Nice video and guide! I’ll try to take your tips to heart and might make a video of the results. I took the time to take notes and timestamped them: 00:27 - Don’t expect any effect from only one or two diffusers 01:20 - Diffusion is expensive and might not be the first thing you should do If you’re on a budget 01:39 - Diffusion will not extend the length of your reverb 02:35 - How to actually liven up your room 03:10 - Don’t think about diffusion if your room has low end issues 05:03 - How to get control of your low end acoustics 05:25 - Summary 06:33 - Basetrap guide
How do I know when I have absorbed too much of the upper frequencies? Is there a decay time I should be aiming for? The takeaway from this video for me is that diffusion is an either or situation, and absorption is all you really ever need.
I know I make non-serious comments sometimes but thank you again for this informative video. I'm considering room treatments and am in the 'soak up lots of information' stage. Knowing where to start is a problem, and this has helped somewhat. Thanks again.
Not a music studio but diffusion is making a noticeable improvement in my small home cinema/music listening room. I implement a mixture of both absorption to dampen the low frequencies. And diffusion to maintain scatter the high frequencies.
Same here and i only have a 22x18 foot studio which is actually okay but it doubles as a home theater... which is not okay lol. It definitely took some fiddling but if you mimic the REAL results and tests out there you can get a really great sound from it... i also painted my walls with flex seal liquid and spray foamed the inside of the walls which was for everyone else in the home and the neighbors but i honestly think it helps majorly with absorption making allf of the sound in my room MINE and mine only but also crystal clear with no echo. Yes i know the foam and flex seal was over the top lol but ill go over the top to avoid volume complaints. 👌
What abou covering some of the porous absorber panels with binary amplitude grating diffuser panels like you have there? And on which ones? Behind the listening position? Thanks
Good info Jesco, thanks. My room was on the dark side, and measurements confirmed it. So ive used some of those GIK alpha 2a panels to get some of my crispness back without sacrificing low end absorption. (the panels are basically regular panels with a "diffusion" pattern cut into a wood sheet on the top.) haven't had a minute to re-measure since i installed them though.
@@officialWWM I haven't re-measured since their installation, but anecdotally..., um i *think* so. hah. I'm still learning to hear what rooms sound like!
Awesome, awesome video. I knew all that - and yet started looking at diffusion for my micro recording area. Your video brought back the perspective once again :)
Thank you👍I saw a guide to make diffusors at herzlovers, and made 16 skyline diffusors and 8 polyfusors. Where is the best place to put them? In between absorbers? Ceiling as a cluster? Home theater..
I wonder what it would cost to book just an hour of time at Blackbird just to get to hear what that room sounds like and listen to music in there. I suspect it must be booked solid for years at a time, though.
Some people were steering me towards placing diffusers behind my speakers. I am in a rectangle living room, and the position due to circumstances is already not ideal. Even though there is even an L shaped couch halfway one of my speakers, and the location of the set is in one half of the room pointing to the shortwall, the imaging is STILL really good. Acoustically it makes no sense whatsoever :-) The only acoustic thing i did was add a thick cotton woven carpet behind the listening position which reduced clap echo for like 80%. And i recon the huge couch contains more than enough foam to half act like a bass trap. I have worked on speaker placement, gaia feet etc. But the room is rediculous in an acoustic sense! I am just amazed it still sounds proper. Any serious advice about the panels behind the speakers? And if yes, which type? Thanks
I did something that worked out really well for me and my living conditions in general, I dont recommend this for just audio unless you dont mind the extra work (and a lil money maybe 150 to 200) in which case it works very well at isolating your sound space and absorbing audio as well as lowing you to add any panels you want and get full effect from them. HERE GOES, I used the rat poison GREAT STUFF foam spray (you can use regular) in my walls to double as a rat killer and an absorber, next, and i know it sounds crazy, i used flex seal liquid to paint my walls, first off if you do this have good airflow through your building in general. NOT JUST THE SINGLE ROOM. Next... Paint, lol. I recommend putting out enough flex seal for a 12x12 area and no more because it will harden on you quickly (5 minutes). ALWAYS out the top back on the flex seal all the way after you put what you want to use. This has doubled my listening experience easily and i am getting more natural and less muffled sound with my klipsch 7.1 surround setup running from an sony str dh790. Also i do not prefer the 5.1.2 setup, i like the speakers above my head but i miss WAY too much side surround sound.
I see your point of doing low-end absorption first, but in my case, my room is SO small, that I don't even have any space for absorbers whatsoever. The only place where I am able to fit any diffusers is just the ceiling and maybe above my TV. It's just a 11' × 10' (3,3×3,0m) bedroom....
