Hearing is Believing - The Ultimate Small Mixing & Mastering Room
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2009
- This video lets you hear RealTraps' amazing new modular treatment solution as if you were right there in the room. If you have the desire - and budget - for the very highest quality, this is the treatment solution for you. It's also ideal for regular 2-channel hi-fi listening. Presented by RealTraps partner Doug Ferrara, graphs show the huge improvement in frequency response and decay times at all frequencies. You'll also hear music as recorded from both the front and rear of the room.
If you have technical questions about this video that require a reply, please do not post them here as comments. TH-cam is not a good venue for a technical exchange. Please post your questions in whatever audio forum you know me from, or post in my Audio Expert forum:
the-audio-expert.freeforums.net/
Great video. Even if it does feel like I'm watching a VHS I pulled out of a box in the garage.
None of us at RealTraps are professional presenters, but we have a lot of good advice to share. It's a lot easier to present technical info coherently by first preparing a script. Most educational TV shows are done the same way, but by professional announcers who don't sound like they're reading!
I spent thousands on gear when I should have spend the money first on room treatment. No wonder I was never really happy and content. Thanks Ethan for your insight. It is valued.
Best video regarding control room acoustics I’ve seen after a 2 day research grind.
Thanks Jacob.
Grate video, i love how you clearly demonstrate the difference so that everyone can hear the importance of acoustic treatment.
Cheers!
This video is a great demonstration of proper acoustic treatment. Through the monitors the difference was very obvious. Those diffusers sure made things much clearer. Great Job!
Thanks Ethan. If I lived in the states I'd be a customer. But thank you for all the effort in helping others. Much appreciated.
Wow! Huge difference, even on laptop speakers at a low volume. I'm impressed.
The "before" and "after" examples underscore the value of effective acoustic treatment. Narrative and visual materials are well organized - a very interesting and informative presentation indeed! Five stars!!
Thanks again, Ethan. Since treating my room I've enjoyed hundreds of hours of improved acoustics in my living room. I've yet to add diffusion but it sure does sound to give that finishing "professional room" touch. The "back of the room" examples without diffusion sound very similar to my own room.
Acoustic treatment is not supposed to be random, but often it is when people don't know what they're doing. The RealTraps web site has many articles that explain the right way to do this.
Not what I expected when I googled RealTraps, but not disappointed either. Looks like a great product.
most helpful video I've found so far!
Good video, shows that you really can tame the acoustics in a smaller room.
Excellent, the best comparison video I've seen yet. Shame that treatment solution would cost more than my entire construction budget. Hoping a DIY solution will get me 90% of these results.
this video is eye opening. thanks for the upload
Eye opening bahahaha
Amazing. Lol
awesome! thank you, what a nice studio you have there, thanks
Awesome! I can clearly hear all the differences even on my laptop with tiny speakers....
The bass traps made a HUGE difference in reverberation noise. I would definitely like to purchase a set for myself to mix. My low end seems to be really suffering.
I must have listen to this clip a dozen times through my speakers with an inferior stereo setup and never really noticed the HUGE difference with the song at 7:00 until I corrected it by sitting at the exact same distance of my front left and front right speakers (forming an equilateral triangle). If you're stereo setup is right, you'll distinctly hear that weird sound at 7:08 start at the right side then pan to slightly off center left and then go back to the right side. I just thought that was really cool since you can't really hear that before the room was treated.
TH-cam comments are not a good way to discuss acoustics. Do me a favor, please post in my Audio Expert forum linked above in this video's description, and I'll be glad to answer there.
First thing I'm doing when I buy my own house is having Ethan treat my drum room! Life goals!
Excellent video, thanks!
Amazing! Thank you.
For sure, most people won't invest at that level. But many do. One of our clients with this setup is a well-known mastering engineer with a Grammy for his work on a Black Keys CD. But as you observed, even a few well placed panels can make a very big improvement.
Thanks. I will be definately looking into finding something that fits my purpose and budget.
The concept "needs to develop" is flawed. Waves don't develop, they exist as pressure changes. If waves needed length to develop, headphones wouldn't work. The only factor that's affected by distance as regards listening through loudspeakers and recording with microphones is the presence of reflections from nearby surfaces.
Nice vidi, does a fine job of illustrating the subject, and impressive results. I have a room nearly the same size and have labored mightily with my own DIY ideas... and while my results are pretty good... they aren't as pretty good as this...
Great video Ethan. More than just a subtle difference.
