If My Room Is Asymmetrical, How Does That Affect Treatment? - AcousticsInsider.com

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Let me take a bold guess:
Your home studio doesn’t have the optimal, symmetrical shape you’d like.
How did I do?
Yet pretty much all advice you find about treating home studios assumes you are working with a rectangular bunker.
But at the very least, there’s an awkward door and windows somewhere that you can’t do anything about.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you are dealing with a random closet, inconveniently angled wall, a fireplace, or a little cubby that has no right to be there.
So when we get back into the real world how do you take all that generic acoustical advice and apply it when the room ISN’T the ideal shape?
How does it affect the treatment and how you set up your studio when your room is asymmetrical?
Let me show you the key things you need to know to squeeze as much symmetry as possible out of an asymmetrical space.
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[@laurentmussard9423]

Jesco : "You just have to live with what you're given [...] " Dennis Foley: "Find another room." 😅 I'm getting some real hard time finding my way around here... But I will keep on trying. Thanks for your awesome insight.

[@dennisw4654]

I know your audience and educational videos are targeted towards studio mixing but all your principles and strategies apply to audiophile listening as well. I have learned a great deal from watching your videos and applied much of what you recommend. The end result has been a very satisfying listening experience and one, I believe, is what the mixing professional intended for me to hear. Thank you.

[@SonicDephect]

I ended up in a terribly asymmetrical room and my only option was to set up on a corner which is usually a terrible idea, but with your phantom center and other videos I was able to get an incredible set up that is turning out epic mixes.

[@raymurphy5230]

What I find “interesting” is all the energy and commentary on room acoustics, which is of course is important. However, on the other hand, you have many, many very successful mixers working in an environment surrounded by hardware. Basically surrounded by metal and hard plastic. I would surmise the most important factor is just knowing your room.

[@infinaneek]

Easier to get to know a good room tho. Less guesswork and having to check translation religiously.

[@wendyslittleprogram3984]

I think it's tricky to get a balance of a well-setup and treated room, while keeping it an inspiring place for creativity. For example, I have spent time in symmetrical, acoustically-treated studios that were kinda soulless, and I couldn't get in a creative mood. While other times I've been in very imperfect rooms with lots of windows looking out to nice views, and it's been much more inspiring.

[@qu4zz4r]

it's a matter of interior design, nothing to do with the treatment itself, bro I've just ended my room treatment - a lot of rockwool on the walls and ceiling and in the corners (not only wall-to-wall but also wall-to-ceiling, so there's a ton of panels) and it's inspiring as heck the reasons are - lovely colors, good modern furniture, thought out lightning (cold filling light and warm spot lights), comfortably placed stuff... and of course goddamn clear sound)

[@chrisbistrishki]

Hey Jesco! I totally get what you’re saying when trying to push the “recreate symmetry” idea, but here’s my question: Does that include parallel walls as well? I mean, if somebody even has the option of changing up the structure of the room in a home studio scenario after making the form symmetrical for the stereo imaging, might as well think about making the parallel walls slanted, right? I’m not sure if you’d agree on that, since you didn’t even mention this in the video but from what I can see professional or semi-professional control rooms almost always have either the ceiling, back wall or even side walls slanted towards the back of the room to focus as much of the directly reflected sound back there and make it “pass” the listening position as much as possible (obviously that’s not entirely possible, especially in a small room, but if there’s enough space, slanting the walls to make the reflections go behind you should definitely do something, right?) My point is: symmetry does not equal parallelism per se. Or said differently - symmetry should be there only for stereo imaging purposes, but as far as reflections go, parallel walls aren’t ideal (if you even have the luxury of being able to change them of course.) I’d love to hear your thoughts on that, potentially in a Knowledge Bomb Video. :) I’m also a BBT/APH student and haven’t gotten to the asymmetrical rooms part so I don’t know if you mention that there, but I thought I’d leave the comment anyways. Cheers! :)

[@amusik7]

Amazing timing! I'm moving into an asymmetrical room this week - and I had no idea where to start figuring it out.

[@dannythedabbler]

Ooh, I need a video like this but about square rooms! (I'm building a home theater in a squarish space)

[@peterbrandt7911]

Maybe you could cover semi-optimal setups? For example, being forced to put your gear, desk and speakers in a corner?

[@pepsi_baby]

The more I listen to you Jesco the more I realize how bad my placement is. Managed to get a scrap of space in the bedroom of my 40sqm flat. The desk is in the corner. On the left hand side there's a window on the right hand side is a closet. I guess I have to try doing some damage reduction 😅.

[@ukaszgowka2349]

Each time I watch your video I learn something new. Wery valuable an without the voodoo. Keep going!

[@federicolearco3867]

My experience with my living room. Typical asymmetrical room with one speakers near an angle and one on the side. A lot of bass trapping with rock wool on the angle under the R and re-creating an angle with panels behind the L. I've clearly misured the response and the problems only were on the R channel in the angle. The other one, didn't have any problem, nearly perfectly linear response from 40 Hz to 20 kHz ( heco direkt 2 ways ). I've had to use some filters until 400 Hz to match the response but nothing extreme. So yes, you can obtain an high end result even on asymmetrical rooms.

[@paulrenevos]

my compliments, your condenser sounds really great in your treated room. I'd be curious as to your setup

[@gt4viking789]

Great video thanks 👏🏻 Surely this will equally apply to a 2 channel dedicated listening room? All the best Peter

[@EveryHourKills]

Another great video!

[@donwest5387]

what if one of the "walls", is a hall-way?

[@RafaelSacchi]

got the same problem and am thinking of a rockwool curtain for the hallway

[@M.Holland]

I will be in a situation soon, where te room it self is symetrical, but since its kind of a attic appartment, the celling is anything than symetrical. one side is propper romm hight like 2,50 m or something and the other side is a tlest 4 meters high. what would you suggest?

[@AHRNorth49]

Do you have any data on using Sonopan as an acoustic absorber material?

[@DestyneeOM]

I’m renting & the room has a lot of reverb. I want to do minimal to no drilling. I thought of making sound panels but would a booth be more effective? It’s a 10x11x8ft room Reverbtime 1.08sec

[@DestyneeOM]

Also, Its mainly for recording vocals & listening. I send out for mixing.