POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING

Art Of Mixing

Week 1:

The Environment

Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 Introduction About the course Choosing & installing monitors Some basics about Acoustics Absorbers to the rescue Further reading Page Page Page Page Page Page 2 3 4 11 15 21

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Introduction
Firstly I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to Point Blank. You have shown a great deal of enthusiasm, interest and dedication to this subject by enrolling on one of our courses. I hope you will keep up this enthusiasm while attending the course and most of all I hope you enjoy your time, your fellow peers, the facilities and Tutors while you are studying at POINT BLANK. Over the past twenty years there have been great technological advancements in how people can write, record and produce music. I have personally seen the introduction of MIDI, the introduction of computers, digital synthesis, drum machines, and reliable software sequencers (thats right Im a Rave Granddad). Back in the early 1990s if you had any aspirations of making music you where faced with two main options: 1 - Spending a small fortune on enough studio equipment to produce it at home, as well as taking over your old mans garage to set up your studio. OR 2 - Spending a slightly smaller fortune paying for a studio, an engineer, and programmer and hoping that you could finish off the track quickly before the costs started spiralling out of control. However, the past five years have seen a revolution occur in Music Production. The price of computers has dropped dramatically their power and processing speed greatly increased and this has all had a knock on effect in major advancements in software programs now available. For the first time in the history of music computers are powerful enough to do the whole kit-and-caboodle all by themselves. They can act as a sequencer, sampler, synthesizer, a mixing console as well as a multi-track recorder. And then once you have finished your tune you can master it, design the artwork and burn a CD of your bang smacking tune. OK so its not quite as simple as that, but no one denies that it has never been easier to bang out a TUNE in your bedroom.

Jc Concato Head of College.

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About the course

Mixing is a very subjective process in which many parameters come into the equation, such as style of music, equipment, environment and maybe more importantly YOUR EARS. There are a lot of different techniques and approaches to mixing, depending on the style of music. You may also find that even within the same genre, different mix engineers work in different ways (use of eq, compressor, Fxs, etc) to obtain what we might sometimes perceive as a fairly similar result. However, when it comes to Modern music production, whether you use a desk (analogue / digital) or mix within your DAW, they are some common rules that will help you in your quest to perfect mixes. Trying to get this perfect mix in a professionally designed mixing room is a challenge in itself. The recent changes in Music technology & music Business mean that more & more music is produced from Home/bedroom studios, which can make the challenge even trickier. In this module we will take you through each step to improve your mixes, from how to create a better listening environment to mastering your tunes. And remember, dont get too absorbed in the world of room modes, frequencies & ratio, its all about the music, there are a lot of very successful records out there which technically dont sound that great but the tracks just work, and people love them... The bottom line is that if your track sounds exciting wherever you play it, youve probably got a winner.

JC [djesi] Concato

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Choosing and Installing Monitors

Choosing monitors Before looking and mounting. huge influence & sub woofer treatment. at acoustic treatment, I would first like to discuss loudspeaker choice The positioning, orientation and mounting of loudspeakers can have a on the final sound of a room. So dont go out & buy massive speakers if you have a tiny room & dont intend to apply a lot of acoustic

What makes a good studio monitor? In two words, we should be looking for the 'neutral average', neither too bright nor too dull. If the aspirations we have for our work are that it should sound tonally acceptable on the widest range of systems out there, from top of the range hi-fi systems, portable radio to MP3 players; then the perceived tonal balance of our monitors should be as close to the 'population average' as possible. The most common monitoring systems found in home studios are either near field monitors, usually used up close and probably with its back to the wall, or a pair of hi-fi speakers (wall mounted or on stands). Neural average? The perceived tonal balance of a speaker is the combination of the direct sound from the drivers and reflected sound from nearby surfaces. A neutral tonal balance, however, is not the same thing as a flat axial frequency response. There is a wide range of speakers out there that will be suitable for the job you need to do. Remember that you are not necessarily looking for the best sounding speakers & most pleasing experience for your ears but most importantly for a tool that will help you to make the correct decisions. A typical monitoring set-up found in professional recording studios will include: A: Main monitors mounted in walls B: One or more pair of nearfield monitors mounted on the desk meterbridge or stands. The Nearfield monitors are used to recreate the experience of a listener @ home. The idea is that by using different types of monitors, you will be able to identify possible problems in different area of the mix.