I sort of like some aspects of the sound of the untreated room, now all you need to do is develop a wet/dry lever for the room. ;-)
That's called Lonesome Road, by Dean Elliott, from an album called Zounds What Sounds released in the 1960s.
First step is finding your spot. Jesco has great tips for that. Next step is bass trapping. Then more bass trapping. I love this video because it really shows the value of diffusion, a hard thing to explain.
Yes, this particular setup is expensive, mostly because there are so many diffusers. But you don't need all this to make a meaningful improvement! Even four bass traps plus two reflection absorbers at the side walls will make a very large improvement in a room this size.
I get diffusers are better than no diffusers, but at what point of depth is diffusion not worth it?
@@edwardwu2749 as a rule of thumb you don't want diffusion too *close* to the listener, from what I heard, with "skyline" diffusers you should have at least a 1.8m/6ft distance, QRD diffusers are more forgiving in that aspect. If you can't get further than that you should use absorption.
@@Gamez4eveR Proximity is based on the depth of the diffuser. And it's not always bad to be closer than what's usually predicted:
th-cam.com/video/vb30CICG68c/w-d-xo.html
Thank you very much !!!
As I recall we used about $14,000 worth of acoustic treatment for this comparison, but you can obtain a huge improvement for much less than that. Most people spend a few thousand dollars to treat a room this size.
ethan. excellent info. thank you so much. j.
This is where I want to be at this age, a super Saiyan, All wise, music expert
Very informative! thanks.
@electroneticTV Did you watch the video? This acoustic treatment completely cleaned up the excess ambience and ringing in the room, and made the sound neutral. Which is what you want in a listening room.
@MRHDOTCOM1 I some cases room EQ can help a little, in conjunction with bass traps and other treatment, but it's not a substitute for treatment as many believe.
Thank you!
The cost for all that treatment is around $12,000. But you can get a big improvement in most rooms for much less than that. This was an extreme example showing what's possible.
Hey, Ethan ;) To TH-cam: DIY is the poor man's friend. I don't have any Real Traps but, based on what I've seen, they make great stuff. You can definitely get results from DIY options, though, as well as reading Mr. Winer's free resources and joining him at The Audio Expert Forums!
Eagerly anticipating my mega trap starter kit! Should arrive maybe later this week. I know this will make a tremendous amount of difference. It cost $3000. That should be a very good start for my application. My room is 13 1/2 x 18 x 7 1/2 so it is somewhat small. I will let you guys know how it does once I get it and get it installed.
how did it go man?
Another great product idea, been checking out a lot of products like this, best Garry King, Drummer, Producer (Jeff Beck, Joe Lynn Turner)
+Garry King Thanks Garry. Jeff Beck is my all-time favorite guitar player.
We use a thin plastic membrane behind the fabric, and it does work much better than plain rigid fiberglass.
@usedmanateesalesman We have many different products starting at a much lower price point. This video is meant to show what's possible in a "money is no object" setting. These days many professional mixing engineers are using small rooms. So for someone who has $40k worth of audio gear, and needs their room to be as accurate as possible, this is the solution. In fact, recent reviews in Pro Sound News and Pro Audio Review profiled Magic Garden Mastering, our customer who has this modular system.
@nu77yworld How much absorption you put on the walls depends on a lot of factors including the size of the room. This is a terrible venue for Q&A, so if you have questions, please ask in whatever audio forum you know me from.
@graphite412 Yes, with enough treatment you can do real work in a small room. But the smaller the room, the more treatment you need. Your questions are the right ones, but the answers are more elusive. It's a matter of how good you want versus how much you can invest. 1,000 cubic feet is pushing it, but 2,000 is definitely in range for great results given enough treatment. The room in this video is about 1,500 cubic feet, and Brian Lucey's room I mentioned is only 2,065 cubic feet.
I love you ethan Winer!
Great Video!
Agreed. What a marked difference!
Nice!
nice video
@EthanWiner Oh wow! Freeware? That's awesome. I thought I was going to have to spend 100 or so dollars. Thank you so much!
Yes, though you can avoid that with headphones. But even in an untreated room the difference in clarity is pretty obvious.
@genemz5 Those are Mackie HR824s, the original models, not the newer MK II type.
All of your questions are answered on the RealTraps web site.
@EthanWiner sorry to bother you, (first of all thanks so much for your articles), I am in REW and spent many hours tryng to calibrate my audio card, it is an maudio 1814, i plug in the mic input 1, the line output 1 but it doesnt see any input , i tryed in many ways,
@electroneticTV you have to pay attention to the key words in the title. When you MIX and MASTER you want to have neutrality. This is not a room to RECORD music in. That is where you want character and ambience, special reflections ect for certain Recording applications.
