Home Studio Acoustics in 10 Steps

1. Course Introduction: Hi everyone, welcome to this new course on acoustic treatment for home studios. I'm Matthew am a musician, artist and an architect who mainly focused on composing music over different styles, genres, and for different media. As you guys know, music person right now happens mostly within the computer. But still you need to have an acoustically reliable space to do EM is production probably ten to 12 years before when I started learning about acoustics, I still remember that I was totally intimidated by the fact that a musician has to know all these things regarding acoustics. So all of these physical aspects, all these mathematics, all these calculations, all those things. But if you are a beginner, you won't have access to all those information and things like that. And even if we tried to bring in someone and do necessary changes within your music production space still you won't have enough budget or even resources to complete it properly. So in this course we will be discussing about all the important aspects which will allow us to know as part of acoustical design, you can do a home studio. And I know that all of these things are going to really work because I have done all these things within my speeds up. So it's more like an evidence-based kind of a tutorial or a unicorn. So without further ado, let's get started. See you there. Bye. 2. Topic Introduction: Welcome everyone for this new course on acoustics for home studio. Here what I have tried to bring in worse, to give a clear idea about the general aspects, the basics of acoustics, which can be understood by any beginner or intermediate musician. And I personally know that every musician has good through these beginner intermediate stage. And mostly what really happens is they won't have enough budget or resources to create a professional recording studio, but still they want to create their music. So if you are a beginner musician who would like to create music in your private apartment or in your bedroom or garage or wherever. Still, if you really wanted to have a much better coastal Achilles sounding space. This course is going to really help you because all the things which we discussed here are going to be really simple. And I think it can be directly implemented into your work environment. And let's get it started. So as part of introduction, I have given seven different points and let's discuss upon all these things so that you'll get a pretty much clearer idea about all of those main aspects regarding acoustic treatment. So what exactly is acoustics? Acoustics is a branch of science or to be exact boundary of physics which deals with sound. Here we'll discuss about all the aspects regarding the transmission of the sound or how sound behaves in an interior or even in an exterior. Or even the main characteristics or even the properties of sound. Living. You know, all these things. You can clearly designed a space which can really respond to the sound energy which is being created inside. So what exactly is the importance of acoustic treatment? As you guys know, if you are part of music production USB doing a lot of different, different stuff like songwriting, mixing, mastering, recording, tracking, and all those things which are part of music production. You must be doing it in your private space. So all the decisions you make as part of sound, as part of the sound energy which you receive has to be, right. Okay? So if it has to be reliable, if you really wanted to believe in the new instincts, feedback which you get from the speakers has to be right, or it has to be reliable. So if you really want it to have that, the space has to respond really well in a very positive way to the sound which is being produced inside that space. So only when you do the acoustic treatment in the right way, then only you can rely on the speakers or the way in which the sound is produced inside that room. And at times what really happens is you will take certain decisions based on the feedback which you get from this room. And it can go wrong. As what really happens is the music will work only in your room. It won't be translated onto any other systems out there. That is the worst thing you want as part of music production. Because the treatment is really important. Older than you can rely, your ears or the sound which is produced inside your workspace. Acoustic treatment is almost like a design process. You go through certain stages, certain aspects in a hierarchical order, so that you won't miss anything. And that order is really important. You cannot you cannot just do it in any order. You cannot do that. You should just follow a set an order in the way in which you treat all these different aspects of acoustics. So it involves a process. And this process is really important if you don't have prior experience in treating acoustical problems. Still, after the completion of this course, you will get a fair amount of idea about how these things can be solved in a much better way. So what are the common misconceptions about acoustic? These n people do think that acoustic treatment is not that important. Certain, I have seen certain people. Have you ever thought about acoustic design inside the workspace? That is actually foolishness because the sound which you hear from your workspace will be affected by all the things which are inside that, inside that space. And certain people do think that acoustic design is pretty easy to do. And in my experience, I can say that it is quite difficult to do that. You'll have to look into a lot of parameters to solve it in the best way possible. And every room is different. And the other main misconception is people do think that when you design is to do the main, you can do whatever you want. And at-large when you bring in an acoustical engineer, he can do some kind of magic tricks to make it sound better? No. That is not possible. Exactly. You probably the acoustical engineer can improve the sounding, but all those things depends upon the way in which you design that space. So every stages of the construction of this particular space actually matters. Even if you have the best sort of acoustical engineer available for you, still leave the room, doesn't have the minimum quality. He or she can't do anything. So make sure that when you design a space for sound or music production or something like that, acoustical aspects has to be followed from the first date cell. And when it comes to choosing these acoustical material to make sure that You know, the basic technology behind all those things, why you are going to use it? Why this material, why this technology? All of these questions has to be answered. Otherwise, you will end up having certain materials which don't perform the best way possible. And you'll be spending a lot of time, resources, money, and all those things. And the last thing which you don't want is spending a lot of effort and money and all these materials and technology does nothing to improve the sound of that space. The next area which we allowed to understand is regarding these two terms called Sound Control and sound management. Usually when you see certain tutorials or even add Our podcast or courses or something later to acoustics. Mostly the word sound control is being used a lot. Actually, when you start learning physics behind sound, you will understand that sound. Can we control 100%? You can just manipulate it, or you can just make sure that it works fine in your condition. And you won't have the 100% or control of sound, because each and every frequencies will have its own challenges to solve. So when you hear this term called sound control, it actually refers to sound management actually. The next one is this challenges of acoustic design. As I have mentioned before, we are dealing with the things which we can see. As you guys know, we rely more on to our vision, our auditory sense, and others sensibilities are much inferior when you combine it with vision. So every aspects which we do is based on what we hear. So if people don't have the proper kind of preference regarding the best sounding room or the best sounding situation, then it is quite hard to convince them. And two, as I mentioned before, acoustic design is not that simple and it is not that resource friendly or a budget friendly to convince people regarding treatment and all these things. It is quite difficult to handle it. And every rooms are different. You cannot just take the strategies which is being used in one room and you can just take, you cannot just follow the same strategy is to descend something for a different room. Every rooms will have its own different kinds of sounding. It's on different kinds of challenges to deal with. So as such, the acoustical design is quite difficult to handle. And so let's move on to the main different steps which you will have to follow. When I started thinking about creating a course on acoustic treatment for newer or even newbies, beginners or intermediate musicians. What I really thought was when I started learning acoustically, I was totally intimidated by the amount of knowledge which we really need to have to do acoustic treatment in the best way possible. So if some beginner or intermediate musicians starts hearing all these calculations and the physics maths and all those things which are involved with acoustical design. Mostly people will get intimidated and they think that it's not for us because I can't do all these things. I can only do music. But over a period of time, what I realized was, if you can understand those concepts, those concepts are really simple, then you can do a lot in terms of acoustical treatments. So through this course, what I really tried both I consolidated all the points which I know as part of the basics of acoustics into ten separate binds. So that if you can follow all those ten steps and if you can understand it in the best way possible, then you can have a much, much, much better space than what you have right now. So let's move on to that. So these are the main