This is probably one of the best videos I’ve seen on treating your room! A great first resource to watch that breaks it all down. Also, I’m not paid to say this (wish I was lol), but GIK impression series panels completely transformed my room and made it usable. So, shoutout to GIK Acoustics honestly. I dragged my feet for a while, but it was very worth it.
Really nice and well explained: When it comes to the "problem frequencies" in a room and where to place the absorbers, I would say it's necessary to measure the room (play bass tones from a speaker and see how they behave and measure levels with a good microphone). It's not great to rely on just estimations, since there are so many factors that may throw those calculations way off. For example open doors and windows often change the resonant bahaviour quite a lot and even for example a hallway outside or the properties of the adjacent room may affect a lot. Particle movement may happen between rooms as well - similar to how the ports on a bass reflex speaker affect the resonaces of the box. Also most rooms don't have solid concrete walls all around. "Softer" walls tend to partially vibrate with the sound at low frequencies. This gives the same result as effectively move the reflection point to some point behind the wall (as some particle movement remains where the wall surface is). This can cause the resonances to happen at slightly lower frequencies, than the theoretical calculated from the distance between the walls.
i've 6" bass traps & an RFZ with specifically placed 3" panels, all using Safe N Sound rockwool. my front wall is mostly left untreated & there is about 10' ft of distance from my listening position, to my back wall, which has an old 6' ft tall bookshelf with books, records, instruments on it. the room sounds very nice for its size (8' tall x 9' wide x 14 2/3' long) & i get great response all around, even though i don't think any room can be perfect. also, some people confuse sound treatment with sound proofing (like a perfectly sealed water tank)
I do my recording in, admittedly, a not ideal recording space in my house, and had this drum track I recorded that was really spacey. Like, on a different song, it might have worked, but the song I was working on needed a more dry, closed off sound, and having the drums be boomy made it impossible to really work with the track. So, I hung a comforter down the one wall, and I was really surprised at how big of a difference it made in drying up the room sound.
I think I'll just keep mixing in headphones. I don't even want to know many thousands of dollars all those panels and bass traps cost. I'd rather have five more guitars. It seems like the net result was that every surface was covered except the floor and desk. Is there even a need to calculate where you put the panels? Couldn't a similar result simply be achieved by making sure every wall and ceiling has thick panels at regular, close intervals and every corner has bass traps?
you still have to strategically place the correct panel/trap at the correct point, otherwise they can be in suboptimal positions and absorb the wrong frequencies (or fail to absorb the right frequencies) or overall just be less effective
There are diminishing returns with absorption. Work within your budget. Fabric wrapped panels can be bought for extremely cheap from Taobao and Ali Express. You can fill 50% of your room's walls surfaces with just US$500. The trick for small rooms is that the goal is not to indiscriminately bring down the mid range RT by filling the room entirely with fabric wrapped panels, but to bring down the RT evenly across all frequencies. After around 6 to 8 two-inch fabric wrapped panels, the limiting factor becomes the low frequency treatments, which can be very space intensive. Putting anything more than 8 large fabric wrapped panels in a typical room without low frequency treatment strategies will only result in a dry but unbalanced room. i.e., everything sounds nice and dry, but your bass and low mids just remains relatively amplified, leading to a terrible mixing environment. If you are on a budget, stick with 6 to 8 panels first.
Thanks for the video. My question / pondering after watching is this…we only need room treatment if we are recording / mixing or having issues with our room. Is that correct? I hear that room treatment is one of the best improvements we can make when it comes to home theater / music but if we are not having issues how will it improve our situation? I have a large open living space area for my setup and have been considering room treatment because of what I heard but I just listen to music and use for TV / movies and don’t necessarily have any complaints with room echo or bad sound so I don’t know if it would help my situation. Thanks.
Broadband treatment is effective down to around 70Hz. Below that frequency, broadband solutions would need to be quite deep to work. For lower frequencies, specialized resonance absorbers, like our Scopus membrane bass traps, are much more efficient and help tackle the challenging frequencies, room modes specifically.
Is it a false economy buying thinner traps like 10cm depth which can only absorb highs and some mids when you can buy 20cm from the start? Ideally should you use the thickest traps you can all around the room and not waste money on thinner traps? I was thinking of getting all monster traps rather than the other kinds. I’m producing and mixing bass heavy club music like house/techno. I’m not sure where diffusion, range limiting and pressure traps fits into the plan though or how many I’d need instead of some of the monster traps.
If you are serious, go for fabric wrapped rockwool panels that are at least 5 cm. and to stretch your dollar, mount them with an additional 5 cm gap from your wall with an appopriate spacer.