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING Nearfield monitors The most common use of monitor speakers in the budget studio is near-field monitoring. This simply means you have the speakers mounted only a few feet away from your ear so that you get mostly direct sound and very little reflected sound; the minimizes the extent to which room acoustics affect the sound. The term 'nearfield monitor' was an invention of the early '80s. It just about predates the explosive rise of the home and project studio and was originally the term applied to auxiliary monitors that sat on the meterbridge in large commercial studios, and were supposed to reflect the sound of typical home audio or TV speakers. One speaker originally defined the breed: the Auratone 5C. The Auratone was, and is, little more than a fiveinch 'full-range' driver screwed into a small cube-shaped enclosure. It had little pretence to audio accuracy or wide bandwidth, and was simply intended to provide a reference for the likely sound of recordings when reproduced on an AM radio, or via a TV. So the Auratone was not really a 'nearfield' in the sense that we understand the term now, but it did set a precedent for auxiliary monitors, and prepared the ground for the second nearfield icon the Yamaha NS10M. We now live in different times. The huge studios, if not quite heading the way of the dinosaurs, have long been under threat from small-scale recording spaces and control rooms. And being very much smaller nowadays, the typical control room now has little space for vast main monitors. These days, the nearfield has had a promotion. More often than not, it's now out on its own, the top dog. And for the same reasons (well space at least) most home studio owners use nearfield monitors. Even when working in top mixing rooms, which offer a vast range of monitoring, most professional engineers will still use nearfield monitors as their main reference, typically of two different designs, as we will discuss in the next chapter. Ported vs un-ported? Choosing a monitoring system can be a difficult and confusing task, not least because of the enormous number of models and designs on offer. In this lesson we will focus on the two main designs for nearfield monitors: infinite baffle (sealed box) & reflex (ported). The major role of the enclosure is to prevent the out-of-phase sound waves from the rear of the speaker combining with the positive phase sound waves from the front of the speaker, which would result in interference patterns and cancellation causing the efficiency of the speaker to be compromised, particularly in the low frequencies where the wavelengths are large enough that interference will affect the entire listening area. The ideal mount for a loudspeaker would be a flat board of infinite size with infinite space behind it. The infinitely large baffle divides the sound coming off the front of the loudspeaker driver from sound coming off the rear, consequently the rear soundwaves cannot cancel the front soundwaves, but both sides of the loudspeaker cone are working into the same infinitely large volume of air and thus are loaded identically.
IN PHASE SOUNDWAVES OUT OF PHASE SOUNDWAVES

EQUAL VOLUME OF AIR ON EACH SIDE

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING Infinite-Baffle or sealed box: Of course, the above concept is not workable in practice, and the closest we can come to the ideal is to build a large sealed box and place the loudspeaker in the front baffle, hoping that the sound coming off the rear of the speaker cone will be absorbed within the box. The box is usually filled loosely with foam, pillow stuffing, fibreglass, or other wadding. The general rule is that the bass response of this kind of cabinet is relatively limited compared to that of other arrangements (i.e. ported), for a given cabinet size; the low-frequency roll-off starting at a relatively high frequency. On the plus side sealed enclosures, properly designed, will have better transient response at lower frequencies, leading to what people generally refer to as "tighter" sound. As well the phase response can be very smooth, with relatively little phase shift, and the slope of the roll-off is also quite shallow, averaging 6dB/octave. Indeed, because of the shallow slope, even small infinite-baffle speakers can produce audible bass at surprisingly low frequencies, though you wont have that sub bass filling in your room. For many, the infinite-baffle design is the most highly regarded and least compromised solution to loudspeaker monitoring. It is also interesting to note that the most widely used mixing reference; the Auratone and the Yamaha NS10 are both infinite-baffle designs. Ironically, this is not the most common design. Ported or Bass reflex: The most common cabinet design is the reflex or ported cabinet, which makes deliberate use of the resonance of the cabinet to take advantage of the sound coming off the rear of the loudspeaker cone. The idea of the port is to make the cabinet resonate at a carefully chosen low frequency, not unlike the effect of blowing across the top of an empty bottle. Instead of being completely sealed, the cabinet has a hole in it through which the internal sound can escape and contribute to the overall sound in the listening environment. The vent may be located on the front baffle, it may be on the rear, and it may take the form of one or more round holes or slots. The advantage of this approach is that it allows a much greater acoustic output at lower frequencies than the infinite-baffle design. You get a far more impressive bass response and overall volume level for the size of the box. However, there are a few disadvantages, one being that any resonant system smears transient signals over time. In monitoring terms, this inherent time-smearing and resonant behaviour can obscure small dynamic changes in the signal being auditioned, and may also reduce the transparency of the mid-range. In practical terms, a poorly designed reflex system can make it extremely hard to judge the relative levels of bass instruments properly. Another issue is the frequency and phase response characteristics of the port resonance. While the low-frequency roll-off point can be extended to a significantly lower frequency using a reflex design than with an equivalently sized infinite-baffle cabinet, the slope is far steeper, and the phase shifts far greater. Thus the level of bass output is greater down to the roll-off point, but then falls away much quicker, and a reflex cabinet is likely to reproduce very low frequencies at a far lower level than an infinite-baffle speaker. The inherently large phase shifts of this design also reduce (or at least affect) the naturalness of the bass end.

