[sidders]

Hi All.
     I'm new to the forum, and acoustics in general. I've been in and out of recording studios for over thirty years and for most of that time I have had home recording equipment going all the way back to two reel to reels. This is the first time I have a dedicated room so thought I would have a go at getting a room to sound as good as is possible. I started off with some foam but then discovered GIK and their ebay outlet, so the foam tiles have stayed in their boxes unused and ready for sale .Virtually all the panels I purchased from GIK ebay have been returns and in perfect condition. The only down side to that was not being able to choose the colours , but I can live with that as its saved me a fortune! I'm still waiting to have doors fitted and I'm also going to plug the window, so can't do any measurements just yet. I would at least be able to find the best position to put my desk and then at least get some panels up for first reflections and above my head.
I have the worst size of a room.10ftx10ftx8ft so not expecting miracles. Hopefully with the help of you guys and Dave at GIK Europe, I can get a get a reasonable sounding room. Below is a copy of an email which I sent to Dave and I will add some pictures later.
 
One of the main points in Dave's reply was to make sure that I shouldn't be seated in the middle of the room.
My first question is " how far off the middle of the room do I have to be before its effective?"    Baring in mind that I only have 10 ft to play with and want to keep as much room as possible at the back for micing acoustic instruments.
Sorry for such a large opening thread, and promise they wont all be as large as this in the future.
Many thanks in advance, and here's a description of my room and the panels I already have.I already have 2 Tri-traps one on top of the other in both front corners. That's the easy bit!
 
Email to Dave(manager at GIK Europe)
 Hi.
 I guess this is not the normal way to go about things because I already have my Gik panels. I purchased the panels from your Ebay outlet. I am now the proud owner of.......
4-tri-traps
8-244's
2-soffit traps
8-versifusors
1- monster trap with FRL. Not sure what FRL means, but I'm guessing something to do with reflection?
 
The back of the room is a problem concerning placement .I cant leave anything permanently in the corners because of 2 doors, but I have considered just putting a free standing soffit trap in each corner and just moving them when I need to open the doors. I wonder how long it will be before I get fed up with that though.
Another thought was rather than keep moving the soffits, I could fix them in place above the doors where the wall meets the ceiling.As you will see in the photos, there is a bare area between the doors. This is where I thought of putting the monster trap. 2 ft off the floor and bang in the middle of the room.Not the middle of that area,so will look slightly off.
The main purpose of the room will be for mixing and recording, but will only be recording acoustic instruments.I have a booth in a separate room for vocals and the odd micing of amplifiers.
I was hoping to keep the back of the room for recording acoustic instruments, so was thinking this is where the versifusors would come in to stop it being too dead and to break up the parallel walls .Maybe 4 on the ceiling and 2 on each side walls?
 
 

[Alex Reynolds]

Hey there! Sorry for not seeing this thread sooner! 
The panels all look great. To address a couple things right off the bat:
38% is the general rule of thumb starting point for a room. Given your dimensions, this would be having your listening position be about 3.5 to 4' from the front wall.
You've got the right idea on placements with basically everything. VersiFusors would be great to do 4 on the ceiling, and two on each side wall.
The FRL is actually a panel we're trying in "beta" tests right now - we've sold a few of the units but we're awaiting some test results and some other preliminary things before commercially rolling them out. In any case, they are a membrane absorber. They are reflective above about 300 Hz, so they're meant to be used for bass control. The membrane inside helps boost the low frequency absorption by a good amount.
The Monster FRL trap then would be best used probably on the front wall - you could use it in the front wall/ceiling corner or just below the desk or similar placements. It would be good to use on the back wall too, but then you'd have a reflective element right where you're recording which wouldn't be preferred.
The Soffit Trap positions you have now should be working great, but if you did want to mount them to keep them out of the way of the doors, that is certainly possible to do using the keyhole slots on the soffits. As long as you keep the positioning symmetrical, most placements would be great. Centered on the back wall, up in the ceiling corners...or in the back ceiling corners with one pushed up to the left wall, the other pushed up to the right. Or even each one on the side wall ceiling corners, so long as they're both the same distance forward or backwards. Any of these positions would work fine.
I'd probably position your 244s as such:
2 x 244 on the ceiling as a cloud above listening position
1 x 244 on each sidewall at the reflection points
1 x 244 on each sidewall further back in the room for tracking
Which leaves you with two 244s that you could either use around the tracking area or around the mixing area - whichever is necessary. Putting them on stands can allow them to be used for both.
Hopefully that's answered most of your questions. If you have any others, please feel free to add here or send me an email at alex.r@gikacoustics.com!
Thanks!

[sidders]

Thanks very Much Alex.
I will need a little time to take in your suggestions and if its ok with you, I'll keep asking questions on the forum so everyone can benifit from your expertise. I've learnt a lot myself going through old threads.
Great to get my first reply though. Will drive you nuts with plenty of silly questions soon.

Tony.

