Studio Acoustics Question

Hello Again! 
 
I want you to look at the picture I've posted.  I have a dedicated room for recording.  It's very small (only 5' X 12') but it serves my purpose.  I know I'm never going to fit a drum kit in there but I don't play drums anyway and EZ Drummer 2 does that great for me.
 
What you're seeing is the short wall.  In April of 2016 I submitted this photo and others covering the rest of the room to Aurelex and they sent me a graphic "blueprint" of where to install the panels. https://imgur.com/a/WaGzfHC Notice that the bass traps are where the bass port are in the back of the speakers.  My question is did Aurelex give me bogus information on where to place these?  I hardly get much bass response no matter where I set it in the mix.  Can this be why?  Keep in mind that as this room is very small I don't have too many options, but this is how they told me to set it up. This is the first I'm posting an image here.  I hope it works.
 
Thanks!
John B.

scook
When adding an image to a post, use the url for the image not the url for the page hosting the image. In this case the url for the image is https://i.imgur.com/LVa4YR9.jpg
Note: the url has an image file extension. Embed this link in your post like this

Yeah.  I did that and it came up something like "Not A Legal URL"
Thanks, scook for posting the pic.

Practicing.

Yay!!  I did it!  I tried Matron Landslide's suggestion and it worked.  Thanks ML.
Now that that's settled can we get to the original question?
Thanks!

msmcleod
I had a very similar experience with my speakers. Originally they were around 2" from the back wall the wall and got a great bass response. However to free up some desk space, I recently put them on mounted wall stands (which brought them as far form the wall as your speakers) and the bass practically disappeared. 
 
I'm using IK Multimedia ARC 2, so after taking new measurements it sorted it all out by boosting the bass a fair amount.
 
I know that some HiFi speakers are actually designed to make use of the wall behind them for bass, but I didn't think this was the same case for studio monitors... maybe it is for some, I don't know. My speakers certainly needed a bass boost though after moving them away from the wall.
 
I would recommend ARC 2 though (or some similar speaker measurement software along with a hardware stereo graphic eq). This will allow you to compensate for various frequency responses.
 
The angle of your speakers did catch my eye on your photo though. It looks like they're angled so the crossover point is just between your querty keyboard and monitor, whereas it should be where your ears are. I'd expect them to be angled to hit your ears around the middle of your chair - maybe it's just an illusion of the photo tho.
 
M.

Yeah.  I try to do that "axis" thing with the triangle.  When I'm sitting on that chair my head is perhaps a bit above the woofers.  The speaker stands have discreet  notches so I can't put them just anywhere height wise. If I moved them up to the next notch they would definitely be too high.  Also, each of those monitor speakers has a high and a low pass filter (3 positions).  I tried all the positions and none changes the situation much.
 

Overall that's a very narrow space so not ideal at all. It's  even narrower than a mobile recording truck space. Your speakers are a bit to close together for a traditional triangle. Just look at pictures of pro studios. And in your case look at mobile recording truck designs.  They will give you the best starting point.  

 

Fellas
 
I know it's small.  Unusually small even.   I have a lemon and I have to make lemonade with it. Is it possible or not?
The only option I have is this room.  Is it possible to get more out of this room or would that be a waste of effort?
What is ARC?
 
JB

Johnbee58
Fellas
 
I know it's small.  Unusually small even.   I have a lemon and I have to make lemonade with it. Is it possible or not?
The only option I have is this room.  Is it possible to get more out of this room or would that be a waste of effort?
What is ARC?
 
JB

ARC2:  http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/arc2/
 
Basically ARC 2 is a room correction plugin. You get a measurement microphone and the ARC2 software. The software measures your room by recording frequency sweeps at various microphone positions, then creates a correction profile so that your speakers give a flat response.
 
The focus is on EQ, but it also claims do deal with phase issues, and standing waves. 
 
The results were like night & day for me. I can't recommend it enough.
 
Although the it's not cheap, actually the measurement mic is really good as an acoustic instrument mic, so it's not like it's a one-use product.
 
M.

Shooting sound down the longer dimension of the room is the correct approach. If I was to re-arrange that room, it would be only to see if there was room to pull everything away from the wall a bit. Even 6" could help.
 
Your photo doesn't show if there is any absorption on the ceiling. That would be beneficial if the ceiling height allows it. It should ideally be at least 3" thick with an equivalent air gap above it. That would take 6" off the room's height - whether it's do-able depends on whether you have that much clearance to spare.
 
A room that size cannot reinforce bass response well, so subjectively the bass is always going to sound weak. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The formula for calculating the lowest frequency supported by the room is f = 1028/2L, where L is the longest dimension. (IOW, what frequency's half-wave is equal to the length of the room.) Yours comes out to about 36 Hz, so those frequencies are there - just not acoustically amplified by the room.
 
The good news is you can definitely deal with that, as long as you're careful not to compensate by over-emphasizing low frequencies in your mix. Best way to accomplish this is to just kick back and dedicate a few hours to listening to your favorite commercial recordings. That simple exercise will train your brain to recognize what a good mix sounds like on your speakers in your room. Over time you'll have no problem gauging where your bass is.
 
Also employ a spectrum analyzer to observe the low-frequency content in your reference music, so you'll then be able to double-check if your own mixes are bass-heavy just by looking at the graph.
 
These steps require little or no money. Of course, if you've got bucks to burn, sealed non-ported (or even front-ported) speakers would be an improvement. But I'd try literally everything else before blowing a couple grand on new speakers! 

I would enjoy the room for general playback / editing  etc. - In my opinion you would be better off making actual mix decisions with good quality headphones.

John, I use the ARC 2 system, and it indeed helps.  It was designed for studios like yours.  It'll make your JBL's useful.

Johnbee58

David
Arc or Sonarworks is for only listening only!  it is to try correct you room. It is turned off when mixing down.
   the problem is we could forget to turn if off when mixing down so people look at different routing solutions.
    Just put it on your master buss and turn it off when you mix down

Alright.  Getting there but still a bit confused.  When you say "mixing down" do you mean having a project open and adding effects, balancing tracks, etc, or do you mean after we have the mix as we want and we go to file and render export, bounce) our mix to a wav, mp3?  I would think we want it on when we're doing the balancing, adding effects, adding automation, etc.  You mean turn it off when we decide to render our "mix" to a wav or mp3.  Right?
 
JB

What you're hearing from your master bus isn't actually what is being played, because your speakers/room aren't accurate.
 
ARC2 sits on your master bus to correct this. Think of it as a graphic EQ between the master bus and your speakers.
 
However, once you've done your mix / automation etc and you're ready to export, you need to switch ARC2 off.
 
You don't want your finished product EQ'd for your room. Other people won't be listening to it in your room. You want everyone to hear it as you "heard" it... i.e. without the correction.
 
M.

msmcleod
As an analogy, say you had a camera and you're short-sighted.
 
You wear glasses to adjust for the fact that the camera "looks" out of focus for you.
 
ARC2 are the glasses, except in this case they're in front of the lense.
 
You've lined everything up and got it just how you want it. Once you're ready to "take your photo" (i.e. export to WAV), you take the glasses away... otherwise you'll get a blurry picture.
 
M.
 

OK.  This makes sense.  This is what I thought.  Thanks!