ten steps and I think it speaks for itself. It is given in a particular order so that that Are you allowed to follow that order. Also. The first thing is regarding the room location, geometries, and dimensions. So let's move on to that. 3. Room location / Geometries / Dimensional Aspects: So what is importance of room location, room geometry, and room dimensions? So before even thinking about having a space, you should think about the space has to be located. Because that has a lot of important. Because if the location is not right, if you are not trying to have a space in the best location in terms of sound, then you may experience a lot of problems. So the first thing which we love to see is regarding the noise feasibility aspect. So mostly when you are a beginner or intermediate musician, you will be living in a rented out apartment or you have, you only have one bedroom or one very small space to do your music production and things like that. Because you can't afford to have afford to have a bigger space or you won't have a lot of resources at this point of time. By keeping all these things in our mind still, we can think about the room location or even the feasibility aspects. If you are living in a two bedroom apartment and one bedroom, you are trying to make it as a music production studio. Then you can think about all these things, all these aspects. The first aspect is regarding the noise feasibility. Check whether the noise level or the frequencies can be managed properly even though you have the room with the perfect dimension or with the perfect situation, still the noise level which is getting experienced inside that room is too high to be managed, then you will have to compromise and lot. So we, we have to limit the compromises. That's the first thing which will have to do for that matter. The room which has much more better noise control, or the room which can experience very little amount of noise from the exterior or as from this lecture itself, can be, can be choosing as a room for this music production. And what is an ideal room location? And if you ask me, I will say that the room where you experience less noise from surroundings and the structure itself, the noise transmission can happen in two ways. Mostly in two ways. Like they add noise transmission or even some transmission. And even the structural noise or sound transmission. In case of airborne noise transmission, what really happens is through the openings is on, comes in and goes out and through by controlling the size of the openings or even the opening and the closing aspect of the openings. You can, you can minimize the bond noise or even airborne sound transmission. But in case of structural sound transmission, what really happens is the sound transmits through the structural vibrations. So you can do very little when it comes to that sort of sound transmission. If you are living in their underlying apartment or you won't have the control over the structural aspect of the building, that you will have to compromise, that there are no option for that. And the next aspect is do know about the noise floor. Noise floor is nothing but the measure of the sound signal creates from the sum of all the noise sources and unwanted signals within a measurement. So it is nothing but the sum of all the noises which are created from different, different sources. Maybe you are inside a room and you experienced sudden noises from the exterior of the room, say e.g. from the road, from the surrounding building are, from your neighbors are. And if you add all those things together, you will get a sound level. And that is called as a noise floor. And when it comes to noise floor, when it goes beyond a certain limit, what really happens is the possibility of having much quality sound inside that space goes down. So you really don't want to have that and makes sure be conscious about the sound coming in and going out because you have to solve these two issues. You don't want the sound to come in to your space from exterior and the other way also, you don't want your neighbors or the people around, people leaving around your room affected by the sound which goes out from your room. So make sure that these two aspects are taken into account and it has to be treated in a much important way. So these are the main things which you live to think about. Choosing a room location. Because that is really important. All the things which we are going to do in the latest stages will be based on the efficiency of the room which you have chosen. The room location is really, really important. So let's move on to the next aspect. It is nothing but the room geometries. Geometries are nothing but the shapes of the rooms which are using for your music studio. I know that if it is rendered space, you have very little options. But still if you have two or three or four options with you, you can choose the best one, right? So let's talk about all the room geometry, all the best room geometries which you can follow and sudden rooms you're on trees which you should totally avoid it. So at first we'll move on to the rectangular room shapes. I think 90 percentage of room shape is made as rectangles, rectangles of different diminutions and with different, different aspects. The first rectangle that is nothing but a square where you have the length and breadth. You can see the first image here or here, where the length and the breadth is same. So in effect, you get a square. And a classically speaking, this is going to be really worse and it becomes much more versa when you have the third dimension, the height also has the same dimension where you have this length, breadth, and height as the same, you get this cube. And acoustically speaking, cube is going to be the worst kind of geometry which you can ever have. Whatever you do after that, won't have any sort of value if you have a cubical shaped room. So make sure that you don't choose that. One more thing to add to that is if you have very large space in the shape of a square, then you can have partitions or you can even manipulate that space into different, different shapes. So in that case, it is possible, but mostly when it comes to a very small room, you don't want to have a square shaped room or even a cubical room. The next rectangle is a very linear kind of rectangle. Will you have the length, almost the double as the width of the room. And in effect, it can create a lot of problems because if it is too narrow, the width is too narrow. The dimension, the dimension is three meter or 3.5 meter. This is going to be really difficult to handle because these two walls which are parallel to each other, can create a lot of flutter echoes and things like that. So you don't want to have a room like that. And still if the room size is so big that only the proportion is like this dimension is so big, then you can have, you can manipulate this room into the best way possible. But if it is a small space, you don't want this kind of proportion to help. In this third case, as you can see, the width is much more bigger than the length. So when you arrange the room like this, where you place the speakers and your computer and all these things in this way. The problem is the front wall and the rear wall. This is a front wall and this is a rear wall. These tools will have very little amount of distance between both. So it can really affect the way in which diffusion or even the reflection happens inside the room. So the music studio has to be arranged almost in the lengthwise direction. That's what these experts say. So you don't want to arrange something like this. So this is not, these three options are not advisable. If you can have a rectangular space like this where you can have the length dimension almost 1.5 or 1.7 times the width. Then you have a lot of possibilities to do because even though it is a rectangle, even though it has certain barrel vaults still, the problems or even the issues are going to be consistent and predictable. So you can do certain strategies which can really solve certain issues, and that is what you really want it to have. So if you are choosing a rectangular room, the proportions has to be like this. Almost. It has to be around 1.5 times the length has to be about about 1.5 times the bit. One thing that you can focus is try eliminating the dimensions which are multiples. E.g. if you have a length of four meter, you shouldn't, you don't want to have a width of four meter and the height of four meter. Similarly, if you have a length of formula and you don't want a room which has a width of six meter, or you don't want the multiples of two happening. So those things we can keep in mind when it comes to rectangles. And in certain situations we have different geometries to deal with. A circular space in case of a recording studio or a space for music production. I don't think that circle is going to help you in any way. It is going to create a lot of problems that are, there are situations where the sound can get localized in the central area because in effect, circle is like a continuously concave surface where the sound can get localized in the central point. So that is what you really don't want to have because you want the ultimate even dispersion of sound throughout the space. So circle is the thing which you can totally about. You don't want to have that even if it comes to a concave shape room. Still the problem of sound focusing can happen. Because when it comes to a con, game space, natural tendency of sound is to get focused on multiple areas. So you get a sound for k. So you don't want to have that. And when it comes to convex spaces, these kind of geometries are also not being used very well. Because even though you use a convex geometry is to diffuse sound as a, as an acoustical. Design strategy. But if the, if it is too big, you can go for that, but the room size is too small to have a convex wall inside that, then you don't want to have that. So in case of organic shapes, the same problem which we have, it's circular spaces and even concave species would be