@michalczar7 That music is from a "music library CD" called Tension Realm, written by my friend Ed Dzubak. Google can find you Ed's web site. I also noticed a used copy for sale on Amazon.
verrrry informative....well done...and thank you..
one problem...most people whatching this vid. will not have treated listening inviroments...so they will not be able to get the full/entire effect of the tutorial...they expirience the same problems you address in the vid. in their own rooms...and that is a shame...
@StillLearning1000 I don't think you can judge the naturalness of monitors by listening to a recording made in a room through a Zoom H2 portable recorder. The point is to hear the relative reduction in room tone after installing diffusers and bass traps. Regardless, those are Mackie HR824 pro monitors.
@EthanWiner Awesome! So it is possible to do mastering in a smaller room if there is the right sound trapping and diffusion coupled with the right equipment? What room dimensions in cubit foot would you say is the smallest space that could be tolerable or accurate, after treatment, with the right dimension ratios, for a mastering situation? 1,000 cu ft? 3,400 cu ft? 8,000 cu ft? Maybe these aren't even the right questions... Thanks for the answers so far though!
The measuring microphone is a DPA 4090.
@hardstyle905 That's Steve's Boogie by Eric Johnson.
@EthanWiner That is awesome to hear. Was Brian Lucey's room only treated with traps and diffusiors and the type of treatment used in the video? Was there something similar to krk's ergo or software correction also set up to get a little better reduction of the peaks of room modes? Have you used any of these type of products? I know they do a couple different things like time domain correction, which I haven't really studied yet. Do you have any comments on these type of systems?
I've seen the graphs on the frequency response of the room, before and after the treatment was applied. It seemed as if you had about 10 dB of swing from the dips to the peaks in the low end. Would you say that this is what should be expected? Also how about the decay times for the modal ringing? What is their ideal length? I know having a larger room would help out, but I'm wondering what sort of swing and decay would be tolerable for a mastering environment.
Night and day difference amazing traps
@hardstyle905 Steve's Boogie by Eric Johnson. They also play Trademark by Eric Johnson at 6:38
@hickerydickerydoe That's Room EQ Wizard, and it's freeware.
@graphite412 Brian's room has no EQ in the monitor chain as far as I know. There are two articles on the RealTraps site about the futility of trying to solve room acoustics problems with EQ or other such products.
@AlexanderCollection People on a tight budget will always look for inexpensive ways to treat their room, and that's fine. It's the same with any other audio purchase, such as microphones and preamps and converters. Do you want good or do you want cheap?
Very impressive demo. It clearly shows the improvements. I know less than nothing about any of this, but I have some reservations about the monitors used. They don't sound like anything I've heard before. Very clear, but very unnatural. Is this typical of studio monitors?
@PSYTRACKED I think it comes to about $12,000, though I forget the exact amount. Of course, you don't need that much treatment to make a very large improvement in a room that size!
I think the diffusers and absorbers examples are far more meaningful than the no treatment examples are. The none treated room seems to have nothing at all in it such as furniture, carpet, and other items that occupies typical bedroom space- therefore naturally minimizing some reverberation and other issues. Of course an entirely empty room would sound particularly horrible and be unusable. Good video though!
Would constructing a Helmholtz resonator tuned to 40 Hz be sufficient to further reduce the peak?
@oatstao Sure, we can build them that way.
@davidaliperti I use the Room EQ Wizard software, which is freeware and excellent. Go to the RealTraps web site's Articles page, and there's a complete tutorial. It's called the Room Measuring Primer.
That's a cut off the CD titled Tension Realm produced by my friend Ed Dzubak. This CD is "stock library music" sold to TV stations etc, so it may not be available commercially. TH-cam doesn't allow links in comments, but you can figure it out from this: shazam dot com/music/web/album?id=20010206
The door is in the front left of the room.
Subtle difference? You make a great improvement, I can hear it clealry with my ipod's earphones! Can I ask you how much I can spend approximately to do the same treatment in a room like that? (Excuse me for my bad english!)
i like that you like eric johnson.
what test it takes to get correct measurement, pink noise ? and what software is realialable?
I like your experiment! Very good! By the way, what is the music from 6:39 - 6:53?
Tak-yuen Chan That music is from a CD by guitarist Eric Johnson, the track is called Trademark.
