Hey guys

This is not exactly a mix / master question, but more about the room and how it will affect your mix.

I've moved into a new room, which the 2 walls (left and right) are made of different material and was wondering if it will affect the sound of the room. The left side is a ordinary house wall and the right hand side is a rough brick wall.

Do you think it will have a affect on the mix + sound within the room?
If so what would be the best way to fix it?

 

It affects the way You hear what is coming out of Your speakers... of course, that reflect in Your mixing.

To fix it treat acoustically Your room ... many threads here on AS about Room treatment... cardboard, foam, panels, professional ready to use products, and so on... it all depends on how much money are U willing to invest.

 

Last edited: Mar 7, 2017

It affects your mix by affecting the way you hear what's coming out of the speakers, yes.

I always tell people to find a local HVAC & insulation supplier/warehouse or some guys who actually do HVAC & insulation work, and ask them if they have any Owens Corning 703 or 705 left over from a job. That's how I got mine. 16 panels for $95. You're likely to pay 2-4x that online, PLUS $20-30 in shipping

Of course then you need a bolt of cloth to cover them up. That's another 40-80 dollars. But still way way cheaper than most alternatives of similar effectiveness.

 

Yes and no. If you have a "bad" sounding room you can learn to counter those deficiencies with how you mix. It's a matter of how certain you know what your hearing is accurately being heard. A well acoustically treated room will allow you to trust more what you're hearing through your speakers.

 

Or you can use headphones, of course

 

If you think your room sounds fine you may have luck and maybe your room dosnt need much treatment. But yes different material changes the sound. If you really wanna see/hear whats going on in your room the easiest way is get a monitor calibration software. You can than see and hear on the eq compensation what going on ... to many/less highs .... lows etc. Than you can get exactly the room improvements you need.

Or use headphones.

 

I love the sound of concrete to play guitar and sing in. Brick sounds different than wood, wood sounds different than plasterboard. Cinder block sounds worst of all. Then there is tile, wood, stobe, hay bale and adobe, and yes, they all do sound different. You can create different sounding rooms by utilizing different mediums alone or in combination. Tuning the room to make it a good place to mix is a different animal than creating rooms for recording live instruments or as chambers to create reverb, that is, piping in music and recording from speakers instead of or in conjunction with hardware or plugins. What is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. So yes, the material of the room does make a difference.

 

Yes it will, Any material affects sound differently. Some have better absorbing properties than others, Some scatter frequencies when they bounce of them more chaotically...etc.

If you want a more uniform sound from each wall then simply treat each with the same acoustic treatment (a foam of some sort should be ample, Auralex, Advanced Acoustics...etc. offer myriad solutions). It is definitely going to be beneficial to whatever you are using a microphone to capture in the room along with how accurate your reference monitors are ergo making your life easier mix wise.
us
A good place to start would be http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/beginners-guide-acoustic-treatment
For more in-depth the sister site will definitely have a number of books in PDF format dedicated to the topic and they are usually very good, Focal Press are a safe bet publisher wise.

Ultimately the best you can do is aim for as uniform and flat a sound from your space as possible but not an anechoic chamber! Bass traps in the corners to deal with standing waves and thinner foam for higher frequencies higher up on the wall, The "mirror points" especially are the most crucial for monitoring.

Hope that helps without going on and on forever, All the best your way and to all as always

Dean

 

I have a big room (8m long x 6m whide x 4.5m high) which is/can be great for recording but too damn expensive to sound-treat to perfection.
This is a multi-purpuse room... here I teach (guitar) play, record, mix, master... the lot. I spent 200€ on the best headphones I could buy (AKG701) and I only use speaker monitors to check low end balance, reverb and stereo spread. Most of those who've heard my mixes (and masters) say good things about the quality of sound so... worth thinking about
Everything here -> https://soundcloud.com/moosestudio-1 was mixed and mastered with headphones (Sennheiser HD600 and AKG701).