there. The same problem should be there because the sound can get localizing certain points of the room. So you won't get this even dispersion of sound. So these four shapes are not at all preferable. When you think about six sack room shapes. I don t think that when it comes to a recording studio or mixing, mastering, or where you want even dispersion of sound won't go for any kind of shape rooms. Even if you go for some rooms, the symmetrical aspects has to be kept in mind. But as you can see here, these four rooms doesn't have any sort of symmetry. So you don't want these kind of shapes to be there for your recording studios or even for your music production space. So now we move on to the ideal room dimensions. As I have mentioned before, sound has a lot of physical aspects associated with it. As you know, the frequency and wavelength is the most, the most two important aspects of sound. The room dimensions in which the sound travels. It has a lot of important students. So the room dimensions which you can have has a direct impact on the quality and quantity of the sound which you receive inside that room. So if you have rendered space that are now much options to look for, you allowed to go with that available space. Or if you can have options to choose from, then you can go for these kind of room dimensions. So as you can see here, I have given the room geometries in terms of its height, length, and area. Everything is in metric scales. We can see the unit as meters and the area is in meter square. So as you can see here, the red colored dimensions here, when you take e.g. the second 13.35 meter of width, height, 3.35 meter and 3.65 meter of length and has a area of around 40.96 m squared. All these four dimensions, these four dimensions can be used, but the problem is, it won't sound really well. It is not going to allow to do a lot of compromises and if possible, try to have a different room. That's my suggestion for this. I know that in most situations people have room. Dimensions around the 3-meter are 3-4 m. But still if you have an option to go for a bigger room, go for that. And as you can see here, the dimensions given this blue color, these five dimensions, if I set up dimension table, You have their own dimension starting from 4.5, Pfizer and meter to almost the length span is around six point, not nine meter. These, these are different sets of room dimensions given in blue color. And these are actually above average size rooms, which can, which can have much better kind of sounding than the first set of dimensions. These are treatable room sizes and it will have good low, mid and high in response. And I think in most situation AT percentage of room dimensions will come in this range and it is treatable and you can have a fairly good responders in terms of mid, high, and low frequencies. The last set of dimensions, which is Sean green color. Probably these are the dimensions which you alive to look forward when you are able to do a room from scratch. But mostly you want in a rendered out space. I don't think that you will get a, get certain dimensions like this for you. Music studios. So the main advantage is if you have room dimensions in this range, you'll have to do very minimal amount of corrective EQ or the amount of treatment which you'll have to do can be minimized. So the importance of room dimensions, probably I cannot stress it mode, but you allowed to keep in mind these two sets of dimensions are to be taken into account. So the important thing is if you can have a room dimension in this range, in both the middle and the higher range, then there is a great chance that your room is going to sound much, much better. Unfortunately, if you have a room dimension which comes in this range, probably you will have to compromise and a lot of things. 4. Sound Proofing Strategies: So let's move on to the second aspect. It is about the sound proofing strategies. People do have this confusion about soundproofing, the terms sound proofing and acoustic treatment. Mostly people think that acoustic treatment is all about soundproofing a room, or even they use it in the tangibly. So these are two different technologies. Soundproofing is all about containing your room in such a way that the sound, which happens inside the room doesn't go outside or the sound from the exterior doesn't come inside. So that sort of control when you can bring in as part of your structure that is called as soundproofing. Acoustic treatment is all about treating the sound which is being generated inside the room in its best possible way in terms of its quality and quantity. So let's move on to the main sound proofing strategies. The first strategy is adding mass, adding additional layers of drywall, concrete, wine lexica to the walls, ceilings, and onto the surface. Soundproofing works really well when you have very thick very dense or walls or room surfaces. So if you have a very thin-walled, very thin partition wall, it does nothing to sound prove that particular space. So imagine a room having a very lengthy aurorae, big sized glass window, even though we close that window, does very little in terms of soundproofing that room. Make sure that if you really wanted to improve the soundproofing quality of a room, trying, try increasing the density or even thickness of that room. You can go for different strategies by adding drywall, by adding concrete, by adding vinyl, you can increase the thickness of the room. And the second aspect is decoupling. Decoupling involves isolating a surface from other to reduce some transmission using resilient challenge and some clips. So what actually decoupling does is, as I mentioned before, sound travels through the structure also. It is called as planking noise transmission. So if you really wanted to control that, even though you close all the windows and things like that still, these sound transmission happened. And for controlling these flanking noise transmission, you can decouple the structure. And that is the main strategy which these acoustical engineers does. When they do a recording studio. They'll do a room within a room kind of strategy. We're, the inside room is actually isolated from the external structure. And the third strategy is to bring in absorption. Absorption is a very good strategy when it comes to acoustical treatment also. So this is the area where the soundproofing aspects and the acoustical aspects just overlap. Here you can use absorption panels using fiberglass or even rock wall of any other DAY materials to absorb the sound energy so that the reflected sound energies or the transmitted sound energies can be minimized up to a certain extent. The next one is to seal the gaps. Mostly when it comes to airborne sound transmission. The transmission happens to these openings, even if it is a very small opening, is still the sound is transmitted through that opening. So you really wanted to seal all these gaps. So the next strategy is to use sound barriers. So what are these barriers? These are actually thick, dense walls or even elements like that which can really control the sound to come in now to go out. Even the compound wall is a great example for a sound barrier. And in case of a studio, you can have double dose, doubled or even double windows. One window is opening doing that and one to the outside. These two windows or doors can really work as a sound barrier. And a times acoustic curtains or heavy drapes. All these things can really work like sound barriers, which is just a separation between the Soul Sound and the receiver. You can, you can play some sort of barrier in between and you can control the sound transmission. That's what sound barrier does. 5. Room Symmetry / Axis: So the third aspect, it either room symmetry or the central axis. So what exactly is room symmetry or how you can think about the central axis for this room. Even if you have the best shape for the room or the best dimensions of the room still, if you are not able to bring in the symmetry in terms of, in terms of certain other aspects which we'll discuss now. The Romans not going to sound the best way possible. So as you can see the images on the left side, the room. The first image is a rectangular space room where you have this access just going through the center of that room. Here, the left side is exactly equal to the right side. And this is how you want the space to be. And this is a good example. When it comes to Essex actually brew still the symmetry is really important. The left side exactly has to be the mirror image to the right side. Similarly here also, you can see that even if, even if you take any shape rooms, if you can still maintain the symmetry between the right and the left, then it can sound much better. And the other examples that are symmetrical options are given on the right. You shouldn't use these kind of room geometries are usually take the axis like this. Here in this shape, you get the left and right as different here also. This L-shaped room row two has the same sort of issue. So make sure that when you take the axis, it has to divide the room in such a way that the right and the left has to be the same. So as you can see this image, probably, I think in most situations, people have room shapes like this bell shaped room is a common thing. And here, these two points are the points where the speakers are being placed. The blue color is the real world, which is all already there. And you can see that the axis is drawn through this area. And the distance between the wall and right wall on the left speaker, probably it will be around 80 cm in 1 m, something like that. But when you see the distance between the right speaker to the right wall, it is almost twice the distance between the left wall to the left speaker. So you don't want to have something like this. So in this situation, you can alter the room by adding a separate bowl. This red color. Representatives added wall, which can bring in symmetry between the left and right of this room and the density and all the, all the aspects regarding the quality of this wall added