[sidders]

Hi Alex.
    Would this setup be ok for the side walls? I will raise all the panels about 2ft from the floor. As you can see, there seems little point doing the mirror thing for reflection points as most of the wall will be covered anyway. There is only about 11ins between the edge of the Tri-trap(front corner) and the first 244. Although I still haven't quite worked out the listening position, It looks pretty certain that my desk will have to go as close to the front wall as possible so that I don't end up with my head being in the middle of the room. As it stands at the moment my listening position will be in the middle of the 2- 244s in the pic below. It seems that the size of the room is more or less dictating where the panels go, but just wanted to make sure I'm not making matters worse
1- Do you see any problem having the Versifusors so close to the other panels?
2-If this side wall setup is ok, should I put the cloud the same distance from the front wall as the 244s?
3-Do you have any suggestions as to how I should position the versifusors on the ceiling at the back of the room? In a tight 4x4 cluster, or spread out?
4- I was hoping to leave enough space all around the top of the walls and the outer edge of the ceiling, so that I could either straddle some 244s, or put soffits there at a later date?
5- You didn't seem to think that the monster with the FRL would be good for the back of the room because I was going to record at the back of the room. I'm certainly no expert but I actually thought the opposite, and having a reflective front to the monster would be a good thing for recording acoustic instruments.Like I said though I'm no expert and if you think I've got that wrong then could you please confirm that.

Many thanks.

Tony.

[Alex Reynolds]

Would this setup be ok for the side walls? I will raise all the panels about 2ft from the floor. As you can see, there seems little point doing the mirror thing for reflection points as most of the wall will be covered anyway. There is only about 11ins between the edge of the Tri-trap(front corner) and the first 244. Although I still haven't quite worked out the listening position, It looks pretty certain that my desk will have to go as close to the front wall as possible so that I don't end up with my head being in the middle of the room. As it stands at the moment my listening position will be in the middle of the 2- 244s in the pic below. It seems that the size of the room is more or less dictating where the panels go, but just wanted to make sure I'm not making matters worse

As far as the 244s go, yes you've got those positioned more or less exactly where they should go. You could probably slide them up closer to the TriTraps a little bit if you wanted, but this isn't necessary as long as your first reflection points are covered.

1- Do you see any problem having the Versifusors so close to the other panels?

No, not really. The GridFusor next to the soffit means some of the sound that gets spread by the diffusor will be absorbed, but this isn't really bad. The important functions back here will be more to cut flutter echo and other late reflection annoyances in the recordings.

2-If this side wall setup is ok, should I put the cloud the same distance from the front wall as the 244s?

Yes, precisely.

3-Do you have any suggestions as to how I should position the versifusors on the ceiling at the back of the room? In a tight 4x4 cluster, or spread out?

Either would work, but I'd go for a bit spread out to just catch a wider surface area in general. You could do them probably all a foot away from each other so that you end up with a 5' x 5' area.

4- I was hoping to leave enough space all around the top of the walls and the outer edge of the ceiling, so that I could either straddle some 244s, or put soffits there at a later date?

Yes, that should be fine. The GridFusors you'd just use a bit under that area. Maybe leave 18" or so from the ceiling with regards to the GridFusors for additional later date panels.

5- You didn't seem to think that the monster with the FRL would be good for the back of the room because I was going to record at the back of the room. I'm certainly no expert but I actually thought the opposite, and having a reflective front to the monster would be a good thing for recording acoustic instruments.Like I said though I'm no expert and if you think I've got that wrong then could you please confirm that.

Well, there's two sides to this coin. Having a reflective plate means less absorptive "deadness" in the recording, but at the same time, means that certain reflections can enter out of phase with the direct signal at the mic and cause polar lobing which will give a comb filtered recording. So don't sit too close to the monster with the FRL. Of course, recording is very much so dependent upon the material that's being recorded, and for some tracks a reflective face might be more useful, while with other recordings pure absorption would be best (for example, recording a fingerpicked guitar is often done in a much more "dead" room typically, so the ambiance/reverb/reflections don't wash away the dynamics - while a regular acoustic guitar jam would be more geared towards capturing some more room sound with it.) So in other words, it really depends! Experimenting with it will give you the best idea on how to incorporate it into your recordings.

[sidders]

Thanks so much Alex. Those answers are extremely helpful. Just one question on the versifusors, regarding the ceiling.

I will take your advice and place them a foot apart, but do they need to be facing in any particular way?

Tony.

[Alex Reynolds]

All of our diffusors are 1-D (one dimensional) diffusors. This means that they diffuse in only one direction, which is the direction perpendicular to their wells. So, when the wells are vertical, they are diffusing horizontally. They will still diffuse in either orientation, but usually, its common practice to orient them so that they diffuse to the left and right to open up the sweet spot a bit.

[sidders]

Many Thanks Alex. So just to confirm, the versifusors on the ceiling should all  have the wells pointing to the side walls?

[Alex Reynolds]

Well, the ceiling you could really have either way - usually I like to have them so they diffuse in the longer dimension of the room - in other words, placed so that the wells are perpendicular to the sidewalls. But diffusing side-to-side isn't going to be "worse" for any particular area. Diffusing them in the long dimension just gives the diffused sound more room (and by extension more time) to mix.

[sidders]

Many thanks Alex.