If you can manage, setup your station so that you are listening down the length of the room, and not the width. It may not make that much a difference in a small room, but say you only have a small room to work with -- maybe 12’ x 14’ -- consider positioning the monitors so that they aim down the 14’ length.
Then setup your desk in the center of the room.
What’s your room symmetry?
If on one side of the room there is a wall, and on the other side there is open space, the stereo signal balance will be off. If there's curtains on one wall, you should have curtains on the other side to balance. The more symmetry, the better stereo decisions you can make.
Monitors
Position your monitors in an equilateral triangle, ideally angling your speakers at 60 degrees towards your head.
Set up your monitors to be 38% away from the length of your wall. Otherwise, and especially if you are in a small space, keep your monitors at least 12 inches away from the wall. Ideally, you want to have absorption on the wall behind the monitors to absorb low-mid frequencies.
Get some acoustical foam, a rubber pad, or other material to place under your monitors if you can. This helps decouple some of the low frequencies, especially if your monitors are sitting on a hard surface. By decoupling/isolating your monitors you can tighten up some of the mid and bass frequencies.
If your speakers have the option to roll off bass, depending on your room, you may need to roll off 4dB or so in the low end to properly hear the bass.
And speaking of bass, look up the frequency range of your monitors if you are unsure. Many monitors on the cheaper side don't have very good frequency response below 60-80Hz, so there can be a lot of boom and rumble unaccounted for when you are mixing.
Tweet Tweet, Angle Angle
It’s good to have the speakers’ tweeters (this is the mid and treble information) positioned at your ear level. Don’t have the tweeters aiming at your belly or chest.
If you have speaker stands, great. Otherwise, if your monitors are on a desk, look for some books or boxes to prop your monitors on, and adjust until you get the tweeters at ear level.
The distance between the monitors should be the same as the distance to you while sitting in mix position. Try to set up an equilateral triangle between your monitors' tweeters and your ears. Get a measuring tape and measure the distance between each monitor, then measure from the tweeters to your ears. Your ears, as well as both monitors, should be at about the same distance.
Your monitors should be pointing at you, so you shouldn't see the sides. Angle your speakers towards your sitting position. If you can see the sides of your speakers, adjust them until only the front of the speakers face you.
Protect Your Ears
As far as levels, be careful with how loud you monitor your audio. Don’t exceed 80-85dB. A lot of mixers monitor at a level that is just above conversation. Just remember, monitoring at levels over 85dB for prolonged periods of time can lead to permanent hearing loss. Are you in the business of making money with your ears? You gotta take care of them.
Modes and Reflections
If you do a cursory search for treating a room acoustically, chances are you’ll get results talking about things sounding modal, or you’ll come across early reflections.
An easy way to think of these:
Modes = Bass
Early reflections (low ceilings have fastest of early reflections) = Mids and treble
Absorption
The main concern for acoustical treatment is right behind mix area. Cancellation and other bad FX can occur as a result of this area not treated. Largely damping the entire wall behind the monitors isn't a bad idea, as you don't want reflections--you want to hear what's coming out of your speakers.
Bass congregates in the upper corners of the wall, and by placing traps up high, you preserve your floor space. You can turn a trap sideways over doorways.
Sidewalls: place traps not too high; ear-level for best perceived benefit. If there is still problem, you can spot-treat areas, usually high up on the wall.
Your first priority is probably to fix the bass and boom in the room through absorption.
With a low ceiling, focusing on absorption may be the better choice if you have to choose between absorption and diffusion.
Modes get first priority. Put bass traps in corners, mid-points of walls, and at quarter points. First harmonics of fundamental room modes occur at the mid points of the room boundaries, so bass traps can help here.
If you’re making the bass traps yourself, leave pockets of air between the trap and the wall.
With acoustic panels (whether you make them yourself or purchase them assembled), consider leaving an air-gap between the panel and the wall. If your panel is 1 inches thick, leave an inch of space between the wall. Ideally, your panel is 2 inches or thicker--in this case, leave an air gap of 2 inches or more. You want acoustic reflections trapped between the panel and the wall, not bouncing back at you while you track or mix.
Listening position
Especially if you’re in a small room, add an absorption panel on the wall directly behind where you sit, at ear level. This will help focus the sound. Otherwise, the audio coming out of your monitors will be bouncing immediately off the wall behind you.
With your monitors angled (60 degrees is ideal if you can manage it), they’re most likely bouncing off the back wall, then bouncing off the walls to your peripheral. When you sit down to mix, you want those peripheral reflections absorbed. So, place panels on the walls in your peripheral vision. Some people get very technical about where to place and measure these panel placements. Just look at your room, your position, do some experimenting, and you’ll be better off than if you had did nothing.
Have a hanging panel or foam mirror above your seated mix position to trap early reflections above your listening station.
Diffusion
Diffusion can help open a small room up.
Hang diffusers high in a small room to help kill slap echo. It can help get the liveliness of a sound when tracking. Diffusion in a small room can add air and definition because a small room doesn't have a lot of energy to begin with. It adds a kind of space. If you do just the front and rear wall, you can add, in your mind's eye, another 5, 7, 8 feet to the room dimensions. Spread the energy around.
Because absorption is often heavy in the front where your station is, putting diffusion on the rear wall of your control room can help open up the sound space a bit.
Don’t place the diffusion too high.
It’s good to rotate diffusion patterns if placed side by side, to increase randomness. If it's a small studio with less than 8-10 feet, it may be better to absorb the back wall with studio foam.
With a drummer, in addition to bass traps and panels, it can also be helpful having diffusion behind the drummer, or in front of the drummer, or off to side, etc.
Tuning your room
I haven’t used these methods, but below are two methods I’ve come across for tuning a room.
An easy way to tune your room:
Use a tone generator to sweep the frequency spectrum. Listen for boosts and cuts. Position an omnidirectional at the listening position, and through your DAW (digital audio workstation) listen to what's coming out of your speakers. Mute this track since this is for monitoring and you obviously don’t want feedback from your mic. Use a spectrum plugin on this track. Note rises and falls in amplitude.
A more intermediate way to tune your room:
Generate pink noise (across spectrum equally) at 85 dB SPL. Put a test mic at mix position, same way as above. Use a spectrum analyzer that can take two inputs at same time. Green is outgoing , and pink is incoming. Analyze the incoming signal and outgoing signal. Adjust your speakers, panels, and room treatments to flatten the response.
The Sweet Spot
Tony Maserati mentioned that the "sweet spot" can be wherever you get used to. He got used to the sweet spot hitting behind his head. So, he's actually listening in front of the spot because that’s what he’s used to.
Experiment, analyze, and pay attention. Everyone listens differently. Mixing can be very subjective, even amongst the best mixers our there.
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Thanks for reading.
||: Music. Mix. Life :||