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING If in the upper frequencies, the sealed enclosure is more critical, why is the sealed speaker design not more dominant? Because the ported box tuning frequency is generally tuned to the lowest fundamentals that the woofer in the box can produce, and only comes into play at and near those frequencies. Significantly above that, there's not much difference in phase shifts or transient response (in well designed ported speakers). Here's the kicker though; human ears are far less sensitive to things like transients and phase shifts at really low frequencies, so it becomes a matter of picking nits, if you get my drift. This is why there are many, many successful examples of both on the marketplace. Best thing to do is let your ears decide which box you like best for the job at hand... ;) If accuracy is what were looking for, why have some Lower quality or limited range monitors have become standard? It all started with the little Auratone 5C cubes. The idea was that if the mix sounded well balanced on this terrible little speaker, it would sound okay on anything, a very simple, but surprisingly reliable rule. After the Auratones came the infamous Yamaha NS10Ms which, although a two-way design, shared many of the same characteristics and served the same purpose. The reason why the Auratone and the NS10 have survived the test of time, and become indispensable tools to the majority of accomplished mixing engineers, is all to do with their skewed frequency response, lack of LF resonances, very low distortion and remarkably accurate transient response behaviour, all of which are inherent qualities of infinite baffle designs using small, responsive drivers. The two most critical aspects of a rock or pop music mix are the ratio between bass guitar and kick drum, and the balance of mid-range instruments, such as the snare drum, guitars, keyboards and voices. Speakers like the Auratone and the NS10 are particularly good at exposing mid-range balance errors. The middle of the audio spectrum is emphasized in such a way that small changes of balance become very obvious. Hence, if the mix sounds right, it is right and will translate far more consistently to other systems, whether quality hi-fi, in-car, or 'cheap and cheerful' portable radio. The problem in balancing the bass guitar and kick drum is often to do with 'overhang', a low-frequency resonance largely inherent in ported (reflex) speakers, which masks the true envelope of low-frequency signals. With no port to resonate, infinite-baffle speakers tend to have very accurate transient behaviour, and this makes it far easier to hear what is really happening with those low-frequency instruments. These speakers can be extremely revealing of less than ideal balances, such as between vocals and backing instruments, for example. They can also highlight mistakes in bass instrument equalization very well, such as poor EQ allowing the kick drum to disappear entirely on anything smaller than a pair of full-range monitors - oops! The traditional grot box is an essential tool for mix engineers, but not all of them are born equal. The Auratone and NS10 are pretty much unique in this role, and while few would choose to listen to them for pleasure, they are well suited to the task of finetuning a mix. Point Blank 2007

POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING Buying monitors: 95% of people listen to music in their cars or on a cheap home stereo. If your mix doesn't sound good on a pair of small speakers, what's the point? A pair of 5,000 powered monitors may sound pristine, but no one else has them, so you're more likely to have a translation problem. Ideally, you would like a pair of really great sounding speakers, and a pair of real sounding speakers. Typically a sealed box type NS10 Auratone (check the Triple pyramide 250), and a ported design. Ports are used in the majority of project studio monitors, primarily because they help boost the output level at low frequencies. Lower price range: In lower-cost monitors (such as the M Audio BX5, Samson Resolv 80A, Event TR5, and Behringer B2030A Truth), the main side-effect of this design is a smearing of low-end transients which makes it difficult to judge the balance of bass instruments. However, the problems of ported cabinet design can be overcome, and more expensive models are able to achieve professional performance. Higher price range: There are many excellent reflex designs around, including the larger ATC monitors, all the Genelec models, various Dynaudios, Mackies, and Tannoys, and many others. The Mackie monitors are an interesting alternative of reflex design. This is a more complex arrangement, sharing some characteristics with both infinite baffle and reflex designs, although it falls most comfortably into the latter camp.

Alesis monitor1 MK2 220

Tannoy REVEAL 6D 385

Genelec 8030A 585

Mackie HR824 999

Note about lower quality speakers: We now understand why the use of low quality speakers is a very revealing tool in the mix process. Why spend around 250 on low quality speakers when you can use some old cheap hi-fi? Low quality hi-fi speakers usually have all the inherent problems of the Bass reflex design discussed previously. Most cheap domestic speakers have an overly bright high end (to make them sound exciting), with a slightly reduced mid-range (to make them sound more pleasant and larger than they really are), and a lumpy, resonant bass end. The other thing to mention is that many cheap hi-fi speakers might not be able to cope with the often continuous high levels required in a professional mixing situation. I agree that paying 250 for what are clearly very simple speakers that don't even sound particularly pleasant seems a foolish enterprise. However, these things are designed to serve as an accurate and reliable mixing tool, and a lot of engineers have found Auratones and NS10s indispensable in helping them to craft the mixes that keep them in employment. That said, high-end monitoring has improved considerably in the last twenty years, so the role of monitors like the Auratones, NS10s and others is arguably not nearly as crucial now as it was then. Point Blank 2007

POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING When buying speakers for your studio, try to audition them with a placement similar to how you will use them. If they will be used against a wall, try them this way at the dealer. Conversely, if they will be used well away from walls, don't be tempted to judge speakers which are grouped together with many others in the showroom. Insist that they are moved into a sensible room position -- any good dealer should expect to do this as a matter of course Where should I put my Monitors? You ideally want yourself and your two speakers to sit at the corners of an equilateral triangle, with your head the same distance from each speaker as the distance they are spaced apart (see diagram) something between 1 and 2.5 meters (3-8 feet) should be about right, depending on the size of the room and its acoustics. The speakers should ideally be mounted symmetrically in the room, and on rigid stands tall enough to place the tweeters roughly level with your ears. If your room doesnt allow this, it is better to have the speakers too close together than too far apart. If the speakers are spaced too widely, you will get a 'hole' in the middle of the image, making accurate panning and acoustic placement impossible.

