Acoustic treatment advice

[jonno1981]

I’ve got a log cabin in my garden I use as a practice space and a home office. It’s 3x3m square internally, apex roof, carpeted floor and bare wooden walls. 
Music played through my little edifier monitors sounds pretty good but it suffers from real bass boominess when I move away from the desk and sit listening closer to the opposite wall. It’s real subby uncomfortable headachey low end. Not apparent anywhere except where I want to sit!
Speakers are on acoustic isolation foam supports on a sit/stand desk. Back of the room (where it booms) is where I’d prefer to sit as it’s where my bass amp is and the speakers generally sound better from slightly further away. 

I’m guessing I need something to try and soak up some of the low end but really not sure where to start. A search on studiospares gives me all kinds of products. 

Acoustic panels? Bass traps? Corner blocks? Help! Advice welcome please! 
Happy to diy (to a degree). 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by jonno1981
Grammar!

[jonno1981]

Oh and speakers are front ported, flat eq, listening using tidal, so reasonable(ish) source. Edifier 1855db. 

[SH73]

There's a thread on acoustic treatment somewhere on Basschat and on building a garden studio room.

[Bigguy2017]

Not easy. Not easy at all...

3m x 3m (square) means same standing waves across and along the room.

You'll have a very pronounced ring around 114Hz and 228Hz. If the ceiling is also at 3m ish thing will be even worse.

 

Dealing with these low frequencies needs thick absorbers - 75mm spaced 75mm off the walls.

Any irregular surfaces for dispersion will help with the mids and highs but a large low frequency peak like you have is difficult to stop.

2m x 1m x 75mm hard fibreglass panels or Rockwool filled frames (cheaper option) covering most of the walls with corner bass traps are called for but they would take 300mm off the room dimensions.

  https://www.studiospares.com/acoustics/acoustic-panels/primacoustic-broadband-panel-beveled-24-x-48-x-3-grey_464772.htm  or similar

 

Tuned membrane absorbers matched to the room node(s) can also work.

 

Use Audacity to generate pink noise and put this through your speakers.

A decent LDC mic at the listening position and Spectralissime Spectrum Analyzer will show where the big peaks and dips are and their amplitude.

[StickyDBRmf]

Those are pretty neat speakers. This may be a dumb question but wouldn't a couch do?

[Downunderwonder]

If you can move 1 speaker a couple of ft you might get interference in the bass enough to reduce it.

 

You can put EQ on the case and cut the bejesus out of the offending frequencies. Much easier than damping it out after the fact.

[jonno1981]

Thanks all for advice. I can’t really relocate the speakers unfortunately as my desk wouldn’t be lined up with a window and I don’t want to spend the day staring at a wall. Appreciate this isn’t a studio/office, it’s an office first, studio 2nd. Apologies if that wasn’t clear. 
I think the idea of adding in some softfurnishings can’t hurt. I might try that as an easy option and see what difference it makes. The main problem I have is for ultra low bass, the wooden walls aren’t varnished so it’s not a particularly ringy space, just subby low end. 
I’ve been recommended acoustic panels costing £500 by a friend but the speakers only cost £150! I’ll upgrade them at some point but I don’t want to go overboard. 

[Bolo]

Could you try putting the speaker on stands instead of on the desk?

[jonno1981]

I’ll take some pictures on a bit to show the existing layout. 

[jonno1981]

Pics below. I don’t have the width to use speaker stands and I work with the desk at 120cm height approx 50% of the time! 
They’re slightly raised on little plinths and have auralex foam supports. 
Back wall is the one with three framed pictures on it. 

[Bigguy2017]

The room being square is the main problem as the H and V room nodes are the same frequency.

 

Something like these will be required...

 

[Balcro]

Now you know why it's bad practice to build square box loudspeakers.  "Bigguy" is right.

In a same but different way it reminds me of the only time I ever walked out of a concert to protect my ears and brain - Medicine Head playing in a very long & narrow brick walled gymnasium @ University college. I was sitting less than 20' from the back wall and roughly the same distance from the rear corner. Horrendous!

Perhaps the only cheap and simple passive solution is to use thick sound absorbents on the rear wall and into the rear corners, a la "Biguy's "Corner Bass Traps".. Try sitting at least a metre from the rear wall. You'll never cure the subby bass  completely because the wooden walls are resonating along their length betwen one nail fixing and the next.

Picking up on "bigguys" comment, you could try a simple graphic equaliser and apply a large cut to the signal at 120Hz. That will also take out the harmonic @ 228Hz.

 

 

Lastly, think of the poor fish in the tank. They probably think their living through an undersea earthquake !!!

Edited March 26, 2022 by Balcro

[jonno1981]

Fantastic advice. Thanks to both. Especially appreciate the effort with the floorplan. I’ll work out work how many panels I need. 
 

The fish seem happy! They’re breeding which indicates a healthy tank. Maybe they’re fans of 00s alt rock and it gets them in the mood! 

[Downunderwonder]

I don't know why you would attempt to damp before EQ treatment.

[jonno1981]

What should I use? I’m listening to music more than recording in here. 

[Velarian]

This might be useful:

 

 

Present Day Productions is a great YouTube channel and they have lots of videos on things like speaker placement and acoustic treatment etc.

This is a playlist for a series of videos on how to build and acoustically treat a studio:

 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZTEvhVjBPsquCzg-E89exPfyIGkhwwDN

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Velarian