Hey Jesco, I think you’re talking with a mixing room in mind here. How about rooms to record instruments in, do you think 2 diffuser panels don’t make a difference there either? To get rid of some flutter echo’s for example?
Fabian Kraal obviously not Jesco here, but it's the dimensions that matter with your question. If you're talking two 4 foot by 4 foot diffusers in a small room: squarish 8 by 9 foot with 7-8 foot ceiling height for example, I'm sure it would help improve the flutter. But if you mean two 2 by 2 or even square foot in a much larger room, I personally doubt it. I have flutter in the back of my room that I mix and track in- I've since taken care of it but it sucked for a while. Just build some! There's plenty of designs and DIY information based solidly in the math. I can say, it helps the flutter but you do have to either spend a lot of money or just roll your sleeves up and make them yourself in order to get enough diffusion for it to start doin it's thing. Hope this helps
Hi. I treated my small 9m room, the bass response is great but i really killed the highs and mids. If i cover my bass traps with BAD panels or wood, will it help bring back highs and mids into the room?
Thanks for great video. Just subscribed, im about to build a acoustic treated room for piano recording, its a relative small rom, just wondered would it work to just cover the whole rom with diffusion, ceiling included? maybe with combination of some absorption panel?
My listening room is in a loft of my living room. The room has three walls and vaulted wood ceiling. What should I do to treat the room? So far I have used bath towels over two windows and two art pieces which are framed in glass.
Vaulted ceilings are very bad for studio and also listening rooms. You will need to extensively treat the vaulted ceiling with acoustic panels. Your best hiring a expert to recommend the treatments you will need.
@@C--A In which dimension are vaulted ceiling's bad for the acoustic? There are less extreme corners meaning bass doesn't clout up as much. And because the walls aren't parallel they aren't creating as much reflection in the first place. I've seen studios that basically have walls that look like very low vaulted ceiling's, just with less of angle and they sounded good too.
Hey there! I want to put some diffusor panels between my speakers, because I kind of "hear the wall". Is that a thing, or should I focus on something else? Thank you in advance :)
LMAO... I'm in half of a very, very cluttered bedroom office "studio." My very, very cluttered garage has really nice acoustic drum reverb though. I am now justified in building a studio shed in my yard.
Any tips for treating low end other than bass traps? Are acoustic panels(safe n sound, Owens Corning) etc going to help treat low end in a smaller room? I’d say my room right now is sort of a bigger(small) room. Any ideas?
You want to cover about 75% of your room. Have the larger panels an inch off the wall. And cover your corners. Made a huge difference for me its really hard to put it into words.
@@Jupiter1423 Sorry, no. I meant how effective are regular panels at treating low end? I was sort of under the impression that it was mostly treating mids/higher end information.
"Don't trust 1 or 2 diffusor panels, that it will make any difference in your room" Said person with exactly 2 diffusor panels on the background :D just joking around, I see that in the corner some flaky bass-trap. now will continue to watch, good luck in your work.
Hi Can someone help please? I have a small room, almost square 3 walls are brick 1 wall is drywall Because of the layout, it's difficult As of now I'm setting up so I have brick in front of me Brick to the left of me And drywall to the right of me Is this going to cause major issues? My bass traps are in the front corners I can swap so the dry wall is in front of me, but my door is in the corner so my bass traps would have to go behind me I'm new to room acoustics I have a load of panels I work full time I can't learn to test this Set up.then set up again And again And again I just don't have the time or energy after a 48 hour week! In theory What's my best option? Thanks
This thickness at that distance will absorb quite a bit of bass, (together with the usual mids and highs). The airgap should never be greater than the panel thickness. But 15 cm (6") is not bad if you want to "move" the absorption curve to the left, that is, absorb more bass. But you've hit the airgap limit, you shouldn't go further. Of COURSE you will absorb mids and highs. If you just want to absorb bass you need a membrane bass trap (or other tech) tuned to the right freq range. That won't interfere with your mids and highs. A "problem" with treble, directionality, will help prevent undue treble absorption. If you bounce mid and treble off the sidewalls don't deaden them too much. Ceiling or floor bounce: In my experience carpets and rugs help a lot. And make the wall behind the speakers absorbent. Not the one behind your listening point. Of course: start easy, and start with bass control. Start adding the right material as needed. Don't jump overboard to begin with.