Most speakers are designed to be used well away from both side and rear walls, but if you have a choice, it's usually better to put the speakers closer to a back wall, rather than sidewalls, and avoid corners at all cost. If you want to mount the speakers against the back wall, it is vital that they are not rear ported, as the proximity of the wall to the rear of the speakers will stop the ports working correctly and will result in uneven bass. Also, when positioned in this way, the apparent bass output of any speaker will increase. Therefore it is important that you don't choose bass-heavy speakers that were not intended for this usage. Having made your choice, the next step is to devise a secure mounting arrangement. The sound of many speakers will be disappointing and unpredictable if they are not mounted securely; spiked loudspeaker stands have become the norm. Whether you are mounting your speakers on a shelf or a stand, placing a small blob of Blu-Tac under each speaker corner will stop them moving. If they are floor-standing types, use a dedicated spike kit, especially if the stands are placed on carpet.

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING Most monitors are designed to be used in a particular orientation (usually with the tweeter above the woofer), so make sure you place them the right way up. Turning speakers upside-down or on their sides can have disastrous effects on the stereo imaging and frequency response! You also need to think about where the speakers are pointing. Although a lot of designs (Genelec monitors, for example) are intended to be aimed directly at the listener, often referred to as a degree of 'toe-in'; many others are designed to face directly forwards into the room so that the listener is effectively placed slightly offaxis to each speaker. Monitors that are designed to be used this way, if pointed directly at the listener, will sound slightly brighter than intended. The degree of toe-in or toe-out can also have a significant effect on the accuracy of the stereo imaging and the stability of the central image, so it's worth experimenting with small changes of angle to try to optimize the precision of the imaging and the width and stability of the listening 'sweet spot' Shape of the Room The diagrams of figure 8 show the three most common room shapes: square, rectangular, and L-shaped along with generally favourable speaker location areas. A perfectly square room is probably the worst room shape for most loudspeaker applications. In a square room, standing wave production is most efficient, and hence objectionable. Long, narrow, rectangular rooms also pose their own special problems, creating several standing wave modes along their length. Although maximum low frequency response would probably be achieved by placing the loudspeakers along the narrow wall of the rectangular room, (figure 8A) optimal stereo imaging and midrange clarity would be achieved by placing the loudspeakers along the long wall (figure 8B). L-shaped rooms would seem to present the same dilemmas as a long, rectangular room; however, the asymmetry of the acoustical space tends to break up standing waves and can provide a better listening environment (figures 8A & B).

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Some Basics About Acoustics

One of the most important factors in my opinion is the environment you are mixing in. When you mix music (or anything else for that matter) in a room with acoustics problems, the material may sound fine in that location, but when the mix is played back somewhere else; it may sound quite different; and often not good at all! If the mix environment has minor problems, the effects may be quite small, such as small changes in bass or treble content but in extreme cases, the balance may fall apart, or may contain elements that weren't heard during the mix. Imagine, for a moment, that your room is bass light. While you mix, to get what sounds like a good result, you will instinctively add more bass on bass instruments and kick drums. When played back in a 'normal' listening environment, the mix will sound very bass-heavy and uncontrolled, which is why the environment youre mixing in is so important. Ultimately, the only real imperative is that the room should work for creating mixes that sound 'right' when played on other systems outside the studio. Even though mixing rooms in top recording studios have been very carefully designed acoustically, you would be surprised at how many professional mixing rooms still sound a bit weird. That shows that there isnt such thing as a magical formula. First lets clarify a point, there is a lot of confusion between soundproofing and acoustic treatment, Soundproofing is simply concerned with reducing the amount of sound getting into or out of a room, but in no way defines how the room behaves as a space for listening to music, which is why Acoustic treatment is often needed in your studio. There is no point spending all your savings on very expensive equipment, if the environment you are working in is not adequate to listen to music. Buying the best speakers in the world (if there is such thing) is not going to guarantee that you will have a reliable monitoring environment; the Room is part of the equation. The Room has a Sound. The first thing to consider is why a room should have 'a sound' in the first place; after all, it's the speakers that we're listening to. Sound bounces or reflects off all solid surfaces, so that when the sound source such as a loudspeaker stops producing sound, the reflections continue for a period of time until the energy is absorbed. There is a very close relation between the speakers, their position and the Room (size, shape, material, etc). Try setting up your speakers in your garden or roof terrace and you will notice the huge difference, the bottom end will be clean and tight, the top end imaging will be much clearer and the centre will be really tight and defined. This is because you listen to the sound from the speakers only, the sound leaves the speakers, reaches you and doesnt come back, this is known as an anechoic environment (i.e. no reflections or reverberation). Unfortunately neither our neighbours nor the weather (in UK) allow us to do that. One of the favourite locations still to listen to music (except on the tube with an iPod) is the car. I know a lot of engineers who check their final mixes in the car, so why the car can prove a reliable place to check mixes? There are a number of factors and it is these factors that go into making a good listening environment.

