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Old 03-29-2012, 01:55 PM   #10
planetnine
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Lincoln, UK
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Don't try to eliminate reverberation entirely, the idea is to even up the frequency response of the room, not deaden it entirely. If you kill the conventional mid and HF ambience the room will sound odd, unleash any remaining LF gremlins and it won't be helpful to mix in. You may also add more reverb FX than you might want in an overdry room.

Try getting a radio shack sound level meter to use as a mic. You need a meter for sweeps really anyway, and its not that bad for the bottom four octaves where it counts. It'll show peaks and troughs.

If your room has any rectangular features, measure it and work out some nodes. That and a sweep will help you understand which walls or dimensions (LWH) are causing the nodes and help you control them. Sweeps from other than the listening position will clarify these nodes, and playing sine waves at the anomalous frequencies (watch your levels) will open your eyes and ears to how your room ticks -move your head and measuring mic around and you'll be astonished at the level differences!

Once you get somewhere towards taming your room, and knowing your problem frequencies and dimensions, remember that for broadband traps generally, doubling the thickness of a trap will increase its LF reach and reasonably evenly increase it's absorption (although usu not much inc at the top end), whereas doubling the area will only increase the absorption properties that it already possesses. You can use this to help you home in on any LF gremlins remaining. Beyond that it's tuneable pots and chambers and other voodoo

Sorry if I'm misinterpreting your level of understanding, REW is a great tool, even with an uncalibrated meter as a mic, and it can really help you understand what's going on acoustically and treat what you can. Slide the cursor up and down the curve, play sines at those Freqs, move or double-up traps while they're playing -it'll teach you so much.

Read everything on the Real-Traps site, Ethan is good at what he does and not all his opinions are not as bad as some would have you believe. Read the theory and digest, convert the spreadsheets to metric. Measure, calculate, sweep, listen, learn. It's great fun and very educational.

Feel free to ask any Qs. It's ages since I've set up a room and I'll follow this with interest.

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