The Biggest Problem With Mixing In A Small Room

What can the dimensions of a room tell you about sound quality? Find out in this video...
GIK Acoustics: geni.us/7kbrj
Monster Bass Trap: geni.us/wMUy5
244 Acoustic Panel: geni.us/VCgb3
242 Acoustic Panel: geni.us/SfX7
Tuned Pressure Traps: geni.us/BMY4WL
Dr. Dan Russell Animations: www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/demo...
Room Mode Calculator: amcoustics.com/tools/amroc
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00:00 Axial Room Modes
1:04 Displacement vs. Pressure
3:41 How do these concepts apply to rooms?
6:42 Acoustic Treatment Options
8:20 How to Effectively Place Acoustic Treatment
10:32 The Listening Position and Speaker Location
12:44 NEXT VIDEO - Acoustic Treatment for Beginners: Studio Sound
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[@wildekek]

This is the first time I started to get an intuitive understanding of room modes and why panel thickness and distance from the wall matters. Showing pressure AND velocity makes it all click for me. Thanks for an excellent video, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

[@AudioUniversity]

Glad to help!

[@UncleWalter1]

I'm living that small room life. In my 3.6m x 2.8m x 2.4m room, it took a fair bit of treatment before it could really be a workable room. But I did pretty well in the end. It took 29 panels total by the end of it and resulted in pretty uniform decay time down to about 110 Hz and things only really start getting wobbly below 85 Hz. Most of it is just a null at 73 Hz at my listening position and a couple of slightly longer decays around 50 Hz or so. It's the smallest room I've ever had, it's the most heavily treated room I've had, but it's the best sounding room I've had. I get the information I'm missing in the little LF scoop just by sitting in the other chair at the back of the room. So I can't complain, really.

[@AudioUniversity]

Very cool! Glad to hear this!

[@mikebauer6917]

Very cool and well explained.

[@sonicart1808]

Another well-explained video thanks!👍

[@clicks59]

Cool video.Thanks Kyle. It boils down to “learning” your monitors and how they translate. It’s truly an art. Good ears are good ears. I have recently worked in four different studios. All are different sizes. All four have great monitors (Barefoot, Focals, Ocean Way) All rooms are well treated. My mixes sound like crap in all of them. Known good mixes sound great in all of them. The monitors and the room treatment are no excuse. 😂 What I have learned is good monitors in a well treated room will get you to a better mix faster. The low end can definitely trip you up even in a well treated room.

[@Lolwutdesu9000]

Wow, this is one of your best videos yet. Straight to the point and all the relevant info provided, good job! Looking forward to the next one, as I'm struggling dealing with a bass resonance around 130 Hz (ceiling/floor mode).

[@sebastian_trzaska]

Excellent demonstrations!

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed them!

[@peterelfman]

This video is amazingly helpful, thank you for making it!

[@AudioUniversity]

Glad it was helpful!

[@glamrole5911]

Superb 👌

[@TomboRectify]

It's pretty cool to hear this 42-ish Hz tone made by my fan I took out of a microwave oven when it's placed just at the right spot near the wall on my room and when I'm around 80 cm away of the opposing wall. I measured the frequency with this Oscope app which is I guess is some kind of frequency analyzer app

[@HoustonRoad]

Thank you for the info!!

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks for watching!

[@karayuschij]

My room is little (2.50 x 3.40 m), but full of objects, bookshelves with books, lamps, frames, and tapestry on the walls, moquette + carpet on the floor. And it does not sound so bad (although not perfectly). Thank you for the video

[@AudioUniversity]

It’s good that your room sounds good! These objects don’t do much for low-frequency control, but as long as you know your room, it doesn’t need to be perfect!

[@Lolwutdesu9000]

All those objects act as diffusers, essentially.

[@aaax9410]

Thanks Kyle nicley explained 👍

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks for watching!

[@nicovandenberg_]

Great explanation. I have my studio in my living room and have decided to not do acoustic treatment because of how it looks (hey, I live there). I do use ARC3 for correction. It's funny, I noticed almost everything you said in my own room (nodes etc), but never knew most of this science behind it.

[@SATORUFUJiWARA411]

Thank you from japan

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks for watching!

[@zappydoesmusic]

I think I'd recommend going for smaller monitors and better headphones for mixing in small rooms compared to the usual good headphones and better monitors.

[@niteshades_promise]

my small room is my drum room, my mixing room, my band rehearsal room, and recording room. 🍻

[@nicholassimmons6291]

Thanks for sharing so i can produce better music when i set up my recording studio "

[@IrenESorius]

👍‍‍🌟👍‍‍

[@marijandesin8226]

Could analyze a car in a similar fashion! The car is always my final test

[@MrPhelly]

I’ve heard that tube traps are amazing for bass frequencies. What do you think of them? How do they compare to other “low frequency specific” treatments?

[@kid_missive]

Thanks! Any idea what the effect of having a small room, a corner, and multiple monitors behind the speakers would be? All components in question are off the desk on stands / wall mounts and pulled a few inches away from the wall / each other for a little breathing room. But not much.