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING The Shape: There are no parallel walls in a car and the walls are thin and curved. The Speakers. They are almost always mounted into a flat surface like below the rear window or in the side door panels, as a result there are no out of phase signals coming from the rear of the speaker. High Frequencies: In the car the windows are the main high frequency reflectors but they are all at angles and are usually curved as well. The highs also get diffused evenly throughout the cabin by the dash board. Also the ceiling, sides and floor are covered in high frequency absorption. Mid Frequencies: The seats, door panels and passengers all act as low mid to high mid absorbers. Most of the car's acoustic treatment for cutting down engine and road noise is also on the inside and acts as acoustic treatment for the car stereo. Low Frequencies: What I love the most about the sound in cars is the bottom end response. With a couple of hundred watts a side, a sub-woofer under the seat and the loudness switch on the bottom end thumps away and sounds great. Actually most of the low end goes straight through the walls and disappears; consequently it doesn't hum around the internal body causing phase problems. Any vibration is dampened by the foam lining and carpet and as far as the low end is concerned the car is equal to open air. This is what you hear when a car passes you by, playing loud music with a sub woofer, the bass goes straight out.

So how do you create the effect of your car or the open air in your studio? - By using Acoustics!! Treating the walls in your control room and studios so as to control the sound and thus improve the quality of the sound that you hear, record & mix. I really believe that good acoustics can really make a huge difference to your final recording & mixing, more than the latest fancy FX or plug in. So before looking at the practical part, lets first consider how the room interfere with the music played from the speakers. RT 60? Because of the rooms reflections, we don't just hear the direct sound from our loudspeakers; we also hear an appreciable amount of reverberation as the sound bounces around the room. In a good listening room, the reverb time will be too short to be perceptible under normal circumstances; although you'd notice a huge difference if it were removed altogether. However, different materials and structures reflect different parts of the audio spectrum more efficiently than others, and the dimensions of the room cause resonances or modes to be set up (resulting in standing waves), so the reverb we hear is 'coloured', i.e. it doesn't have a flat frequency response. The ideal listening room needs a touch of reverb to help increase the perceived loudness of the monitors and also to prevent the room sounding unnaturally dead. But the reverb time also needs to be roughly equal at all frequencies across the audio spectrum if coloration is to be avoided. Reverb times of between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds are ideal for control rooms. This is the amount of time it takes a loud short sound to die away. "Dying away" can be defined more scientifically as a drop in loudness of 60 dB, so acousticians call reverberation time RT60. Reverberation time is determined by the volume of the room. It can be reduced by replacing some of the hard, reflective parts of the walls with soft, absorptive sections, as we will see in the next chapter.

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING Standing waves We mentioned earlier room modes or resonances, which cause the spectrum of the reflected sound to vary at different points in the room. Assuming you have solid walls, room modes are directly related to room dimensions. Standing waves are created when you have two parallel facing walls. There will be a particular set of frequencies that are reinforced by the distance between the walls. How does it work? If a sound wave is generated that has exactly the same wavelength as the longest dimension of a room, it will be reflected back and forth from the facing walls in phase with the original, thus reinforcing it. As you move around a room with standing waves you can hear as you walk in and out of a standing wave, in one spot the bass is booming yet in another there is hardly any bass. Makes it hard to figure out how much bass you have? What happens is that if you stand at the high point of an in phase standing wave you hear double the volume of the frequency but when you stand at the same point in and out of phase standing wave the waves cancel each other and you hear nothing. It's pretty hard to figure out your sound frequency balance when this happens throughout your control room. It also happens at all the octaves of the frequencies as well so if the frequency is 440Hz it also happens at 880Hz, 1760Hz, 3520Hz, etc. This is what creates coloration in the room. As you move around the room the frequency response keeps changing causing room coloration. One solution is to have angled wall (non parallel walls). A wall should be at least 12 degrees off parallel to stop parallel wall standing wave interference. That's either one wall at 12 degrees or two walls at 6 degrees each. (Note that having non-parallel walls doesn't entirely stop standing waves, they still form within a room but along different lines of repetition). Non-parallel walls have minimal effects at low frequencies: the low frequency modes will develop much as before based on the mean distance between walls. The main reason for having angled walls in a control room is because of reflection control of the high frequencies for true imaging from your speakers. This effect happens between every parallel facing wall in the room, typically front/back wall sidewalls & floor ceiling. These are known as axial modes. Room Modes And now down with the math!!! You can determine what is the fundamental frequency of your room with a simple formula: f = V / 2d f = Fundamental frequency of the standing wave V = Velocity of sound (343m/sec or 1130 ft/sec) d = Room dimension being considered in meter or feet (length, width, or height)

Other standing waves occur at harmonics of the fundamental frequency - that is 2, 3, and 4 times the fundamental.

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING So a room with a 6 meters dimension has standing waves forming at 27.5Hz (the fundamental frequency) 55Hz (the first harmonic) 82.5Hz (the second harmonic) 110Hz (the third harmonic) 55Hz (the fundamental frequency) 110Hz (the first harmonic) 165Hz (the second harmonic) 220Hz (the third harmonic)

And a room dimension of 3 meters gives

In other words rooms with dimensions that are multiples of each other create similar room modes (i.e. 6m X 3m). Unless you make at least one of every opposing pairs of surfaces completely absorbent across the entire audio spectrum, modes will exist. In other words, if a room has dimensions, it has modes, though the absorbency of the walls will influence the intensity of the modes. The best-sounding rooms tend to have their modes fairly evenly distributed, so there are no drastic peaks or dips in the room's response. In practice, modal problems are most serious at lower frequencies, and unfortunately, smaller rooms tend to be worse affected than larger rooms. Cube shaped rooms are the worst, as the 3 axial modes (length, width & height) occur at exactly the same frequencies, reinforcing each other to form very noticeable peaks. A lot of these potential problems can obviously be improved at the planning stage, if you intend to build a studio from scratch, but choosing adequate dimensions and angled walls. However most of home studio users usually have to do with a spare room in their home or incorporate the studio in their bedroom, which means parallel walls made of hard reflective material (i.e. plaster). So how can we attenuate the sound of a room so it becomes an acceptable listening environment? How can we stop all these reflections & side effects?