wall has to be similar to the attribute similar to what you have on the left side. So this is how it has to be manipulated to make it as a proper music production space. So as you can see this figure here, you have this perfect room geometry, room dimension and things like that. And you are placing the speakers in these binds. And the listener is a position here. But right now you have this wardrobe, which is on the left corner, and you have one on the right corner, right top corner, one left bottom corner, and one right top corner. Here. What really happens is there symmetry between the right and the left. The reflection response that is different in the left side and the right side so that you'll have to keep in mind not only the cemetery in terms of shape and even the layout and things like that. You have to think about the symmetry in terms of reflection response also, here, if you place these two wardrobes or whatever objects in this way, the response which you get from the loudspeaker will be different to what you experience from the right speaker. So you have to change it. You can change it like this. In the real case situation, if you have a piano or a keyboard on to the left, make sure that you are keeping something similar on the right also, that the reflection response is almost symmetrical. So these are the things in terms of symmetry which will have to keep in mind. The next one is a symmetry in terms of Rome construction materials. Here. In case of this first example, you can see that the room has the perfect geometry and it has the perfect dimension. You don't have any other objects which is not placed in an unsymmetrical way. So here in this situation you have this perfect room geometry, perfect room size, and no objects are placed in an unsymmetrical way. But here the problem is the left side you have a glazed window, and the right side you have a blank wall. That reflection which happens from this glazed wall, is totally different to what we experienced. From the right side. The material which is used in the right side should be equal to what you use in the left side. So you'll have to treat this particular rate in such a way that reflection happening from these two walls are almost the same here also the similar situation is where you have the left wall has a very thick wall which is directly opening to the exterior. But you have a wall right side. You have evolved, which is just a partition wall, which is almost one-third the thickness of the main wall. So the density of the materials on the left and the right has to be also symmetrical. 6. Sweet Spot: And the fourth main aspect is regarding the speed sport. So what Excel is a sweet spot? It is a location which creates an equilateral triangle together with the CTO speakers. So if you have a set of speakers, the speakers has to be placed in such a way that the distances between the speaker and the listener has to be like a equilateral triangle. Equilateral triangle will have three sides, symmetrical. So that is if you have a distance of, say, e.g. 1.5 meter between these two speakers. The distance between the speaker and the now also has to be the same and the angle also will be 60 degree even when it is a equilateral triangle. And the speciality of this position is it will have the best sort of tonal balance. So ultimately you want the room to have the best sort of tonal balance. But it is quite difficult to have that. And in case of lots of speakers, only when you sit in this particular sweet spot, you get the best out of the speakers and you'll get the best out of tonal balance. And sweets board is actually the ideal position to get the central image from the speaker. And the rule of thumb, which you can follow as part of sweet spots position is that 38% rate rule. It is considered as the best listening position when it comes to a rectangular space. So you have the room length of around five meter. And the Swedes port will be around 30 percentage length from probably from the front wall or even from the back wall. So you can take that with mostly people do take it from the friend wall. So 38% or five meter. That is the dimension to that sweet spot from different board. That is the idea which is conveyed through these 38% of the tool. And probably with a graphic I'll be discussing the later part of this course. And the Swedes board actually depends upon the room dimensions, distances between the speakers and all those things. So this is also a very important area which we live to focus on. 7. Monitor Speaker Placement Considerations: The fifth aspect is about the monitors. The monitors because we do live to use inside your music production space. And the monitor sizes, the monitor options, and all these considerations will be discussed in this session. At first, you have to know about the basics of the speaker, exactly the competence of the speaker. Usually it will have a tweeter, which is a driver which produces the top frequencies. As you guys know, that frequency spectrum is mainly divided into three main parts, the base and the height. So Twitter is mainly used to translate the top frequencies, very high frequencies. But in certain high-end is because you will have a further division where you have this high mid driver and the driver, you have separate two drivers to do that. And in this image you can see it over here. And then you have this beautiful mover is the driver which produces or which translates the base frequencies or even the sub bass frequencies from the speaker. So all these drivers are part of the speaker and you will have a speaker cabinet also. So when you see these really made, you can find these two main drivers. Here I have shown for drivers, but here only two divers are there along with a small board is on the left side also. So these are the main components of the speaker. We just want to know these basic competence. That's all. And in case of Monte speakers, studio monitors, there are mainly three options that are one-way speaker to waste beaker and three ways because in case one base, because you only have one driver, all the frequencies, mostly the high-end mid frequencies are coming out three, this one way speaker. And mostly the low frequencies like the base and the sub bass frequencies are not well translated through this one V speaker. But certain sound engineers or mix engineers use these speakers to nail the mid frequencies of the mix in a better way so that they use it for reference or to reference a mid-frequencies in the best way possible without having any sort of interruptions from the base frequency. So one way speaker is not that common among the normal producers, but certain high-end mix or mastering engineers use it very commonly. The next one is a two ways because system where you have this street and the mid low driver and all the frequencies are translated through these two drivers. Moles made budget or even average quality speakers comes in this configuration. And I think in most cases you will have a speaker system with two drivers. So this is really common among newbie producers or even intermediate vertices. And mostly when you compare these three models, I think two ways because our much common and the third option is a three-way speaker where you have this Peter mid driver and buffer along with bots. These kind of design comes as part of high-end studio monitors. And I think if you are a mastering engineer, you need to have something like this. And a lot of companies are offering these two-way entryway speakers and most probably three ways because I used by high-end mixing mastering engineers. So now we'll discuss upon the ideal speaker placement considerations. These are the concentrations which you'll have to keep in mind when you choose speakers and when you place because in your music production space. The first thing is you look for the size and mostly the tendency of a newbie used to get the most bigger sizes, most high-fidelity, most hi-fi flashy speakers out there. But the problem is the speaker size or the speaker quality also is directly connected to the room volume. If you have very small room, then you cannot go for it because I speakers the room size and the speaker's eyes has got a direct one-to-one relationship. And if you have very small room, always try to go for a very small speaker. As a problem is, when you have a very big speaker in a very small room, these small room will have a lot of acoustical defects. So these defects will be exaggerated when it comes to a very big speaker placed inside is very small room. Exactly opposite situation also has to be considered. If you have a very big space and you only have very small speakers, the energy produced from the speakers will not be enough to cover the entire room. So the speaker's eyes is directly related to the room volume and room size. And the next bond is don't have a place a speaker's close to the wall, maintain at least 1 m distance. So this is a rule of thumb which again keep in mind if you play this because very close to the wall, the bounty interference issue will be there. Speaker boundary interference that will be there. So make sure that the speakers are placed at least 80 centimeter to 1 m. Distance from the speaker is from the side walls from the real-world sources. The third aspect is the speaker should be placed in equal distances from sides and backwards. Here, as you can see in this image. This right speaker is having a particular distance to this right wall. That same distance has to be maintained in the left side also. Similarly, this speaker will have a distance to this real-world backhaul is here, and it will have a distance. That distance also has to be same when it comes to the left speaker. Also, the distance between the speaker to the right wall, and the distance between this beaker to the rear wall shouldn't be the same. And the fourth aspect is speakers has to be angled towards the sweet spot. If you're sitting here, that point is the sweet spot. The speakers has to be angled towards that. Otherwise you won't get the right kind of image from the speakers. So