 

i think you would notice right away. human eras are specialized in hearing / discerning phase differences. thats how we measure
distances and things in space. there might be differnces in density beteen bricks and layers.
if that is so
treat the first reflection points. if it persists treat the ceeling. but normaly the most obvious
and more maligne problem is bass - reverb time.
so
since a good bass trap is also trapping all other frequencys best to start there
sorry vid is german but listen how the room is instantly better with the first traps

next
another big thing is diffusion
simply put: walls facing ech other straight bad!
hang a poster in a frame on one side (slightly leaning forward) and you broke up straght reflection.
a book - shelf might work wonders too.
thats why wood and concrete floor is better in studio spaces, so you can controll reflection and "deadness" of a space

since not all reflections are bad but no reflections is!

and i love the london 8 you get it for around 200 bucks and it looks very slick
for a start and you can source/build your own bass traps ;)

 

The correct sweet spot (speaker placement and listening position) is the most important thing before you do any treatment.
To minimise reflections you could also just maintain a low playback volume!

 

You´ve already got a lot of good advises from several ppl, but maybe this one could "be you friend" as well!?!?

IK Multimedia ARC2 software with a cheap Behringer ECM8000

Im using that (not with the Behringer but the microphone that comes with full setup) ..... but I know the job can be done as well with the ECM8000!!

Good luck

 

ECM8000 is absolutely great for the price, I've got a number of them in my mic collection. I've used them when multi-track recording as well as them being designed with measurement in mind which they do well along with capturing impulse responses...etc.
Since they are really quite ruler flat instead of flattering to any specific source material, It is a mic that can take a lot of equalization to really enable one to really sculpt away at whatever sound or sound's you capture with them. I've got some other measurement microphones but I tend to use the Behringer most often.

Plenty of fine information for the OP to utilize from everyone. I've not used ARC or ARC2 personally but I know people that do and get good results (You just have to remember to bypass it when bouncing/rendering your mix, That came to user's rather rapidly though after a few bounces with it left engaged!)

Yes the parallel walls need to be broken up, Diffused so as not to cause the terrible phase issues as brought up, Setting up your listening spot within your space as mentioned in the optimal position is another pearl of wisdom to adhere to before just loading up on acoustic treatment, Since it will yield the best results and give you the sweetest spot to mix from. It is very much a mostly science but with some art involved and as has been brought up, People can and do adapt to their own space, Learn it's weaknesses and strengths then mix/adapt accordingly.
Quality headphones can go along way but their main downfalls have been addressed for mixing/mastering with, Reverb/stereo cues can sound easily OTT on headphones but then you switch to your monitors and the stereo spread narrows in and the depth/cues seem to be less apparent, So balancing that is paramount. Also I'd add collapsing down the mix to it's sum or mono is an extremely useful and easy to do task with either a plugin or a decent monitor controller, That helps so much in identifying the phase cancelation of elements that should not disappear when summed/collapsed to mono. DIY treatment is awesome with many resources available online and can save you a lot of shekels if you are handy with some basic tools and a place to source the raw materials

 

Myself: It works great for me and surely: you need to bypass when bouncing - but that should be so obvious you dont need to mention

Cheers

 

A simple experiment that will let you hear what everybody here is saying, is to simply take a portable speaker and stand a foot or two in front of a wall with the speaker pointed at the wall and just listen to some "reflected" music for a bit, then do the same with a wall made out of different material. If they are two very different materials it will likely sound like somebody has re-EQ'd the music you're listening to, and maybe even played a bit with the overall compression. That will give you a sense of how each material is altering the sound you hear in your room. It's not scientific, but practical and illuminating.

 

the room is the largest thing that effects sound it will cut holes in the sound that makes it to your ears larger than and deficencies the speakers may have


here is a way around it buy avantone mp1 mix headphones and alternate with your regular studio monitors while working with a spectrum analyzer on your master fader in order to see visual of the frequency response in realtime before it gets to your speakers or headphones which change sound.
that way you have 3 tools for mixing translation.
1. spectrum analyzer on master fader at all times giving you visual of the audio
2. your studio monitors to hear the sound ( even though it alters the sound and the room drastically alters the sound)
3. decent mixing headphones that remove the aspect of the room and hear fine grain detail of sound.


these things added together is a cheap solution to your problem ( that we all have to face too)

 

If you're attempting to mix in an 'untreated' bedroom and the bed is behind you against the wall. What I used to do is flip the mattress on its edge long ways and rest it against the wall so the sound is hitting the mattress and not bouncing off the hard wall. Made a surprising amount of difference, especially when judging things like high mids and reverb tails on snares and the like. Just remember to remake the bed before your other half comes into the room or you could be sleeping alone in the spare bedroom for the night!