Music creation, Sound, Energy, Ears, Body, God, Reflex, Dance, Smile, Tears, Aggression, Memories, Despair, Life and Death.. somewhat, I wanna say, related to something nature has added to its beauty… MUSIC!!
View attachment 2866
We all love music, which is a melodic pattern of sounds.. various sounds joined in cohesion and hence we hear something.. then we perhaps decide .. hey its nice.. I like it!! Wow!! Cool!! Oh yeah..
Anyhow, lets get to the roots.. Music creation or direction or production (as its better known now) with technology has been there for quite a long time.. I mean using computer and other hard wares..
Prior to computers we still had good music, didn’t we? But with computer n hence softwares the scope of creation and sound production has monumentally increased its possibilities and character.. No, not just synthetic disturbing sounds (sometimes) what we get from a software, which indeed has been a notion of gone days recordists, but an orchestral, jazz, rock, masala may be bhakti, classical and what not has come into the potentials of these cool looking wares.. we call DAW.. Digital Audio Workstations..
Lol, initially I didn’t know what a DAW meant.. I assumed it to be some short form of an abuse popularly known amongst Americans.. same way, there are many facts we all are unaware but we always wanted things that way, the way they sound good..
Ears, the best microphones we have.. do we have the best rooms? Well, sound is not like light… that it should travel a straight path.. sound is like a blast.. the speaker kept on ur floor may get a bounce of sound back from the ceiling right above it.. hence creating unwanted reflection of bass and the muddy effect.. dialogues are not clear, treble kills the ears.. and hence you think.. may be it’s the time to get a sound card or better speakers.. sometimes.. even better, you may not even bother to think about how good is your sound quality and how your “feel good factor†gets manipulated with the music you love.. again, we all love music.. do we? Well, real music lover should feel for an upgrade of simple things which matter in music and its environment..
Quickly, placing a speaker at max 2 feet from the front wall.. works great.. if not 2 feet at least one feet is still ok.. now, distance, between the speakers matter.. minimum of 4 feet and max of 6 is again great.. placing speakers at your ear level.. where you hear them most of the time.. like chair level.. wherein, your head is just in middle of the speaker columns.. Tilting the aim of the speakers (turning the both right n left speaker fronts towards your right and left ear respectively) towards you shall be a good thing again.. well even for 5.1 channels this practice turns true.. just that you have to place the other 2 speakers at the rear wall with all the same settings mentioned above.. well, sometimes due to room arrangements, this placement is not possible.. in such case placement of speakers nearest to ear level, equidistant (4 to 6 feet) is still a good practice.. now don’t place speakers very close to floor or ceiling.. both are disastrous to the sound..
Try to make an equilateral triangle with you and your both the speakers, preferably having a distance of at least 3 feet but 4 feet is even better.. and place yourself as far as possible from the surrounding walls
View attachment 2867
"The main acoustic problem in smaller rooms is poor low frequency response and lack of clarity in bass instruments." Some pro said so.. now with this I get into room treatment for better sound response..
"Treating 30 percent of a room's surface area will improve the room far more than treating only 5 percent." Well this statement is one good one.. lets see how.. see the picture below and analyze how would the sound travel in your room and reflect to cause common problems like echoes and excess ambience, too much or too little bass, poor stereo imaging and localization, unclear movie dialog, and generally muddy sound.
View attachment 2868
The white pads in the picture is the solution, these are essentially used in pro studios.. Well, then y not in our room?? Ohk, these are way costly.. But we can again make use of some alternatives.
"All acoustic problems are caused by reflections off the walls, floor, and ceiling."
Just try this out.. if you have sofa seats.. detachable.. these seats are foam seats.. place some thick ones right behind your speakers and lean the foam towards the front wall (wall in front of you when you are sitting towards your speakers)..place some on the just to right side wall to the right speakers and same with left speaker.. also place one or two at the back side of your computer monitor or in front of your eyes again leaning on front wall.
if possible put some thick cotton bed, I got one foam bed 6 by 5 feet, which I tried by putting it against the rear wall just behind the speakers..(leaning on the rear wall at the speaker level..) wow, the sound quality, hearing ambience totally changed.. funda is – more the acoustic material,, sound absorbers, the better sound.. but not too many, so that sound should not get totally absorbed.. 30% of room should be treated. like in the above picture..