the direction of the speakers should be in such a way that it is directly facing your use. And the fifth point is, it is best to keep this beaker height below the half of the room height. So in this situation, as you can see, if the room Heidi is around 3.5 meter, the speaker hide shouldn't go beyond the half of this 3.5 m. So it should be below 1.7 meter or 1.6 meter. And the speaker should not be placed on tables with our de couplers, ideally, keep it on separate stands. In this situation, I have kept it on a separate stand in the earliest edition, I was placing the speakers on this table. So what really happens is the vibrations on the speakers will be transmitted onto this table and it can create a lot of unwanted resonances. You don't want that to happen. If you're trying to keep it on the table, make sure that you are decoupling the speaker by placing it on a decoupling of the next strategy is to go for the User Guide Instructions. Mostly what happens is with different speaker companies, there will be different specifications of a way in which the speaker has to be pleased or something like that. All these instructions can be understood only when you go through the intersection of guidelines. So be aware about the reflections of sound from Studio does go for matte finish or even absorbers for desk surface. So in this situation I have used a glass table. But what really happens in this situation is you can expect to have reflections from this glass table. So ideally what you're, you'll have to do is either you can change the reflecting surface to a much more matte finish or much more rough finish. Or you can keep some sort of absorbers over these tables so that direct reflection from the desk will not have any sort of impacts on the sound that you hear. So this is the thing which you'll have to keep in mind. Here. I have I haven't done it, but I think I should have done it. The 10th aspect is every aspects of speakers has to be identical volume, frequency responses, etc. In speakers. If you can just go through its back side, you can see the volume dial or even the frequency curve of each and every speakers. Make sure that you keep it symmetrical in both speakers, you will have to maintain the same kind of settings. Otherwise, it will have its own differences and you don't want to have that. Ultimately, what I was trying to convey, the left image, which you get from the loudspeaker has to be the same to what we experienced from the right. So that's sort of symmetry in every aspects has to be maintained. So that's it. 8. Sound in Enclosed Spaces: Now let's discuss about how sound behaves in an enclosed space that are four different ways in which sound responds when it comes to an enclosed space. So let's find out all those for. The first one is sound absorption, as you guys have heard it before, the sound absorption is probably one of the best strategies out there when it comes to a particular treatment, because most of the acoustical materials or absorbers. So these absorbers are really important to contain the sound inside an enclosed space, how absorption really works. So let's see this sectional view. The red arrow actually represents the incident sound energy. And this is the wall. And if you place an absorber over its surface, a considerable amount of energy is getting absorbed by this material and the rest of the energy is reflected in the opposite direction and certain quantity of this energy is transmitted through the wall surface. So this is how the absorption happens. So the density of the material, the thickness of the material, the material quality, all these things actually determine the efficiency of absorption. And each and every material will have its own capacity to absorb sound. It is termed as the absorption coefficient. So when you hear this term, you have to understand that this is the value which determines how much sound absorption can be done by that material. So the metals which have higher absorption coefficient will be much effective when it comes to sound absorption. And the second property is sound reflection. If the surface in which the sound energy hits is a very reflective, hard surface, the tendency of the sound is two. Come back with the same kind of energy. Probably slight sort of a shortage of energy will happen, but mostly when it is a very hard reflective surface, almost the same kind of energy is getting reflected. So the angle of incidence is also the angle of reflection. So in case of an interior, if you have a lot of reflective surfaces, then you cannot control the sound and the way in which you really wanted it. So mostly what these acoustical engineers disease, they tried to award these reflective surfaces. There should be some sort of reflection. We should happen, but it has to be under control. And the third property is sound diffusion. When the sound energy hits certain surfaces, which has this capacity to diffuse sound, the sound get diffused. So in this image, as you can see, these red arrows represent the incident sound energy. And as it hits, say, convex shaped diffuser, the sound gets diffused in different directions in a much more evenly. So this is an important strategy which acoustical engineers use so as to spread the sound waves inside the space in a much more even manner. So this is how it happens if users are of different shapes, dimension with different materials and with a lot of different options that is available. And only when the absorption is done right, the diffusion works the best sort of way. Otherwise, it can just enhance the, enhance or exaggerate the problems which are already there inside that room. So when it comes to acoustic treatment, at first, you'll have to handle the absorption and even the reflection characteristics. Only after that we will think about the diffusion. So similarly, the second image also translate the same thing, how the diffusion happens with the different kinds of diffusion. So the next property of sound is diffraction. Diffraction is also a very important aspect which you have to know as part of sound. This is the capacity of the sound to go positive object or even a, an obstruction. So here as you can see, this blue colored thing is the objects or obstruction which is being placed. The sound is getting transmitted. So as you can see, the gap between these two abstractions are because so sound just travels like this in this situation. And if the distances between these abstractions are very small, then the character of the sound changes. And if the obstruction is very small, then it will have a very less impact. The sound energy just very easily goes around the object and it will not have any sort of impact. 9. Acoustical Defects: So let's move on to the next main important area. It's about the acoustical defects which can be there inside your space. So what are the classical defects? Are there? All the acoustical defects which are formed as part of a room is due to the dimensions of the room or the materials used for this room construction, or even the geometries of the room. And even the objects are even what all things are coming into the room. All these will have a direct relationship to the the extremity of the acoustical defects which we experienced inside that room. The first main acoustical effect is reverberation. Reverberation is not a defect, but if it goes beyond a particular limit, it can be termed as a defect. So in case of reverberation, you need to have certain amount of reverberation to have this lively and natural field. But if it goes beyond that, it can be really problematic because it directly affects the quality and clarity of the sound. So the next acoustical defect is flatter across. It is nothing but the rapid repetition of sound waves between two parallel surfaces. In this image you can see these red colored bar represents the main signal, but these are all the reflections which is caused due to the parallel surfaces in which the sound is being produced. So the perils of us are too close. Without having any sort of acoustical treatments, you experience repetition of that signal. For each repetition is the signal energy comes down in a descending fashion. So the third one is standing waves. These are accumulation of sound energy in certain frequencies caused by parallel reflective surfaces. Standing waves are also caused due to the barrels offices. And in this situation, certain frequencies are exaggerated and you hear that frequencies in a much higher volume level and certain frequencies can go down also, all these irregularities in frequency, frequency responses can be considered as a acoustical defect. And the fourth one is room modes. These are peaks and dips in sound due to dimension and shape of the room actually happened due to the dimensions of the room. So these images actually represents how the roll mode works. Imagine this as the total length of the room, and these are the person day distances. Sean, this is the front wall, this is a rear wall. This is the 25 percentage distance that this is 50% scientific than 100 for certain room dimensions, certain rule modes can be really active. You can check it in certain websites where you can find out the room mode calculator and things like that. If you can type down your room dimensions, those website actually shows what room modes are going to be there in that particular room. So when you look into that, you will understand that there are four main modes which happens. In case of Roe modes, what really happens is the event every sound signals will have wavelength and frequency associated with it. So the wavelength has got a direct relationship to the room dimensions, because when the sound has to travel through space, what all frequencies can go very easily. What frequencies get interrupted? All these things are really important when it comes to a room geometry. So here, as you can see it, in this first-order mode, the 50% position is where you experience the death of a particular frequency. So e.g. in this room dimension, you have a mode of around 80 hz. So this 80 hz, a baby's going to have