10cm panels offer a great balance between cost and performance, absorbing down to around 90-100Hz. We’ve found that our Sound Blocks (25cm deep) hit the sweet spot for broadband absorption, effectively treating frequencies down to 60Hz and even touching 40Hz. For anything below 60Hz, we usually recommend custom-tuned bass traps like our Scopus membrane bass traps. 🤘
Great and informative video. I do have a question. How do you acoustically treat the room when it is not perfectly rectangular (one wall is not totally flat, and there is a cabinet on the other wall that is 3/4 length of the other wall)? Appreciate this video!
@@iamveetherhevelaytor please note that you will need a measurement microphone. For initial estimates any reasonably good condenser mic will do - if you need more precision you will need a calibrated measurement microphone. I assume that you have a analog input interface with XLR input ....
Hi Brother. I have a balance cable for my IEM with .78mm 2Pin Connecter. I want to use the cable with my other headphones. But it has a 3.5mm jack connector. Is there any way I can use any converter ( .78mm 2 Pin Connector to 3.5mm jack connector)
I've put off treatment because I've got a big window at my first reflection point on the left side of my room (and a plain wall on the right side) - I don't want to sacrifice natural daylight at all since I'm a musician/producer first and it helps me. Idk if it's pointless since I can only treat one of the first reflections and not the other side.
@@MadelnMachinesI don’t think so. The speakers fire down the length of the room which is always recommended. The dream would be to have a window right infront of my desk, and then treat the rest of the room equally. I just need to confirm whether it’d still be worthit to treat the room with one of the early reflection points neglected. Need to find someone with a similar room set up to me
It's 'soundproof' room (which is difficult and expensive) rather than acoustic which bother me (who only have small budget), more/most. Especially in the kind of common house with close neighbours and all, that's big problem.
@choharrry Ah. There are many ways to tackle an active system like that. You don't even need dedicated monitoring hardware anymore with on board dsp. There are very capable and free tools that can run natively on your PC or Mac and handle all matrix routing and speaker processing. As long as you have proper amplification for each driver and a dedicated hardware output, just about anything can be done quote easily. The toughest part is placement and tuning.
Was this sponsored - did the company that makes the panels you named give a bunch to you? If so, shame on you for omitting that. I'm so tired of sellouts and dishonesty (eg undisclosed bias etc), I really hope that wasn't the case here.
Have you watched the video? 30 seconds in he literally mentions that the video is sponsored by GIK. Regardless of the sponsorship, the information he provides in this video is useful and can be used with any brand of acoustic treatment.
@@RobertoBestia I had, that section was skipped by sponsor block. It was also the only time he mentioned any ulterior motive or bias I believe, so still basically a sell out. He could have said something when mentioning the products if they were actually his 1st choice, if correctly informing rather than misleading viewers was important to him. I get if you don't see anything wrong though, few people care about much but money and selling out is so common no one blinks.
@@nommy8599 went back 6 months in his video library, and his studio then had already the same GIK panels up. So I guess that answers your question if it’s his first choice or not :)
@@RobertoBestia Thanks for looking. I'm not convinced though, for 2 reasons: 1-if they were his 1st choice why not say that? People usually seem to when reviewing a sponsored item they really recommend over all else. 2- there are many reasons why someone might use sub-optimal gear, like it being gifted or got on sale or just good enough. The fact that this discussion is happening at all supports my complaint, not enough clarity. If it's just a paid infomercial have the integrity to say clearly or if it's something that you'd buy given full choice also say, or of you haven't researched or experienced options enough to know say that. Perhaps this channel is different to those paid to 10 reviews which are really just a list of top marketing rewards, IDK, but I still suspect so for this one.
@@nommy8599 Last thing that I’ll reply to this because I really feel it’s becoming a discussion of semantics. Reinforcing something is your first choice while that choice is also from the same company that is sponsoring you can actually work against you and have more people doubt your integrity. Because why do you need to reinforce it? From what I’ve seen from this channel is that the videos are information/education focused first. If I as a RUclipsr could get sponsored by a brand I myself use, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes to said sponsorship. Being able to talk about something you use yourself that then also brings food to the table is a win win in my perception. Guess we can agree to disagree :) Have a nice day
This is probably one of the best videos I’ve seen on treating your room! A great first resource to watch that breaks it all down. Also, I’m not paid to say this (wish I was lol), but GIK impression series panels completely transformed my room and made it usable. So, shoutout to GIK Acoustics honestly. I dragged my feet for a while, but it was very worth it.
Thanks so much! We’re thrilled you’re enjoying our products!
I’ve recently just bought some GIK acoustic monster bass traps to dial in the room properly, vast improvement. Great video!
That's awesome! 🙌
Fantastic video! You covered all the details perfectly. Really appreciate you using our products-thanks so much! 🤟
Once again a fantastic video with great information. Keep up the good work guys.