No. The only reason you might reduce "reverberation time" with diffusors is that you're actually breaking up _resonances_ . Not reverberation, but standing waves, "modes", "resonant frequencies". But as long as you are able to differentiate between those things, a diffuser does not reduce reverberation time, at least not in theory. Why? Because they do not help to remove energy from the sound waves. In theory. Absorbers cause friction, meaning the energy of the sound waves turns into heat, which reduces the lifetime of the sound wave. But diffusers do not do that, so they do not shorten the lifespan of a sound wave. Remember the law: Waves must travel. (I'm an audio engineer, btw.)
Could you share your email? I need help selecting and placing bass traps. I can send you the dimensions of my studio. Wooden hanging walls with mass loaded vinyl backing, wooden ceiling with mass loaded vinyl, acoustic underlayment beneath the carpet, plushy carpet, checkerboard patterned foam squares just in the ceiling (for high frequency treatment - I say checkerboard because half the ceiling is foam, half is exposed wood in that pattern) - but at this time, the walls are completely untreated. Since it is a medium-small room with a ~9 ft ceiling, I think it would be best to start with bass traps. I just don't know which ones to get and where to place them. One wall has the double glass (second pane is slanted) and on the other side is my engineering booth.
Another one down on Mythbusters Acoustics edition ✔️💯
Nice video and guide! I’ll try to take your tips to heart and might make a video of the results. I took the time to take notes and timestamped them:
00:27 - Don’t expect any effect from only one or two diffusers
01:20 - Diffusion is expensive and might not be the first thing you should do If you’re on a budget
01:39 - Diffusion will not extend the length of your reverb
02:35 - How to actually liven up your room
03:10 - Don’t think about diffusion if your room has low end issues
05:03 - How to get control of your low end acoustics
05:25 - Summary
06:33 - Basetrap guide
nice one!
How do I know when I have absorbed too much of the upper frequencies? Is there a decay time I should be aiming for?
The takeaway from this video for me is that diffusion is an either or situation, and absorption is all you really ever need.
I know I make non-serious comments sometimes but thank you again for this informative video. I'm considering room treatments and am in the 'soak up lots of information' stage. Knowing where to start is a problem, and this has helped somewhat. Thanks again.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts on the ‘Abfuser’ type products that are typically a 2 foot square notched sheet with foam backing.
Not a music studio but diffusion is making a noticeable improvement in my small home cinema/music listening room.
I implement a mixture of both absorption to dampen the low frequencies. And diffusion to maintain scatter the high frequencies.
Same here and i only have a 22x18 foot studio which is actually okay but it doubles as a home theater... which is not okay lol. It definitely took some fiddling but if you mimic the REAL results and tests out there you can get a really great sound from it... i also painted my walls with flex seal liquid and spray foamed the inside of the walls which was for everyone else in the home and the neighbors but i honestly think it helps majorly with absorption making allf of the sound in my room MINE and mine only but also crystal clear with no echo. Yes i know the foam and flex seal was over the top lol but ill go over the top to avoid volume complaints. 👌
What abou covering some of the porous absorber panels with binary amplitude grating diffuser panels like you have there? And on which ones? Behind the listening position?
Thanks
Good info Jesco, thanks. My room was on the dark side, and measurements confirmed it. So ive used some of those GIK alpha 2a panels to get some of my crispness back without sacrificing low end absorption. (the panels are basically regular panels with a "diffusion" pattern cut into a wood sheet on the top.) haven't had a minute to re-measure since i installed them though.
Geoff Gross could you hear the difference when you installed them?
@@officialWWM I haven't re-measured since their installation, but anecdotally..., um i *think* so. hah. I'm still learning to hear what rooms sound like!
Geoff Gross I just like the way they look, lol.
Awesome, awesome video. I knew all that - and yet started looking at diffusion for my micro recording area. Your video brought back the perspective once again :)
Thank you, Jesco
Thank you👍I saw a guide to make diffusors at herzlovers, and made 16 skyline diffusors and 8 polyfusors. Where is the best place to put them? In between absorbers? Ceiling as a cluster? Home theater..
Love it! Thanks a lot man!
What about as something pretty to make clients think they are in the right place?
4:25 "Yo dawg, I herd you like diffusors, so I got you a diffusor within a diffusor"
I wonder what it would cost to book just an hour of time at Blackbird just to get to hear what that room sounds like and listen to music in there. I suspect it must be booked solid for years at a time, though.
Hello, What would happen if you took a QRD diffuser and filled the wells with a material like rockwool? Would it absorb as well as diffuse?