a deep at the 50% position of this room. This room has a five meter distance. And if you put the sweet spot over here, this 80 hz mode can be heard at all in this 50% position. So this is how the frequency response happens between a room in terms of room modes. And in case of second row mode, you experience a total debuff sound level at 25% and 75%. This is how the deep search on. And these are the peaks in case of the third mode. This is how the distribution happens. You experience a deep at 50% and around 17.5 or even 18 percentage of the room size, room dimension, you experienced it. So there are three dips which happened over here. And in case of forth mode, for dips are happening. And four peaks out or three peaks are also happening. So when you consolidate all these four graphs, are all these four images onto a single diagram, you get something like this. So if you can see here, I have shown the 38th percentage position. This is what I have mentioned in the earlier section of this course, where you can keep your sweet spot position almost 38 percentage from the friend ball. So if we can place this sweet spot based on this 38% rule, you will get an even balance from here. And the next most important acoustical defect is comb filtering. You can see it on this figure. This is a phase cancellation which happens when two or more same signals combine together due to the unwanted reflections of sound in Rome, which results in uneven frequency response. So if the same frequency tones are getting overlapped in with a slight delay than certain frequencies are canceled and certain frequencies are added up. And the next one is dead spots of sound for k. This, I have mentioned it when we discussed about the room geometries, which you can go for. Mostly the concave shaped vaults, creates a lot of debt sports or even sound for k, sound gets localized in certain areas and in certain other areas you won't hear any sound. So that exaggeration of sound. You don't want to have it in your space, you want an even dispersion. So these are also really important acoustical defects which you'll have to consider. The next one is the intelligibility issues, losing off sounds quality, and clarity due to the acoustical defects. It is actually a side effect of all these all these acoustical defects where you lose the quality and clarity of the sound. And you don't want to have that right. The next one is speaker boundary interference. This happens when the speaker is placed beside a boundary. The distance from the speaker to the boundaries, whether it'd be the floor or the sidewalls are backwards or even to the ceilings. It has a direct influence to the quality of sound which we experience. So at least you need to have a distance of 1 m to the walls or the ceiling or to the flow of funds from the speaker. So that is the sum rule which you can keep it in your mind. Moving to the next one is about the sound leakage. Sound leakage is also a very important acoustical defect where you experience a lot of sound inside the room or you experience a lot of summer outside the room. So hear the sound which comes in and which goes out, actually determines how much leakage is happening through the room. So this can be solved through different strategies which we discussed earlier as part of soundproofing. The last one is the sound directionality shoes. It is cause if the direction of speakers first reflection bonds are not handled properly. So you want to have the direct sound coming out of the speakers directly onto your years without having any sort of interruptions. So the sweet spot is correct, the speaker angle is correct, and the first reflection or even the second inflection points are properly handled using absorbers, then you have the better sort of sound directionality. And if you are not considering all those things, it can directly influence the, directly affect the sound directionality. So these are the main acoustical defects which will have to deal with in terms of acoustics. 10. Sound Absorber / Diffusor Panels: The next most important area is regarding how we can create our own absorbers and diffusers for our interiors can be treated as a DIY project. And all the other things which you need to know as part of creation is being discussed here. So I think it can be really useful. The first thing which will have to understand is in terms of acoustic treatment, two main strategies are being used, the absorption strategy and the diffusion strategy. The first thing to handle is to know how to do the absorption. And in terms of absorption, you cannot go beyond a certain limit because over absorption actually kills the sound and it is good. It is quite unnatural to be in that space. So you need to have proper absorption in it, right? Quantity and quality. Regarding the diffusion, you have to understand that only when the absorption is done correctly, diffusion has her own. Otherwise, it can really enhance or even exaggerate the issues which are already there inside the room. So you have this whole all those situations with absorption and then only you can rely on diffusion. When you think about the sound spectrum or even the frequency spectrum, you have this bass frequencies, mid-frequencies, and high frequencies. In terms of absorption, you have to understand that the base frequencies, mid-frequencies, or even the high frequencies are treated differently. In case of containing these base frequencies, you need to have very thick absorption bands. But for mid-frequencies you need to have an average size. And for higher frequencies you can have a thin absorbers. It can work really well. So in case of base energy, it has a tendency to accumulate in the corners. What I mean by corners is the cholera is formed by the walls, walls and the floor and the walls and the ceilings. All these corners are actually places where Bayes energy can accumulate. For that matter, you need to have Bates claps or you can think about it like this. To contain these base frequencies which are accumulated in the corners, you can have absorption bands which works like based app. And the speciality of this base slab use it. It will be much more thicker and much more denser than the adapter. Often panels which you keep in different positions of the room to absorb these mid and high frequencies. On these corners, you place these based apps in these images. You can see that in different, different forms it can be made. So in case of a base energy absorber, it will have a thickness of minimum around 10 cm. Maybe you can go for 15 centimeter or even 2020, 5 cm. We can go as the thickness of the absorption bowel increases, more amount of base energy it can absorb. But the problem is, you can just go on by adding the thickness of these absorbers because it can drastically affect the space which is going to be available after the treatment. And the main materials which are, which can be used as a DIY project. It includes a mineral wool or fiberglass. Rock wool is a very common material which is available. In case of higher frequency absorption, probably the higher mid or even the top frequency absorption you can go for forms are sponges or fabric or something like that. So commercially available products, also the DIY options, all these things can really work or live. And if you know how to integrate those things into your space, because all rooms are different. So if it works, in one case, it doesn't mean that it works in every space. So all these strategies, all these techniques, everything has to be tailor-made for each and every rooms. So these are the things which you will have to keep in mind when it comes to creating absorption bands. So now we'll go to all the steps which you can follow to create absorber panels. So bass traps are mainly available in three different designs. The first one, and you can see it over here. It is almost like a triangular prism. The whole coronaries being filled with the absorbable material and it looks like this. These are two different vaults in this corner. The treatment is placed like this. This is the first option and the second one is the most common design for a base tab, which is made using a form or even sponges or something like that. It will have a convex surface to the outer area and it covers the entire corner. This is also one of the way in which you can integrate both straps into your room corners. And the third one is the absorber panel, which you can make it as a DUI by project. Here the absolute panel is being placed almost connecting these two walls, filling this corner. So this design is what we're going to focus on right now. Here, we can create a certain panels which can really look professional and it does the job really well. So let's move on to that. So now we'll discuss about all the four steps which you can follow to create a very professional looking, professional sounding bass absorption or even the absorber pounds as such. So the step one is to purchase a setup rock wool panels, I would strongly suggest to go with Rob pool panels rather than a fiberglass panels because it is much more workable. And the dust which is created from fiberglass panels are not good for our. Lungs and all those things. It is available in the market as different sets, probably a pack of six or a pack of ten. It depends upon different companies. But we can have enough number of rock wool panels with you. It can really do the work. So at first make sure that you get a set of record number of rock wool panels. And mostly rock wool panels comes in a standard size of language around 4 ft, almost 1 cm, and width of around 60 cm to feet with a two-by-four is the standard size of Iraq will panel. And mostly the thickness will be available in one phi or even five centimeter is most probably the thickness by which you get. If you really wanted to have thicker panels, you can use two to three different panels and keep it together to make a whole panel. And as part of the second step, you have to make a very strong, very rigid, very solid frame using plywood or even any kind of food can really work. So I have