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING 1- Echo/reverberation: Sit at your mix position and clap your hands together sharply once. Listen carefully to the 'crack' and, more importantly, what happens after the 'crack'. In an ideal world, you would hear nothing after the initial crack. What you will probably hear, however, is a short period of sharp 'flutter' echoes, which combine to make a 'boing' sound. When the wall is flat and hard, the sound will be reflected. A single strong reflection can sometimes be heard as an echo, but in most rooms a lot of reflections (including reflections of reflections) combine into the reverberation. Slap echo destroys the sound quality of a stereo system primarily in two ways: by adding harshness to the upper mid-range and treble and by destroying the delicate phase relationships which help to establish an accurate stereo image. Reflections off flat walls can sometimes combine to produce undesirable effects. The worst of these is the standing wave. 2- Standing waves: LF standing waves occur usually around each speaker, but with larger monitors, the back wall will interfere as well. Remember standing waves not only happen at lower frequencies but higher ones too, though easier to eliminate. 3- Side reflections interference: If a sound arrives at a single point via two paths at slightly different times, certain frequencies will be reinforced and others will be weakened. You can easily hear this by putting your ear close to a wall, the quality of sound will change because the reflections off the wall interfere with the direct sound. Side reflections interferences add roughness to the sound, a reduction of harmonic richness and a smearing in the stereo image.

Absorbers to the Rescue

There are different degrees to which you can apply Acoustic treatment; if designing a commercial recording studio you should really consult an acoustic designer specialized in recording studios. Today we will focus on how to improve your home recording studio, using acoustic panels, curtains, blankets, etc The goal is very simple: we want to get the sound from the speakers to your ears without messing it up. This is really just a matter of what becomes of the sound after it passes your ears. Fortunately, most carpeted domestic rooms with just a few items of furniture are already pretty close to being acceptable listening environments. The purpose of this lesson is to explain some of the basic rules of acoustics so that you know what you're dealing with, and hopefully also to dissuade you from doing anything that might make the situation worse. The secret is to improve the room by doing as little as possible to it. There are three things that can happen when sound hits a wall. It can be reflected, absorbed, or diffused. Different building materials produce differing sound reflections. A flat concrete wall will produce a distinct echo when you clap your hands and that sound is reflected off of it. However a brick wall, even though it is somewhat reflective, will tend to diffuse the sound reflections and produces a much less distinct echo. This is due to the surface of the brick, the mortar between the bricks etc Proper diffusion of sound can make a small room sound larger (great for live recording area but maybe not quite what you want for your control room)

Diffusers work in a different way, breaking up the flat surfaces. When sound is reflected off a rounded or complex surface, it is diffused. Diffusion spreads the Point Blank 2007

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING reverberant sound evenly throughout a room, which not only prevents standing waves but also eliminates "dead spots" - places where components of the sound are missing. We can break up flat surfaces by hanging large objects called diffusers. The shapes chosen for diffusers are really a matter of taste and cost. Avoid concave curves, which focus sound instead of dispersing it, but otherwise pyramids, lattices, or computer designed random surfaces all work well. The depth of a diffuser determines the lowest frequency that will be affected. A diffuser one foot deep will scatter sound down to 160 Hz. Typically diffusers would be applied to the back wall in a control room to disperse the sound waves coming from the speaker. However, diffusers can cause further problems when the principal activity in a room is listening to loudspeakers. The diffusion can make everything sound airy and open where what's on tape might not have that factor. A control room is a working environment, not a listening room. In a control room you want to be able to hear exactly what is on tape and you want to be able to analyze it completely so that you can add the necessary components such as EQ, reverberation, compression etc. Direct sound from the speaker is the principal aim in a control room. I have always preferred control room with little diffusion, I find that you have a tighter bottom end (if properly designed) and you have a better perception of the direct sound coming from the speakers. In the home studio your room sizes are usually small and low and low-mid frequency coloration is your main problem, so the use of deep diffusers would probably increase these problems. However, room furnishings, such as bookcases, shelves and furniture can act as diffusers, although pretty ineffective at lower frequencies they can help diffuse high frequencies, typically from the back wall, thus preventing standing waves to occur at higher frequencies. Something you might want to try. Absorbers Walls with absorptive properties help to reduce the reverberation time as well as preventing standing waves, as the sound isnt reflected as much from the wall, thus fewer sound waves messing each other up in the room. To put it simply Absorptive materials is going to be your best friends in your home studio. The idea is that if you have two reflecting wall facing each other, by making at least one of them absorbent, it will help to prevent the problems previously described. But unfortunately again, this is not quite simple. To balance a room, you must have a true balance of the high and low frequencies, with the right amount of deadness to liveliness (reverb time). The coefficient of absorption is the basis of acoustic treatment, this is the amount of sound energy a surface absorbs and reflects and is measured at different frequencies. If we say that a surface material has an absorption coefficient of 0.25, it means that the surface will absorb 25%, while reflecting back 75% at various frequencies. These numbers can be used to compare materials and to predict the results of treatment (look at table below).