Thanks
Some people were steering me towards placing diffusers behind my speakers. I am in a rectangle living room, and the position due to circumstances is already not ideal. Even though there is even an L shaped couch halfway one of my speakers, and the location of the set is in one half of the room pointing to the shortwall, the imaging is STILL really good. Acoustically it makes no sense whatsoever :-)
The only acoustic thing i did was add a thick cotton woven carpet behind the listening position which reduced clap echo for like 80%. And i recon the huge couch contains more than enough foam to half act like a bass trap.
I have worked on speaker placement, gaia feet etc. But the room is rediculous in an acoustic sense! I am just amazed it still sounds proper.
Any serious advice about the panels behind the speakers? And if yes, which type? Thanks
I did something that worked out really well for me and my living conditions in general, I dont recommend this for just audio unless you dont mind the extra work (and a lil money maybe 150 to 200) in which case it works very well at isolating your sound space and absorbing audio as well as lowing you to add any panels you want and get full effect from them. HERE GOES, I used the rat poison GREAT STUFF foam spray (you can use regular) in my walls to double as a rat killer and an absorber, next, and i know it sounds crazy, i used flex seal liquid to paint my walls, first off if you do this have good airflow through your building in general. NOT JUST THE SINGLE ROOM. Next... Paint, lol. I recommend putting out enough flex seal for a 12x12 area and no more because it will harden on you quickly (5 minutes). ALWAYS out the top back on the flex seal all the way after you put what you want to use. This has doubled my listening experience easily and i am getting more natural and less muffled sound with my klipsch 7.1 surround setup running from an sony str dh790. Also i do not prefer the 5.1.2 setup, i like the speakers above my head but i miss WAY too much side surround sound.
New to this channel. Loving the content. Keep it up
Can you cover the whole room in defusers?
Absorb, absorb, absorb. In small rooms, take the room out of the equation as much as possible.
Just found your channel, great en helpfull information. Any advice on how to treat a attic? What should I use and what not. Thx in advance
Thanks
Thank you very much. It's was very useful
I see your point of doing low-end absorption first, but in my case, my room is SO small, that I don't even have any space for absorbers whatsoever. The only place where I am able to fit any diffusers is just the ceiling and maybe above my TV. It's just a 11' × 10' (3,3×3,0m) bedroom....
Same.. This is my room blueprint imgur.com/gallery/1zQD2xX
absorb, absorb, absorb.
Thanks you very much. It's was amazing
Really really helpful!! Thanks Jesco!
Please explain your room treatments
Hey Jesco, I think you’re talking with a mixing room in mind here. How about rooms to record instruments in, do you think 2 diffuser panels don’t make a difference there either? To get rid of some flutter echo’s for example?
Fabian Kraal obviously not Jesco here, but it's the dimensions that matter with your question. If you're talking two 4 foot by 4 foot diffusers in a small room: squarish 8 by 9 foot with 7-8 foot ceiling height for example, I'm sure it would help improve the flutter. But if you mean two 2 by 2 or even square foot in a much larger room, I personally doubt it. I have flutter in the back of my room that I mix and track in- I've since taken care of it but it sucked for a while. Just build some! There's plenty of designs and DIY information based solidly in the math. I can say, it helps the flutter but you do have to either spend a lot of money or just roll your sleeves up and make them yourself in order to get enough diffusion for it to start doin it's thing. Hope this helps
@@pauljohn5584 Thanks!
Brilliant!
Hi. I treated my small 9m room, the bass response is great but i really killed the highs and mids. If i cover my bass traps with BAD panels or wood, will it help bring back highs and mids into the room?
Thanks for great video. Just subscribed, im about to build a acoustic treated room for piano recording, its a relative small rom, just wondered would it work to just cover the whole rom with diffusion, ceiling included? maybe with combination of some absorption panel?
I am planning to put 7ft diffuser in living room for family potraits..do you think it fits well ?
super video, jesco! danke : )
thx!
ok so what if i add diffusers to make the wall not paralell?
thanks!
My listening room is in a loft of my living room. The room has three walls and vaulted wood ceiling. What should I do to treat the room? So far I have used bath towels over two windows and two art pieces which are framed in glass.
Vaulted ceilings are very bad for studio and also listening rooms. You will need to extensively treat the vaulted ceiling with acoustic panels.
Your best hiring a expert to recommend the treatments you will need.
@@C--A In which dimension are vaulted ceiling's bad for the acoustic? There are less extreme corners meaning bass doesn't clout up as much. And because the walls aren't parallel they aren't creating as much reflection in the first place. I've seen studios that basically have walls that look like very low vaulted ceiling's, just with less of angle and they sounded good too.