Hi, What software did you use to generate all of the graphs shown in the video? Thanks heaps :)
I must have watched this video 100 times now, thanks for this. BUT I just noticed something. All the traps are right up against the wall! All the traps are 6", I wonder just how much better the improvements would look like with that extra air gap in place?
Good call! We did space the panels slightly away from the walls, though not the full six inches.
@EthanWiner The relative reduction was clearly apparent. The only reason I asked was because people that I've spoken to say they use monitors in their studio because they can hear things better, but that they would not use the monitors for home stereo. It's contra-intuitive to me. Anyway, thanks.
This video is a good demo!
hi first of all thank you for sharing some usefull informations. secondly i would like to ask you about my hoom studio i have a pair of 8' studio monitor in a 500x260 cm room. do you think that i have to switch to a 6' or 5' speakers or i have to do same acoustic treatments to my room like bass traps. note that my speakers are far by 1.5 foot from the side walls.
+Oth Ben As I explain in the video description above, TH-cam is not a good venue for a technical exchange. If you have technical questions that require a reply, please post your questions in whatever audio forum you know me from, or you can post in my Audio Expert forum:
forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/forums/24/1
How do i treat a room measuring 8x8 Feet?. i tried so hard and still not getting any result.
@StillLearning1000 If you think about it, the goals when listening to music for fun and for work are the same: Flat response and low distortion. So I disagree that different types of speakers are needed or useful. If you're ever in my neighborhood, you're welcome to visit and listen.
That was beautiful! How would I know what to put in my room?
Romen Pheonixx Some of my other videos here on TH-cam are more direct with advice about what to put where:@watch?v=ZSX14geMw-c
@watch?v=lbLVjHfHahg
wow!
vive' la difference!
@EthanWiner @davidaliperti I honestly don't know what to tell you. You should ask in the tech support forum for REW at the Home Theater Shack web site.
One day my good salesman, Mr. Winer. One day! :)
I have a 10x12 room should I get rokit 6's or 8
+mrbass093 Definitely go with the larger speakers. Then get some bass traps.
Wow! There's a giant difference. No imagine if you were playing 24 bit files, how much better it would sound!
Just kidding Ethan. Awesome gear man.
Thanks for the info.
Has anyone mention that you sound a little like Charles Bronson?
"And now I'm going to Emmett's fix it shop to fix Emmett."
everything got so much "tighter" sounding in the AFTER audio
Excellent work on this video. You got skills. Let me know when you upload new vids, maybe we can help somehow.
If you Subscribe to my videos I believe you'll be notified whenever I upload a new one.
Hello sir, I appreciate your work and efforts. Very admirable.
I thought I'd ask you a question regarding those speaker stands shown in this video. I own the same ones, with yamaha hs80m's, which are pretty powerful and cause the stands to vibrate. Not noticeably on the ear, just by touching the stands. My question is, should I get much more solid and rigid stands, or could I solve this vibration issue by simply getting great quality isolation pads?
+Omar K The main reason for speaker stands is to easily put your speakers where they sound best, and at the best height. I recently tested loudspeaker isolation products and found they are not useful or needed:
ethanwiner.com/speaker_isolation.htm
So I'd say don't worry about it. :->)
If you have further questions I'm glad to help, but it's easier if you ask in my Audio Expert forum which is better set up for discussions like this:
the-audio-expert.freeforums.net
+Ethan Winer Thank you, sir. I appreciate that, man, and after reading your article, I think I agree with you.. Will be heading to your forum for further understanding.
Nice video!
What about putting diffusers at 1st reflections and ceiling? And absorption behind speakers?
Thanks.
When I tried diffusers at reflection points I thought the sound was almost as bad as a bare wall. Nowhere near as good as absorbers. As for absorbers on the front wall, most speakers send sound the other direction so that's a waste. Though bass traps are useful on any surface.
@@EthanWiner Thank you for the answer. I have a very small room ,10 square meters, and I want to make it sound bigger. I saw a room treatment that had at 1st reflections points a panel 1.20m x 0.6m half city diffusers and the bottom half absorption. The same at ceiling. And bass traps at corners behind speakers.
I see rooms all the time treated completely wrong, so don't go by photos you see online! Then again, you can always try things and decide for yourself. But my advice is No for diffusers anywhere but the rear wall in a listening room. In a recording studio "live room" they can be useful on the ceiling if the ceiling is high enough.
It is possible to get quality stuff for prices that won't break the bank.. informing video