how important is room treatment?

[adomav17]

Well...

i'm looking to buy monitors... probably the krk rp8s or the event 20/20s... but i've heard people say that if you don't treat your room properly, the signal you get from the monitors would be inaccurate anyways....how much would room treatment cost...and if i was to opt not to do it would my mixes always be based on inaccurate monitoring??

right now i'm in a basement...a finished basement... its like a normal room basically, but its kinda big... its carpeted too if that would be a problem... would i need basstraps or something?

 

[Relic]

^ I hate you that you have a finished basement thats what I want moniters be damned...

I wouldnt know BUT Formant would!! (and will prolly respond soon)

 

[thedreampolice]

Its vital! Period.

 

[Ash Holmz]

room treatment is the single most important thing u can do to improve your sound .. but the most overlooked too .. im guilty of it too... people buy all this gear and dont propoerly hear what they are doing with it... if ur basement is big thats a good start ..the bigger the room the easier to treat .. room treatment makes huge diffrence i have some bass traps and absorbers in my studio but its not professionally treated by any means... i can take my mixes to my friend who works in a big pro studio in harlem and clearly hear all the mistakes i made on my mix lol.. theres def a diffrence... a few pros on some other forums tat work with big names say all the time ... the best monitors you can afford and room treatment are the best investment u can make and will make a bigger diffrence in ur sound than whatver soundcard/converters/preamps/eq/compressors u are using in ur mixes .. someone with high end monitors and proper room treatment 99% of the time is gonna make a better mix than a dude with loads of gear, but low end monitors, and a crappy room ...

 

[mp3]

I got this for less than $200 at Guitar Center:

5x 2x4ft. 2 inch foam sheets
36x 1x1ft foam tiles
4x 2ft bass traps

I used two of the 2x4s (mounted with four foot 1x2in. pieces of wood) on my sides (such that if I put a mirror there, I'd be looking at the sides of my speakers) I put half of the 1x1 tiles behind my desk and above my head, and I used the rest to treat my closet where I cut vocals. Two of the bass traps are in the corners on either side of my desk, and the other two are in the closet to kill the boxy sound.

Go spend that money dog, its worth it. also, make sure your desk is centered against the wall, so that your speakers are equidistant from the corners, with about 1-3 feet of space between your speakers and the wall behind them. Set them up so that the tweeters are at ear level, and they form an equilateral triangle with your head (equal distance between speaker 1, speaker 2, and your head).

There's plenty more info on the net.

 

[Formant024]

Right, lol, okay relic...

Try sizing the room to a ratio 7x5x2,5 (LxWxH), if its smaller or bigger, just keep the ratio. Keep note that on a 7x5 room an 8"/10" nearfield and that your read your manual about nearfield placement in order to determine your hotspot. Ideal is a shape inside that 7x5 frame that resembles a theather. This means that the front of the room is curved ( where the hotspot is ) and the walls in length go from either side of the curve to the corners of the room. So, when the entrance of the studio is in the back of the room you would enter the widest part of the room and narrows down toward the front of the room where it ends in a curve.

I'll see if I can find a pic or something to illustrate what I mean, but basicaly its a theather shape minus the stage.

 

[thedreampolice]

Yes a square room is the worst, you really should never have parallel walls.

 

[adomav17]

damn my room is kinda squarish/rectangularish...

but thanks for all the info.... it helped alot....