Really nice and well explained:
When it comes to the "problem frequencies" in a room and where to place the absorbers, I would say it's necessary to measure the room (play bass tones from a speaker and see how they behave and measure levels with a good microphone). It's not great to rely on just estimations, since there are so many factors that may throw those calculations way off. For example open doors and windows often change the resonant bahaviour quite a lot and even for example a hallway outside or the properties of the adjacent room may affect a lot. Particle movement may happen between rooms as well - similar to how the ports on a bass reflex speaker affect the resonaces of the box.
Also most rooms don't have solid concrete walls all around. "Softer" walls tend to partially vibrate with the sound at low frequencies. This gives the same result as effectively move the reflection point to some point behind the wall (as some particle movement remains where the wall surface is). This can cause the resonances to happen at slightly lower frequencies, than the theoretical calculated from the distance between the walls.
Really great video, Kyle. Keep up the good work!
You have set your room up pretty nice Kyle , congrats :)
i've 6" bass traps & an RFZ with specifically placed 3" panels, all using Safe N Sound rockwool. my front wall is mostly left untreated & there is about 10' ft of distance from my listening position, to my back wall, which has an old 6' ft tall bookshelf with books, records, instruments on it. the room sounds very nice for its size (8' tall x 9' wide x 14 2/3' long) & i get great response all around, even though i don't think any room can be perfect. also, some people confuse sound treatment with sound proofing (like a perfectly sealed water tank)
I do my recording in, admittedly, a not ideal recording space in my house, and had this drum track I recorded that was really spacey. Like, on a different song, it might have worked, but the song I was working on needed a more dry, closed off sound, and having the drums be boomy made it impossible to really work with the track. So, I hung a comforter down the one wall, and I was really surprised at how big of a difference it made in drying up the room sound.
I think I'll just keep mixing in headphones. I don't even want to know many thousands of dollars all those panels and bass traps cost. I'd rather have five more guitars.
It seems like the net result was that every surface was covered except the floor and desk. Is there even a need to calculate where you put the panels? Couldn't a similar result simply be achieved by making sure every wall and ceiling has thick panels at regular, close intervals and every corner has bass traps?
you still have to strategically place the correct panel/trap at the correct point, otherwise they can be in suboptimal positions and absorb the wrong frequencies (or fail to absorb the right frequencies) or overall just be less effective
There are diminishing returns with absorption. Work within your budget. Fabric wrapped panels can be bought for extremely cheap from Taobao and Ali Express. You can fill 50% of your room's walls surfaces with just US$500. The trick for small rooms is that the goal is not to indiscriminately bring down the mid range RT by filling the room entirely with fabric wrapped panels, but to bring down the RT evenly across all frequencies. After around 6 to 8 two-inch fabric wrapped panels, the limiting factor becomes the low frequency treatments, which can be very space intensive. Putting anything more than 8 large fabric wrapped panels in a typical room without low frequency treatment strategies will only result in a dry but unbalanced room. i.e., everything sounds nice and dry, but your bass and low mids just remains relatively amplified, leading to a terrible mixing environment. If you are on a budget, stick with 6 to 8 panels first.
Amazing video! Thank you. How’d you achieve an air gap? Block of wood or something else? Thanks!
Our 242, 244 or Monster bass traps have a built-in air gaps, so you don't have to worry about spacing 🙌
Could you please do a video regarding on how to apply FRI filters to a line array?
Thanks for the video.
My question / pondering after watching is this…we only need room treatment if we are recording / mixing or having issues with our room. Is that correct?
I hear that room treatment is one of the best improvements we can make when it comes to home theater / music but if we are not having issues how will it improve our situation?
I have a large open living space area for my setup and have been considering room treatment because of what I heard but I just listen to music and use for TV / movies and don’t necessarily have any complaints with room echo or bad sound so I don’t know if it would help my situation. Thanks.
I was missing resonant absorbers, which are typically very helpful in the voice frequency range around 250Hz .... ?
Broadband treatment is effective down to around 70Hz. Below that frequency, broadband solutions would need to be quite deep to work. For lower frequencies, specialized resonance absorbers, like our Scopus membrane bass traps, are much more efficient and help tackle the challenging frequencies, room modes specifically.
Can you make a video tutorial about acoustic treatment just for voice over recording in small home studio? Please, be so kind. Thank you in advance.
Is it a false economy buying thinner traps like 10cm depth which can only absorb highs and some mids when you can buy 20cm from the start? Ideally should you use the thickest traps you can all around the room and not waste money on thinner traps? I was thinking of getting all monster traps rather than the other kinds. I’m producing and mixing bass heavy club music like house/techno. I’m not sure where diffusion, range limiting and pressure traps fits into the plan though or how many I’d need instead of some of the monster traps.
If you are serious, go for fabric wrapped rockwool panels that are at least 5 cm. and to stretch your dollar, mount them with an additional 5 cm gap from your wall with an appopriate spacer.