Cool video
Hey there! I want to put some diffusor panels between my speakers, because I kind of "hear the wall". Is that a thing, or should I focus on something else? Thank you in advance :)
3,6 x 4,4m room, with a 1,6m x 600cm window. What diffusion is best?
That studio C looks really sexy, must be hell of a vibe to work there
LMAO... I'm in half of a very, very cluttered bedroom office "studio." My very, very cluttered garage has really nice acoustic drum reverb though. I am now justified in building a studio shed in my yard.
Any tips for treating low end other than bass traps? Are acoustic panels(safe n sound, Owens Corning) etc going to help treat low end in a smaller room? I’d say my room right now is sort of a bigger(small) room. Any ideas?
You want to cover about 75% of your room. Have the larger panels an inch off the wall. And cover your corners. Made a huge difference for me its really hard to put it into words.
@@Jupiter1423 Thanks man! Good tips! Any idea how much is something like that treating low end though?
@@jamescassidy4045 u mean in $? Depends how big ur room is.
@@Jupiter1423 Sorry, no. I meant how effective are regular panels at treating low end? I was sort of under the impression that it was mostly treating mids/higher end information.
"Don't trust 1 or 2 diffusor panels, that it will make any difference in your room"
Said person with exactly 2 diffusor panels on the background :D
just joking around, I see that in the corner some flaky bass-trap. now will continue to watch, good luck in your work.
Hi
Can someone help please?
I have a small room, almost square
3 walls are brick
1 wall is drywall
Because of the layout, it's difficult
As of now I'm setting up so I have brick in front of me
Brick to the left of me
And drywall to the right of me
Is this going to cause major issues?
My bass traps are in the front corners
I can swap so the dry wall is in front of me, but my door is in the corner so my bass traps would have to go behind me
I'm new to room acoustics
I have a load of panels
I work full time
I can't learn to test this
Set up.then set up again
And again
And again
I just don't have the time or energy after a 48 hour week!
In theory
What's my best option?
Thanks
48hr work week isn’t too challenging. Reach out to gik acoustics and give them your info
Or if you have a lot of money, acoustic fields
Voodoos and voodon’ts
Do 6" thick absorption panels placed 6" off the wall, (thereby creating a 6" air gap), have much of an impact on the mids and the highs? Thank you!
This thickness at that distance will absorb quite a bit of bass, (together with the usual mids and highs). The airgap should never be greater than the panel thickness. But 15 cm (6") is not bad if you want to "move" the absorption curve to the left, that is, absorb more bass. But you've hit the airgap limit, you shouldn't go further.
Of COURSE you will absorb mids and highs. If you just want to absorb bass you need a membrane bass trap (or other tech) tuned to the right freq range. That won't interfere with your mids and highs.
A "problem" with treble, directionality, will help prevent undue treble absorption. If you bounce mid and treble off the sidewalls don't deaden them too much.
Ceiling or floor bounce: In my experience carpets and rugs help a lot. And make the wall behind the speakers absorbent. Not the one behind your listening point.
Of course: start easy, and start with bass control. Start adding the right material as needed. Don't jump overboard to begin with.
Thank you!!!
How small is a small room? 20x15?
No.
The only reason you might reduce "reverberation time" with diffusors is that you're actually breaking up _resonances_ . Not reverberation, but standing waves, "modes", "resonant frequencies".
But as long as you are able to differentiate between those things, a diffuser does not reduce reverberation time, at least not in theory.
Why? Because they do not help to remove energy from the sound waves. In theory.
Absorbers cause friction, meaning the energy of the sound waves turns into heat, which reduces the lifetime of the sound wave. But diffusers do not do that, so they do not shorten the lifespan of a sound wave.
Remember the law: Waves must travel.
(I'm an audio engineer, btw.)
Could you share your email? I need help selecting and placing bass traps. I can send you the dimensions of my studio. Wooden hanging walls with mass loaded vinyl backing, wooden ceiling with mass loaded vinyl, acoustic underlayment beneath the carpet, plushy carpet, checkerboard patterned foam squares just in the ceiling (for high frequency treatment - I say checkerboard because half the ceiling is foam, half is exposed wood in that pattern) - but at this time, the walls are completely untreated. Since it is a medium-small room with a ~9 ft ceiling, I think it would be best to start with bass traps. I just don't know which ones to get and where to place them. One wall has the double glass (second pane is slanted) and on the other side is my engineering booth.
Cheaper and more effective than the real amount of absorption it would take: 4 subwoofers.
Just need something to decorate my evil lair.
I came to learn how to use Diffusors. All you told me was, use basstraps.. what?
???? what is this ahhahaha xD