seen that some people use metal frames also. The most important purpose of having a frame is to hold these panels in the best way possible. So Dr. Anishinaabe, the frame, should be exactly equal to the whole panel. And you can use even any, any kind of disease to haul the frame or even you can use nails to join that just the thickness of the frame depends upon how much thicker panels you need. If you really wanted to have a 15 centimeter thick panel, which can work like a base step, then you can have a frame of around 15 centimeter. In that case, you should be using 35 centimeter thick wall panels to make it as if 15 centimeter panel orals, you can go with tens. And even the panels which can really absorb mid-frequencies are even frequencies above that. But for low frequencies, you need to have a much more thicker kind of mammals so the frame size has to complement that. The third process is to insert the panels onto the frame and make it perfectly fit inside it. If the dimensions are correct, it will be a perfect fit. So now you have this frame. Inside that frame you have these panels. And the last step is to cover this entire thing using a fabric. And in market, there is a fabric called acoustic fabric, which allows these sound waves to pass through it. And this is what you really need because you want the rock wool panels to do all these absorption. If you use a normal kind of cloth, the space between the threads won't be allowing the sound to get past that. So make sure that you use acoustic fabric, which is permeable, and use it to cover the entire panel. So as such, the panel looks like this. Here you can see the blue color represents the acoustic fabric, and this yellow color represents the rock wool panels. Here I have shown two panels being held together. And then you have this frame. It is shown in red color. This is actually a somewhat kind of a cross sectional view. So when you see this diagram, it is pretty much clear. So bass traps the thickness of the panel can be around 15 centimeter or even above. If you have enough space to hold these panels, then you can go for a much more thicker panels for mid and high frequency EPS over pounds. You can go for either of thickness around ten centimeter. For that you can use to rock wool panels and you can keep it together. The plywood frame size has to be made based on the thickness of the absorber panels used inside it. It's much clear. I don't want to explain it. The front-facing covering fabric has to be acoustically permeable. You cannot use any kind of cloth because certain clothes won't allow the sound to pass through it. It just reflects off the sound. But in this case, you don't want to have that. You need to have a very well-made look. Visualise that it has to be there and the fabric itself should be permeable enough to allow the sound waves to pass through it. And whole absorption process has to be done by the rock wall panels. So that has to be kept in mind. Regarding the back face. You can use any kind of cloth. You can use any kind of a log or even low-quality cloth can still work because you don't, you're not going to see that site. But make sure that you are covering it with some kind of quote because the dust from these rock pool or even the fiberglass panels can come out if it is directly exposed. Backside has to be dealt in that way. And nails or hooks that you can add. If it is if it is going to be fixed onto the wall, then you need to have some kind of fixing mechanisms. So nails holds, whatever you want you can fixed directly onto this frame. So this is how the DIY absorber can be made. And I think it is very easy project to be done if you have basic tools and if you know how to do all these joints and things like that as a DIY project when you start creating your own absorber panel, two main advantage you will get is regarding the cost. Because when, when, when these absorbers are made in a factory or if it is made as part of company and you're buying it, you will have to spend around three times the Same amount of price to get that absorber. So this is how the final end product looks like. This is how I made my absorbed bands. You can see how the out-of-phase looks like. It's very clean, it's very it looks really professional. And the frame is made using plywood panels. And this is how the stapler, what is being done. And this onto the frame, this fabric is fixed and the backlog, the backside clothing is very cheap float which does only which does only the covering. There is no other purpose for that, doesn't have any sort of visual aesthetics. And all these are actually side panels which I used to. I used to absorb the faster fluxions. And it is done as a mobile setup where you can see the stands. So I can just move around all these panels according to my needs and gaze up ceiling band. What I did is I bolted two frames onto the ceiling. And the ceiling panels are very thin band Dire. I used only one rope whole panel to create the ceiling balance. So it has only five centimeter thickness. So it is suspended from the ceiling so that a proper air gap is there between the ceiling and the panel. So this is how it finally looks. So let's move on to the next part where we will create diffusers. So in case of professional recording studios, they have this quadratic diffusers. This is probably the most efficient and the best sort of diffusers of that. And I think when it comes to our contexts, if you are, if you're just starting out or if you're a beginner or intermediate musician, you don't want to have a quadratic diffuser because it's really costly, even if you do it as a DIY project. Still it requires a lot of a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of resources as a as a starter. I don't, I don't think that you need to have this quadratic diffusers. And this is the type of acoustic model used. Scatter sound waves in a specific pattern. Here you can place it in vertical position and the horizontal, this is how it looks like. The main purpose of a diffuser is to diffuse out evenly in space. So that even dispersion is there, that naturality will be there. It is mainly done after the process of absorption. So if the absorption is done right, the sound energy is contained in a best possible way. And the whole area, if you do absorption, you won't feel it like a natural space. So you need some sort of reflection or some sort of diffusion of sound. So that's why you use these quadratic diffusers. Mostly it is placed on the real world. Other three walls along with the ceiling is, is being placed with these absorbers and the back wall is done using diffuser panels. Quadratic diffusers are created using shallow code wells origin is following a pattern, as you can see it on the figure. Prime numbers are being used to create this pattern and it will work like a horizontal element, also has a vertical element. And it really works well when the absorption treatment is done, right? As I mentioned before, absorption contains all the sound energy and diffusers. Purpose is to diffuse the sound energy to bring in that nationality into that space. And the main property of this quadratic diffuser is it's really heavy because this is going to be a monolithic structure. You use only one kind of mostly one kind of material to create it. And it is quite difficult to transport it. And it's going to be really costly when you compare the price difference between absorber and a diffuser. Diffuser is probably 34 times more than costlier than the absorbers. Mainly the material used for quadratic diffuser is, or even metals can be used. Bookshelves can really work like it if you serve, but it won't be that consistent and accurate as a quadratic diffuser. But when you think about the difference in cost and effort and things like that, probably as a beginner, I would strongly suggest you to go with a bookshelf on your rear wall. And it should be placed in the rear wall to allow diffusion of the sound. You shouldn't use it on the sidewalls or even on the friend volts. If proper amount of absorption is done correctly, then the diffuser can really work to improve the sound quality of the space. And as an adhesion, if you can have a sound absorption curtain or drape or something like that or the bookshelf. It can further improve the quality of sound because it does some sort of absorption along with the diffusion. So both of these things can really work. So the bottom line which will have to noise diffusers can really exaggerate or aggravate the problems which are already there inside the room as part of sound. So if you have those kind of issues, solve it at first. Otherwise, diffusers are going to exaggerate it. 11. Acoustic Panel Placement Aspects: So now in this section we're going to discuss about how we are going to place these acoustic panels inside the room. Because in the last section we discussed about how the base tabs or even the mid-frequency, high-frequency absolute panels can be created along with the diffusers. Right now you have to know how it has to be placed. So the arrangement of these acoustical panels is pretty evident from this image. As you can see, this is a rectangular space which has a good kind of proportion and even symmetry is being achieved. In terms of this axis, the left-hand side is almost the same. And here you can see this black rectangle, which represents the speakers and the sweet spot is here. There is a work table on which the computer monitor your keyboard, all these things are being kept. And there is a so far set where people can sit. Here. It is also correctly aligned to the central axis. Let's see how the acoustic panels are being placed. At first, we'll think about the base types. As I mentioned, we will, base types are mainly kept on to the Cardinals, as it is a plan. We have shown it in such a way that the full tab for acoustic panels are placed on the corners. These are those four based apps. Here. As you can see, there is an opening, there is a door. So you cannot have a permanently fixed base tab over here. When only when the door is closed, you can have a base type over