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING Materials 50mm Acoustic Foam 100mm Acoustic Foam 50mm Mineral Wool (Med Density) Plaster on brick Cotton drapes draped to half area. 15oz/sq yd Foam backed carpet on concrete Heavy carpet + heavy foam underlay on concrete Coarse concrete Painted concrete Wood floor Window glass Plate glass 6mm glass Plaster on brick 9mm Plasterboard 20mm air gap Brickwork Vinyl flooring Breeze block LF panel absorber Perforated Helmholz absorber, 4-inch depth, mineral wool damping, 0.79% perforation. Perforated Helmholz absorber,8-inch depth, mineral wool damping, 0.79% perforation. Broad-band absorber, 1inch fibreglass slab at mouth of 7-inch deep cavity Padded seat (unoccupied) over 125 Hz 0.08 0.2 0.2 0.013 0.07 0.05 0.15 0.36 0.01 0.15 0.35 0.18 0.1 0.013 0.3 0.05 0.03 0.25 0.28 0.4 250 Hz 0.25 0.7 0.45 0.015 0.37 0.16 0.25 0.44 0.05 0.11 0.25 0.06 0.06 0.015 0.2 0.04 0.04 0.40 0.22 0.84 500 Hz 0.6 0.99 0.7 0.02 0.49 0.44 0.5 0.31 0.06 0.10 0.18 0.04 0.04 0.02 0.15 0.02 0.05 0.6 0.17 0.4 1 KHz 0.9 0.99 0.8 0.03 0.81 0.7 0.6 0.29 0.07 0.07 0.12 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.5 0.09 0.16 2 KHz 0.95 0.99 0.8 0.04 0.65 0.6 0.7 0.39 0.09 0.06 0.07 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.75 0.10 0.14 4 KHz 0.9 0.99 0.8 0.05 0.54 0.4 0.8 0.25 0.08 0.07 0.04 0.02 0.02 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.5 0.11 0.12

0.98

0.88

0.52

0.21

0.16

0.14

0.67

0.98

0.98

0.93

0.98

0.96

0.1

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.4

0.3

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The 2 major acoustic problems afflicting home studios that we will be looking at are: 1 - High-frequency problems: too much reverberation in the room, or poor imaging. 2 LF standing waves. Leading to Low-frequency problems: bass hot and cold spots throughout the room. Flutter echo is a distinctive ringing sound caused by echoes bouncing back and forth between hard, parallel surfaces following a percussive sound such as a hand clap. These High-frequency problems are most common in home and project studios, although, fortunately, they are easy to diagnose and treat using inexpensive methods. If using well positioned small nearfield monitors, that might be the only thing youll need to do, just reduce the echo/reverberation at higher frequencies. A very quick, if unscientific fix, is to hold a blanket across one of the hard walls. It helps to have an assistant whilst playing this game! With the blanket held an inch or two from the wall, so that the wave is attenuated both on the way to and away from the wall, clap again. If you identified the most troublesome wall, the 'crack' should sound much cleaner and shorter. If not, try another wall. If you are on a tight budget, hanging blankets or heavy curtains on the wall is fine, although, for safety, only use fabric that is fire retardant. NOTE that the common mistake is to try to completely cover every wall with blanket, curtains, carpet, egg boxes & others Although some of these materials can do a decent job at reducing reflections at high frequencies, they are pretty ineffective at mid & lower frequencies, by applying them to each entire wall; you could make the room sound very dull. What actually happens is that you are lowering the reflections (Reverberation time) of the Room but only marginally in the high frequency range! The lows are still humming around the room, which creates what we call a Muddy Sound. Beyond this, there are a large number of acoustic tiles available for this type of problem. A small number fixed to the wall with heavy double-sided tape or adhesive will work wonders. In many cases, a pair of acoustic foam tiles fixed to the side walls on either side of the engineering position, as shown in the diagram here, will be all that's needed. Acoustic tiles or Rockwool ceiling tiles will also be of benefit on the ceiling. A major benefit of reducing high-frequency standing waves is much better detail and imaging from your monitors. This area is perhaps the most overlooked in home studios. You could find out more precisely how much absorptive material you need to apply to the room, by calculating the Reverb time. There are formulas to calculate reverb time or T60 such as the one devised by WC Sabine at the turn of the century, though this formula is more accurate when applied to larger rooms than to small ones. There is a more accurate and rather more complicated formula attributed to Eyring. Don't panic, though, because in a typical domestic room, using nearfield monitors; the amount of acoustic treatment needed isn't usually that great. Most of us wont feel the need to go down that road. What's more, using maths, the result is only going to be an approximation, due to the uncertain absorption coefficients of various materials. Furthermore, the overall effect of the same area of absorbent material will be different depending on whether the material is concentrated in one place or distributed around Point Blank 2007

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POINT BLANK THE ART OF MIXING the room.