[@AudioUniversity]

It’s hard to determine actual effects without measuring. Check out this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpWahphua7ihnMUsi=ygNUB94OpL2iKWB5

[@albertorobinson7611]

hi sorry for the interruption, but theoretically what would be a desirable ratio between area in square meter an volume of space, for a given pressure level? (spl) taken the consideration of must of the volume in the room its take by require item

[@Sylkis89]

So what does it mean for the tiny amp boxes or vocal cabins used for recording lol

[@marijandesin8226]

Headphones can't tell you individual instrument levels. That has to be done on monitors. I also listen from the kitchen livingroom and bathroom to see what comes through the most.

[@AVDRE]

What kind of desk is that??? Is the pull out tray/drawer custom? Link

[@AudioUniversity]

This is a Husky desk from Home Depot

[@JHBrandt]

It was good up to 8:18 and then he went into "imaginary", LaLa land. 8:18 - 10:42 is 100% bullshit. 10:42 he calls it a "38% rule" and then goes Loosey Goosey about it. It is critical for ANY room that the listening position is placed at 0.375 times the length measured from the front wall. 11:22 - Never sit where your ears will be in the center of the height dimension. (There isn't an issue sitting in the L/R center because YOUR EARS are not in the center. They are a little to the left and a little to the right. No problem. You must have L-R symmetry). Note: a single tone is not a way to specify speaker position based on the hypothesis of pressure nodes or antinodes. I would watch these videos with a large dose of Critical Thinking (use your baloney detection kit!)

[@JHBrandt]

I'll explain why 8:18 - 10:42 is wrong. Plain wrong. When sound waves enter a porous absorber, they bend and enter a velocity region. These porous absorbers are CALLED velocity absorbers because that's what they DO, not where they work. And, if you leave an air gap behind the porous absorber, you should CLOSE the gap to the wall. When a sound wave goes through a porous absorber, it forms a compression area behind the panel in the air space. The compression of the air behind the panel will increase the absorption converting it to heat. Have you put air in your bicycle tires lately with a hand pump? Get's hot, doesn't it? That's how absorption works in compression. Now, if you leave a gap of more than an inch behind any panel like this, there will be no pressure buildup or additional absorption. You might as well take the advice of someone telling you to drill holes in the bottom of your bicycle pump to improve the filling of your tires. #facepalm. I have laboratory testing data for everything that I talk about.

[@Purple_Delics]

I don’t necessarily have a quite voice but not a super loud voice either. Do you think the shure SM7B would be a good mic for me? I don’t want a super dark or bright mic either

[@lawlaw9176]

Me at 3 am checking up Yt and watched this to see how worse is my room because my mom always complains my snoring noise passes through to her room...

[@NNokia-jz6jb]

What do you think about that virtual mix room software together with calibrated headphones?

[@AudioUniversity]

It’s pretty cool! I’ve been using SoundID Reference Virtual Monitoring. I still prefer using my physical monitors most of the time, but the software does highlight things that I don’t hear on my physical monitors.

[@NNokia-jz6jb]

@@AudioUniversity But could it be used a replacement for monitoring on real speakers in a room? Asking this because i have problems with sound levels and neighbours.

[@jithintom94]

Can we also apply this same principle in live sound? Like are these theoretically the main feedback frequencies too?

[@AudioUniversity]

The wavelength-frequency relationships translate. I’d recommend looking into “gain before feedback” calculations for live sound.

[@alxd5068]

🤔 got it

[@aledum1815]

Cheers.

[@jasonschubert6828]

Would that angled ceiling improve standing waves somewhat by reflecting sounds at different times?

[@AudioUniversity]

It certainly complicates things!

[@STEFANiSAKSSON]

@@AudioUniversity It complicates calculations, sure. But is it actually helpful? After all the wave have to bounce to several walls till it reinforce itself, making the resonance frequency higher and also I think with less amplitude.

[@woodward_alan]

What brand of desk is that?

[@AudioUniversity]

This is a Husky desk from Home Depot. I learned about it in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/onPUgJeDrZWrjpYsi=_EP6eegAl9Te_HIO

[@TwangThang57]

In my 9 x 10 room, the solution is to mix on headphones. I've essentially given up on monitors.

[@AudioUniversity]

Yes. In nearly square rooms, like mine and yours, room modes start to bunch up closer to each other!

[@marijandesin8226]

Headphones can't tell you individual instrument levels. That has to be done on monitors. I also listen from the kitchen livingroom and bathroom to see what comes through the most.

[@ebormajaw8064]

My room is also too small 😢

[@AudioUniversity]

That’s ok! You can still make great recordings and mixes. But it’s helpful to be aware of the potential problems. 🙂

[@ebormajaw8064]

Thank you so much for your advice. All the best for everything you do..

[@BogdanWeiss]

The title of your video is misleading - every room has resonant modes, that every manufacturer of "off the shelf" acoustic "bandaid" products forgets about.... the problem with small rooms is inaccurate bass below the Schroder frequency....

[@aaroncobeng]

O hey first

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks for watching!