here which you can just move it and keep it when the door is closed. And after fixing the base stops, then you have to think about the first inflection points. First reproduction bond is nothing but the points on the walls at which the sound at first goes from the speaker and directly goes onto the, onto the sweet spot. So these four positions, 1234 here, when these sound comes out of the speakers, that axon will directly go into the listener on the sweet spot. But the first reflection happens at this point. The sound waves comes in this direction and it goes like this. So if you don't have a absorb over here, you will experience the reflection which will be much more delayed than the than the direct signal. So it can interfere with the direct signal. So if you can keep an observer over here, this reflected sound can be controlled. So you have one foster reflection point over here, one over here, one over here. The sound energy just goes here and just comes over here. One over here. There is one more faster flux in Boyne, and it is from the ceiling. And you can keep this ceiling panels where you can experience the first reflection point from ceiling. This is where these dotted lines actually represents the position at which the ceiling panels are being placed. So almost 1234566 panels are being placed as part of as part of solving this first reflection issues. Then you go with the second reflection and even the tertiary infection. So you can have panels over here very close to this phosphorous oxygen bond. And over here, the most important thing is to handle these foster reflection point and even the base issues in this part of the room. If the room is divided into two parts, the top part and the bottom, but the top part treatment is more important than the bottom part treatment. So all these things you will have to keep in mind. When you look into the rear wall, you can see a bookshelf. This actually works like a diffuser, natural diffuser. So this bookshelf will diffuse this on the best way possible. This is how the basic kind of acoustic treatment can be done in a lower budget or even a mid budget kind of private music production space. This is how my studio is being set up. As you can see over here, these white panels represents the bass traps. Here also one more panel is there. And these panels are actually positioned in the first reflection binds these four panels, these gray, red, gray or at these four panels. One more panel is over here. Just opposite to this panel. The one problem which you will notice right now is the left side. I have positioned my electric piano. I don't have anything on the right. Earlier. I do have this extra keyboard over here also. Right now. I've changed it. Yeah. That is an issue right now. One more panel is over there that I have mood for this. Before taking this image, I have moved it. So that's why you don't see it in this image. So this is how my music personal space looks like. So let's think about certain acoustic panels placement characteristics. First thing is the amount of absorption area which you really need inside the space. When a recording studio, you need to have around 30 to 50 percentage of area covered with absorption. But when it goes to mixing or mastering studio, almost 50 to 70 percentage of the surface area has to be covered with absorption. If it is a all-in-one space where you do all these things, probably around 50 percentage of absorption can really improve the sound quality of the space. And how do you place these absorb boost? That is one thing which you will have in your mind. How do you get these foster reflection point? Maybe you can use this technique to solve this. You can bringing you a friend to your studio and asked him to hold a mirror. And as you can see here, this is the position of the mirror. And ask him to move this mirror in this direction, in both directions. And imagine yourself sitting on this position. And if you can see the image of the speaker through this mirror from here, probably that is a point where you can experience the first reflection. So you can keep this mid-frequency or even mid to high frequency absorbers. So you will get around 123456 and even along with ceilings, you'll get eight to ten points of us reflections. So all these points, if you can cover it with absorption material, absorption panels, then it can be tackled properly. And after that, when you think about second reflection and third affliction bond, you can keep acoustic panels beside this first reflection point so that it works really well. So in the previous image, you can see, you can see all these extra panels. These are, these are handling the second deflections and even the third reflections. So this is how it has to be placed. And these are the main acoustic panels placement characteristics which we live renew. Now we'll move on to the mounting characteristics of the acoustic panels. Sudden people will ask like whether you need to have a smaller gap between the panel and the wall or should I directly fix it onto the wall? The main advantage of having an air gap is it improves the sound absorption. Imagine you have a bundle of thickness, tens and emitter, and you have a distance of around ten is inhibited between the panel and the bowl. In effect, you have absorption panel of 20 centimeter thickness. It can be considered like that because the sound has to travel through the absolute value and it has to pass through the air gap and reach the wall. And it has to reflect back. If there is an air gap in between the panel and all these Airgap also works like an absorber. And the main compromise which allow to do is when you start giving gaps on all the sites, you lose certain area, suddenly interior area for that, so that you will have to compromise. So as you can see on the ceiling, I have given almost 15 centimeter gap between the panels and the ceiling. Here. What it does is it improves absorption so that more bass frequencies also getting absorbed. The next question which comes to your mind is whether we should go for a fixed setup or a mobile set. A fixed setup has a much more professional look, clean finish, less space consumption, a much more professional aesthetic. But the problem is it has very less flexibility. So if you really want to change the position of mammals, or even if you really wanted to change the configuration of the room, it is quite difficult to do that. So in that case, you can go for a mobile. So you can have standards for these panels, at least for the side panels, for the ceilings. You you cannot do that. And it has much more flexibility, easier to set up. And if you really wanted to change your music production space, it is much easier to transfer all these panels to that new space. Otherwise, it's going to be very difficult task. 12. Room calibration: The tenth most important aspect is to understand that there is a thing called room calibration. This is a thing which is done using softwares. Are certain apps are designed to do that. It is a process of measuring and adjusting acoustical characteristics of a rule to optimize on quality and accurate audio reproduction. Probably it, it's like a icing on the cake. If you do all the previous steps in the right way, then if you can use certain softwares or even a sudden gadgets to fine tune it or to do certainly use EQ corrections are certain things to tune it properly, then it becomes much more better in terms of some quality. There are certain softwares which you can use. One very popular one is the sonar works reference for the next one is IK multimedia AAC system tree and gentle like GLM correction system eat probably I think for high-end mountains because they have their own Carson systems or toning systems where we can exactly optimize those speakers for that particular space. I think the most easiest one among these three is the sonar works reference for because it can be done by abdomen. The steps are pretty much clear. If you, if you directly go through the introduction manner, it is pretty much easy to solve it. In case of sonar works, they have this software called sonar works reference for software. And they will have this reference microphone which is placed on the sweet spot and all the sponsors are captured by these microphone and the final characteristic is being done. So what this room calibration software does is it can calibrate the speaker levels. Distance delay compensation, sub buffer crossover room responsive to all these things. All these fine corrections can be done. Please don't think that before doing all the things which we discussed earlier, you can, you can calibrate our unknown. Drastic changes can have a negative impact on the quality of the output. So these are the main ten steps which you allow to follow to get a decent sounding inside your music production space. And I think it was really useful for you. 13. Conclusion: So let's conclude this course. Acoustics is quite difficult to do. But if you can follow certain things in the right order, in the right way, then you can have a much better space in terms of sound quality and clarity. So probably after five to ten years, if you know all these things in a much better way. And if you have enough resources and budget and things like that to build your own professional studio, you can seek the help of a professional who could really help you. Till then, I think this setup is more than enough because it really worked for me because all these things I have learned to my trial and error methods. And right now I teach acoustics into architecture colleges. And we have done a lot of demos regarding studio design and things like that. And I know that all these things can really work. So I hope that it really helped you and I think you'll be starting to do, or you'll be starting to implement all these things into your space. If you have any doubts or queries regarding anything which we discussed here as part of this course. Feel free to contact me through my social media handles, which is displayed on the screen. So we'll see as part of a new course. See you there. Bye.