When treating facing surfaces, it's most effective to distribute the absorptive material between them, rather than putting everything on one wall and leaving the other reflective; in the case of sidewalls, this is essential to maintain a nominally symmetrical listening environment, otherwise the stereo image could be strangely unbalanced. However, it's not always possible to treat opposing surfaces in exactly the same way, the floor/ceiling pair being the most obvious example. If the floor is carpeted, it will absorb the higher frequencies very efficiently but will hardly affect the bass or lower mid-range at all. One answer might be to mount bass traps (well discussed them next) in the ceiling to absorb the bass but to reflect back the mid and higher frequencies absorbed by the carpet. The easiest way to tell where to place absorption to avoid early reflections is with a mirror. While you sit in the listening position, have a friend place a mirror flat against the side walls and move it around. Any location in which you can see either loudspeaker in the mirror should be covered with absorption. It's a good idea to treat a larger area of the wall than you identify with the mirror, so you'll be free to move around a little without leaving the Reflection Free Zone. Once the side wall locations are identified do the same on the ceiling. Although it's more difficult to slide a mirror around on the ceiling, one way is to attach a hand mirror to a broomstick with rubber bands. High frequencies are the easiest to absorb and it gets harder as the frequency lowers. Most home studio enthusiasts only seem to treat the high frequencies in the room yet it is the mid and low frequencies that cause all the room problems. Bass Trap The next problem is bass peaks and troughs. There are two main methods for fixing this. The best solution is not normally domestically acceptable; in that it involves making sure that no walls in the room are parallel with each other. This is an important concept and should be applied to any new construction. Making the opposing walls non-parallel stops the waves being trapped and combining (though remember it is not that effective with lower frequencies). This can be achieved with an out-of-square wooden frame, double-tacked with plasterboard, on two of the walls and, ideally, on the ceiling. A less drastic and often complimentary solution is to add a certain amount of absorption in strategic places. This works by attenuating problem frequencies, therefore reducing their summation. By absorption, I do not mean sound-absorbing wall tiles -- whilst these are great for high-frequency problems, none of them work low enough for true bass problems. Bass absorbers, or bass traps as they are also known, are available ready-made in a range of domestically friendly styles and colours, although they tend to be expensive. There is a DIY alternative, however. With either of these solutions, the absorbers should be located at some point along a convenient wall. Room corners are also good, and the key to placing them successfully is, as always, lots of trial and error. The absorbers will work over a range of frequencies, rather than at one specific frequency, so it's therefore quite difficult to predict the exact placement and quantity required. Start with the absorbers around a third of the way along the wall, then move them and listen some more. Add more if required. Remember, we are not necessarily after a total removal of problems, just enough to stop you reaching for Point Blank 2007

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Some general guidelines about positioning absorbers. Proper acoustic treatment is both art and science. All rooms present unique challenges. Placing too much or the wrong type of material can have disastrous effects. With acoustic design, less can be more. There is a point where unevenly or overly treated rooms expose greater acoustic anomalies, this can be worse than no treatment at all. In some circumstances rooms with carpet and a few pieces of furniture already are close to sounding good. It is important to vary materials, both in thickness and performance. Applying too much of one material will slant response to create a coloured and artificial quality. Opposing materials of different types are more efficient as the impedance of materials differs, creating greater resistance. Often we place materials with small spaces between. There is no loss of absorption as long as the space does not exceed the combined thickness of the absorbers, 2 thickness plus 2 thickness = 4 space. Be careful not to exceed four inches if parallel flutter problems are a concern. Symmetry is critical. Do everything possible to make left and right side walls equal in space and quality. The wall directly behind the speakers needs to be an area of absorption. Generally a minimum 60% covered, starting at the ceiling with the most efficient absorber you can afford. Do this first, as this will give great benefits. Bass energy collects in corners. Corner treatments allow for thicker materials without giving up valuable space. (Bass traps) Sidewalls in front and adjacent to the mix position require 50% absorption. Place 4 of absorber one foot below the ceiling on an 8 wall. If the room has splayed walls, added shape, or generally needs to be quieter, use 5 of treatment starting at the ceiling. Continue this treatment at least 6 behind the mix position. At this point, you can begin to stagger materials. Absorbers should be opposite flat walls or diffusers. The sidewalls can have less absorption value than front walls to vary the materials. For example, if the front wall is 4 foam the sides may be 2 foam. On the back wall do not use diffusion unless it is a minimum of 8 away from the mix position. The type and amount of diffusion will vary greatly due to the following factors: the size of speakers, dimensions, distance, aesthetics, and budget. The back wall is an ideal place for resonators. Again, it is important to have a different type of absorber than the one used on front or sidewalls. In homes, the back wall is a good place for shelves and storage. Keep space between items on the shelves and vary their depth. As a concept, I prefer hard floors (typically wood flooring) and soft ceilings. If there is carpet, a sparse array of absorption on the ceiling will help. If the floor is hard, treat 80% of the ceiling with absorbers from the front wall to 4 behind the listener, then begin to stagger the treatment.

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Further reading www.acoustics101.com www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_world/encyclopaedia.htm www.auralex.com www.acousticalsolutions.com

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