Again it also depends on what type of furniture you have in your room. If your room is carpeted, wow, sound gets better.. if not, you can try putting some bed on the floor and then try.. you will hear the difference..
Well, to replace this arrangement into a permanent setting, you can buy a 4†thick foam with 40 density which should be 25†by 25†blocks for around Rupees 150 each.. (Delhi price) and place as many you wish, place them as discussed above.. and shown in picture.. here you go.. you will increase your hearing experience monumentally.. well for Rs. 1200 you get 8 such blocks or if you may, you can think of some alternative material for the sound absorption.. Putting books rack stuffed with books at the rear wall in the middle also absorbs bass very well.. we all perhaps have a book rack, don’t we?
Decouple your speakers: Sound travels through solid materials faster than through air. So when loudspeakers are sitting on a desk, low frequencies can transmit from the speaker's enclosure through the desk and floor and arrive at your ears before the waves in the air. If the secondary path is strong enough, the phase shift caused by this time delay contributes to low frequency response errors. One solution is to buy speaker isolation pads sold for just this purpose. You can optionally make pads from rigid fiberglass or even kitchen sponges - the kind that become stiff when dry work best for this or then again thick foam..
Regardless of which product you choose, please don't make the common mistake of covering the entire room with thin material. This makes the room sound creepy and lifeless, yet boomy at the same time.
"I am convinced that the most important 'gear' you can own is proper room acoustics.â€
Well, this whole discussion has so far has gone towards room treatment, but I started with DAW.. anyhow, now the role of DAW also comes in..
Will discuss about it in my next post.. DAW is a big discussion material onto it self, n much interesting.. along with hardware advices.. (no I am not an authority on it..) but yeah know a bit about it too..
Few nice videos, if you wish to watch (download link for DAP): http://www.realtraps.com/video_setup.wmv
View attachment 2866
We all love music, which is a melodic pattern of sounds.. various sounds joined in cohesion and hence we hear something.. then we perhaps decide .. hey its nice.. I like it!! Wow!! Cool!! Oh yeah..
Anyhow, lets get to the roots.. Music creation or direction or production (as its better known now) with technology has been there for quite a long time.. I mean using computer and other hard wares..
Prior to computers we still had good music, didn’t we? But with computer n hence softwares the scope of creation and sound production has monumentally increased its possibilities and character.. No, not just synthetic disturbing sounds (sometimes) what we get from a software, which indeed has been a notion of gone days recordists, but an orchestral, jazz, rock, masala may be bhakti, classical and what not has come into the potentials of these cool looking wares.. we call DAW.. Digital Audio Workstations..
Lol, initially I didn’t know what a DAW meant.. I assumed it to be some short form of an abuse popularly known amongst Americans.. same way, there are many facts we all are unaware but we always wanted things that way, the way they sound good..
Ears, the best microphones we have.. do we have the best rooms? Well, sound is not like light… that it should travel a straight path.. sound is like a blast.. the speaker kept on ur floor may get a bounce of sound back from the ceiling right above it.. hence creating unwanted reflection of bass and the muddy effect.. dialogues are not clear, treble kills the ears.. and hence you think.. may be it’s the time to get a sound card or better speakers.. sometimes.. even better, you may not even bother to think about how good is your sound quality and how your “feel good factor†gets manipulated with the music you love.. again, we all love music.. do we? Well, real music lover should feel for an upgrade of simple things which matter in music and its environment..
Quickly, placing a speaker at max 2 feet from the front wall.. works great.. if not 2 feet at least one feet is still ok.. now, distance, between the speakers matter.. minimum of 4 feet and max of 6 is again great.. placing speakers at your ear level.. where you hear them most of the time.. like chair level.. wherein, your head is just in middle of the speaker columns.. Tilting the aim of the speakers (turning the both right n left speaker fronts towards your right and left ear respectively) towards you shall be a good thing again.. well even for 5.1 channels this practice turns true.. just that you have to place the other 2 speakers at the rear wall with all the same settings mentioned above.. well, sometimes due to room arrangements, this placement is not possible.. in such case placement of speakers nearest to ear level, equidistant (4 to 6 feet) is still a good practice.. now don’t place speakers very close to floor or ceiling.. both are disastrous to the sound..