10cm panels offer a great balance between cost and performance, absorbing down to around 90-100Hz. We’ve found that our Sound Blocks (25cm deep) hit the sweet spot for broadband absorption, effectively treating frequencies down to 60Hz and even touching 40Hz. For anything below 60Hz, we usually recommend custom-tuned bass traps like our Scopus membrane bass traps. 🤘
Great and informative video. I do have a question. How do you acoustically treat the room when it is not perfectly rectangular (one wall is not totally flat, and there is a cabinet on the other wall that is 3/4 length of the other wall)? Appreciate this video!
Use some sw like REW to get some understanding of your room nodes and the RT60 value. This will help a lot!
@@Andreas_Straub Thank you for your insight. I will try that.
@@iamveetherhevelaytor please note that you will need a measurement microphone. For initial estimates any reasonably good condenser mic will do - if you need more precision you will need a calibrated measurement microphone. I assume that you have a analog input interface with XLR input ....
@@Andreas_Straub Yes I do. I have the SoundID mic and software.
@@Andreas_Straub Do I use the microphone from that with the software you mentioned previously?
Hi Brother.
I have a balance cable for my IEM with .78mm 2Pin Connecter.
I want to use the cable with my other headphones. But it has a 3.5mm jack connector.
Is there any way I can use any converter ( .78mm 2 Pin Connector to 3.5mm jack connector)
I've put off treatment because I've got a big window at my first reflection point on the left side of my room (and a plain wall on the right side) - I don't want to sacrifice natural daylight at all since I'm a musician/producer first and it helps me. Idk if it's pointless since I can only treat one of the first reflections and not the other side.
@@mdptg1990 Can you move your speakers or your listening position to change the first reflection points?
@@MadelnMachinesI don’t think so. The speakers fire down the length of the room which is always recommended. The dream would be to have a window right infront of my desk, and then treat the rest of the room equally.
I just need to confirm whether it’d still be worthit to treat the room with one of the early reflection points neglected. Need to find someone with a similar room set up to me
It's 'soundproof' room (which is difficult and expensive) rather than acoustic which bother me (who only have small budget), more/most. Especially in the kind of common house with close neighbours and all, that's big problem.
i had this problem when i used 2 different sets of speakers, gave up cus getting them to work together without delay was too complicated
Unless you're running surround or Atmos or a 2.1 rig with sub, why would you have two sets playing simultaneously?
@@JAMPROSOUND idk wanted each speaker to act as tweeter and woofer separately
@choharrry Ah. There are many ways to tackle an active system like that. You don't even need dedicated monitoring hardware anymore with on board dsp. There are very capable and free tools that can run natively on your PC or Mac and handle all matrix routing and speaker processing. As long as you have proper amplification for each driver and a dedicated hardware output, just about anything can be done quote easily. The toughest part is placement and tuning.
First
Was this sponsored - did the company that makes the panels you named give a bunch to you?
If so, shame on you for omitting that.
I'm so tired of sellouts and dishonesty (eg undisclosed bias etc), I really hope that wasn't the case here.
Have you watched the video? 30 seconds in he literally mentions that the video is sponsored by GIK. Regardless of the sponsorship, the information he provides in this video is useful and can be used with any brand of acoustic treatment.
@@RobertoBestia I had, that section was skipped by sponsor block.
It was also the only time he mentioned any ulterior motive or bias I believe, so still basically a sell out.
He could have said something when mentioning the products if they were actually his 1st choice, if correctly informing rather than misleading viewers was important to him.
I get if you don't see anything wrong though, few people care about much but money and selling out is so common no one blinks.
@@nommy8599 went back 6 months in his video library, and his studio then had already the same GIK panels up. So I guess that answers your question if it’s his first choice or not :)
@@RobertoBestia Thanks for looking. I'm not convinced though, for 2 reasons:
1-if they were his 1st choice why not say that?
People usually seem to when reviewing a sponsored item they really recommend over all else.
2- there are many reasons why someone might use sub-optimal gear, like it being gifted or got on sale or just good enough.
The fact that this discussion is happening at all supports my complaint, not enough clarity. If it's just a paid infomercial have the integrity to say clearly or if it's something that you'd buy given full choice also say, or of you haven't researched or experienced options enough to know say that.
Perhaps this channel is different to those paid to 10 reviews which are really just a list of top marketing rewards, IDK, but I still suspect so for this one.
@@nommy8599 Last thing that I’ll reply to this because I really feel it’s becoming a discussion of semantics.
Reinforcing something is your first choice while that choice is also from the same company that is sponsoring you can actually work against you and have more people doubt your integrity. Because why do you need to reinforce it?
From what I’ve seen from this channel is that the videos are information/education focused first. If I as a RUclipsr could get sponsored by a brand I myself use, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes to said sponsorship. Being able to talk about something you use yourself that then also brings food to the table is a win win in my perception.
Guess we can agree to disagree :) Have a nice day