# New Blog - Latest Post: How I Design Studios!



## Gerhard Westphalen (Jul 10, 2020)

Started a blog on my website talking about various things relating to studios and tech. Check it out and feel free to give me ideas on what I should talk about in future posts.

gerhardwestphalen.com/blog


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## tav.one (Jul 11, 2020)

Congrats Gerhard, its clean and fast.
I’ll suggest putting headings to make the skimming and jumping to different parts of a post easier.


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## AllanH (Jul 28, 2020)

Very interesting first set of blog posts. I'd never looked at deqx, thanks for the explanation. I also found your youtube mix videos very enlightening. You should consider linking them in.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Jul 31, 2020)

A couple of posts added with the latest being my approach to studio design. Feel free to ask me any questions!


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## Macrawn (Jul 31, 2020)

I got a question. I've got a column unfortunately to my left of my main seat that I have to treat. I was thinking of 4 inches of 703 but you say it's not that great beyond 2". You think 4 inches of Roxul would be better there? It's a rectangular column about a foot wide made of brick so I was thinking I need thick enough absorbtion for bass trapping on it but I don't want it to stick out too much. The rest of the room has a pretty large amount of bass trapping using Roxul. It's built right into the walls and I use acoustic fabric over a layer of batting. I may put in some slats to liven it up but the floor is concrete and the ceiling is a drop ceiling with about 7 inch roxul battings above that. Front and back walls are floor to ceiling traps about 24 inch thich of roxul. Side walls have less, about 7.5. 

Here is a graph that the dsp produced. You can see that there is about an 8 db dip at 140 hz which is typical of a small room. I just got the room itself done and I haven't done early reflections yet. The other dips are no larger than 4 db. The room correction software only made a small change of a couple of db in the low mids. It does not do boosts only cuts. 

I'd also like to figure out what to do with the 140 hz dip. I think the other room I had was more like a 16 db dip there so I guess 8 db is a lot better. 

In the pic attached the column is blue. 

Yes there is a projector there on a box. I'm making a stand or ceiling mounting it. The room doulbes as a theater too. It might be wise for me to move the rack behind the column so there is no obstruction at all to the bass traps on the rear walls. the column obviously is not going to be moved. Way too much work.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Aug 1, 2020)

Macrawn said:


> I got a question. I've got a column unfortunately to my left of my main seat that I have to treat. I was thinking of 4 inches of 703 but you say it's not that great beyond 2". You think 4 inches of Roxul would be better there? It's a rectangular column about a foot wide made of brick so I was thinking I need thick enough absorbtion for bass trapping on it but I don't want it to stick out too much. The rest of the room has a pretty large amount of bass trapping using Roxul. It's built right into the walls and I use acoustic fabric over a layer of batting. I may put in some slats to liven it up but the floor is concrete and the ceiling is a drop ceiling with about 7 inch roxul battings above that. Front and back walls are floor to ceiling traps about 24 inch thich of roxul. Side walls have less, about 7.5.
> 
> Here is a graph that the dsp produced. You can see that there is about an 8 db dip at 140 hz which is typical of a small room. I just got the room itself done and I haven't done early reflections yet. The other dips are no larger than 4 db. The room correction software only made a small change of a couple of db in the low mids. It does not do boosts only cuts.
> 
> ...



Can you send a more clear picture of the column? I don't see it in the picture you sent. Is it the blue?

If you already have a good amount of low end absorption around the room then I'd just focus on higher frequency absorption which I'd handle with 2" - 4". At 2" 703 can be more effective but it causes so many nasty side effects which you then need to deal with so I'd much rather use rockwool. 

To deal with that dip you need to start by figuring out what's causing it. I'd recommend making some movable panels and then take measurements while you move them around the room and find where they're most effective. You basically want to find which axis in the room is causing it. After that you can focus on putting treatment there. 

I'd recommend using REW to take measurements since the measurement that you have is very smoothed. That dip might not be as bad as it seems. I'm much more concerned about the lack of low end. Your system is essentially rolling off at 180Hz.


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## Macrawn (Aug 1, 2020)

The column is that blue pillar in the photo. It's brick and about a foot wide. It's direcly behind and to the left of the listening position. The Genelec graph is very smoothed like you said. I'll try taking REV measurements. You can't really read the numbers on my graph unless you have the graph open in the app then it tells exactly the levels on a mouse over but the roll off starts at about 110 hz and the speakers are good down to 55 hz max. I can handle a small sub in the room paired with the Genelecs so I'll probalby do that, and the crossoveer between the subs and speakers will probalby improve that dip as well with the dsp software. 

I think I need to make a couple of panels like you said and see where the problem is. I'm suspecting it is either the floor to ceiling since there isn't as much treatment between those two areas, or the right side wall. The other walls have some ability to leak out some bass, but behind the right wall is a concrete basement wall which is probably reflecting some bass back in despite the rockwool there. 

Thanks for the feedback. Appreciated.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Aug 1, 2020)

Macrawn said:


> The column is that blue pillar in the photo. It's brick and about a foot wide. It's direcly behind and to the left of the listening position. The Genelec graph is very smoothed like you said. I'll try taking REV measurements. You can't really read the numbers on my graph unless you have the graph open in the app then it tells exactly the levels on a mouse over but the roll off starts at about 110 hz and the speakers are good down to 55 hz max. I can handle a small sub in the room paired with the Genelecs so I'll probalby do that, and the crossoveer between the subs and speakers will probalby improve that dip as well with the dsp software.
> 
> I think I need to make a couple of panels like you said and see where the problem is. I'm suspecting it is either the floor to ceiling since there isn't as much treatment between those two areas, or the right side wall. The other walls have some ability to leak out some bass, but behind the right wall is a concrete basement wall which is probably reflecting some bass back in despite the rockwool there.
> 
> Thanks for the feedback. Appreciated.


If you measure out the distances of the speaker to each wall, ceiling, and floor, and then find the frequencies that are 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and 1 that length, you'll probably find something that coincides with that frequency. I forget which one it is specifically but if you google it you'll find which multiple results in a cancellation (search up SBIR).


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