Try to make an equilateral triangle with you and your both the speakers, preferably having a distance of at least 3 feet but 4 feet is even better.. and place yourself as far as possible from the surrounding walls
View attachment 2867
"The main acoustic problem in smaller rooms is poor low frequency response and lack of clarity in bass instruments." Some pro said so.. now with this I get into room treatment for better sound response..
"Treating 30 percent of a room's surface area will improve the room far more than treating only 5 percent." Well this statement is one good one.. lets see how.. see the picture below and analyze how would the sound travel in your room and reflect to cause common problems like echoes and excess ambience, too much or too little bass, poor stereo imaging and localization, unclear movie dialog, and generally muddy sound.
View attachment 2868
The white pads in the picture is the solution, these are essentially used in pro studios.. Well, then y not in our room?? Ohk, these are way costly.. But we can again make use of some alternatives.
"All acoustic problems are caused by reflections off the walls, floor, and ceiling."
Just try this out.. if you have sofa seats.. detachable.. these seats are foam seats.. place some thick ones right behind your speakers and lean the foam towards the front wall (wall in front of you when you are sitting towards your speakers)..place some on the just to right side wall to the right speakers and same with left speaker.. also place one or two at the back side of your computer monitor or in front of your eyes again leaning on front wall.
if possible put some thick cotton bed, I got one foam bed 6 by 5 feet, which I tried by putting it against the rear wall just behind the speakers..(leaning on the rear wall at the speaker level..) wow, the sound quality, hearing ambience totally changed.. funda is – more the acoustic material,, sound absorbers, the better sound.. but not too many, so that sound should not get totally absorbed.. 30% of room should be treated. like in the above picture..
Again it also depends on what type of furniture you have in your room. If your room is carpeted, wow, sound gets better.. if not, you can try putting some bed on the floor and then try.. you will hear the difference..
Well, to replace this arrangement into a permanent setting, you can buy a 4†thick foam with 40 density which should be 25†by 25†blocks for around Rupees 150 each.. (Delhi price) and place as many you wish, place them as discussed above.. and shown in picture.. here you go.. you will increase your hearing experience monumentally.. well for Rs. 1200 you get 8 such blocks or if you may, you can think of some alternative material for the sound absorption.. Putting books rack stuffed with books at the rear wall in the middle also absorbs bass very well.. we all perhaps have a book rack, don’t we?
Decouple your speakers: Sound travels through solid materials faster than through air. So when loudspeakers are sitting on a desk, low frequencies can transmit from the speaker's enclosure through the desk and floor and arrive at your ears before the waves in the air. If the secondary path is strong enough, the phase shift caused by this time delay contributes to low frequency response errors. One solution is to buy speaker isolation pads sold for just this purpose. You can optionally make pads from rigid fiberglass or even kitchen sponges - the kind that become stiff when dry work best for this or then again thick foam..
Regardless of which product you choose, please don't make the common mistake of covering the entire room with thin material. This makes the room sound creepy and lifeless, yet boomy at the same time.
"I am convinced that the most important 'gear' you can own is proper room acoustics.â€
Well, this whole discussion has so far has gone towards room treatment, but I started with DAW.. anyhow, now the role of DAW also comes in..
Will discuss about it in my next post.. DAW is a big discussion material onto it self, n much interesting.. along with hardware advices.. (no I am not an authority on it..) but yeah know a bit about it too..
Few nice videos, if you wish to watch (download link for DAP): http://www.realtraps.com/video_setup.wmv
The room is indeed the most important component is a music system, and the one which gets ignored the most.
hyeah:
you can set up a bass trap, which is essentially an empty box (crate/cardboard box) which you can keep on the rear wall helps.