treatment is possible/feasible, software is a great open on top of everything you (can) do in the physical domain. Without software based correction, I couldn't work from home because the room is not not ideal. And driving to a studio every day is nothing I want to do anymore...Indeed, it is a very grey field. I feel that Sonarworks is a solution for people without a lot of money to spend to build a studio perfectly, and a real solution, not some halfway thing. It literally saved me from having to go inside the walls, which was forbidden anyways since it's a rented appartment.
Also, I will defend these Behringers to death. They are great speakers, and I found them secondhand for 60 euros. Money very well spend, I would say.
I made the soundtrack for a film, did the sound design for it AND mixed it on a pair of Behringer 2030Ps with a room in which I was sitting towards the longest side. I had some shitty acoustic treatment in the vein of foam plates against the walls. The walls themselves were hollow as the shits.
Threw Sonarworks on it. Job done. If I had known this earlier, then I that would've been my first purchase. Ever.
Said movie plays in cinemas at film festivals around the world now. It sounds fantastic and exactly as I intended in my room. No adjustments were needed.
Seeing that movie on a big screen, hearing the sound being translated perfectly...
That told me enough.
yea... i can get deep into specific product and such. some very cool difussors out there. it depends on how much is needed and the room specifics.
ill have to find that katz headphone info. it was like a 100 page gearslutz thread. its basically that nowadays poeple dont mix with main monitors anymore. and nearfield is well... close by. so you miss dynamics and other things. but that room acoustic are then not as important as with main or something along those lines since those nearfield are very close to the ear. as we all know, bass build up is where the problem is but i would have to find that thread.
Every time I see those corner bass traps or any traps which are a few inches deep, I laugh. What a waste of money and time. It's just the internet. These companies just want to sell their products and claim magic but physics does not change.
Save your money if you are not hiring a good studio designer and just think of it as a production space. Few panels, make it nice and inspiring and go write that music.
Because if you are talking traps, this is what you need: The cavity is approximately 5 feet deep.
That's not necessarily true. Yes, a porous absorber needs to be that deep to be a "bass trap" and companies selling panels with just a porous absorber aren't bass traps but other technologies require much less space. You can get a bass trap tuned to 40Hz at less than 1' deep and it'll probably be more effective than any porous absorber 5' deep.
Nothing new. Helmholtz lived 1821 - 1894. There are some new methods often considered to be pseudo-science and I won't comment on that but that's not what I'm talking about. I've been in rooms which seemed to have nothing but thick porous absorbers and I wouldn't want to work in those rooms. IMO neither approach is better than the other and you can have great rooms or terrible rooms with either. I'm just saying that there are much more efficient methods. Whether or not they work best in a particular situation isn't something I'm qualified to answer (and I doubt anyone really is as acousticians generally just pick a handful of technologies and only use those).Gerhard, it may be true that there are some new technologies but I have yet to be in a room where any of these traps really work, specially at the rear of the room. They do work to an extent but if your room is not properly designed, it fixes one thing but exposes other problems or leaves many other gaping holes.
I do not want to take names but I have been to studios designed by world famous designers where the rear trap was just a few inches with all the latest stuff but every single room has this problem.
What is more, it is where the clients sit and this makes it more problematic. Anyone sitting in the rear absolutely does not hear what you are hearing at the mixing position. Such rooms are a failure to me.
If I am spending a boat load of money on a studio but people just a few feet behind me get a totally different experience, it is such a waste. Specially because we spend so much time getting things approved.
I know people who have got their room sort of semi-designed by someone known on the internet and then having huge problems with getting stuff approved because its just so boomy. Some clients love it, most do not understand what is going on. It can be so bad that literally you and the client may be having different conversations because you simply do not hear the same thing. It is problematic enough that a lot of this is subjective based on aesthetic feelings.
This is one of the reasons why I like Non-Envrionment rooms. I can literally walk across the room and almost nothing changes, except direction of course.
Ways these things can work is you either know your room very well and deliver remotely or it is your personal production space.
What I feel bad hearing is that people spent a lot of money and basically got a result which could have been DIY. A lot of them don't even know its bad. They keep working in that room and most have to because they spent so much of their money.
Sometimes pseudo-designed spaces are even worse than if you put a few panels on the walls. Yes, I have seen this happen as well!