My studio is a 13 x 13 ft. room. On one side there are two sliding closet doors and there is a small off set in one corner where the door is. I have installed bass traps in the corners and a little studio foam on two of the walls. I put some studio foam on the rear wall behind where my recorder and studio monitors are. How exactly do I know where else I should put the foam. I am recording mostly acoustic guitar and vocals in this room so I don't want it totally dead. It is my understanding that it is not good to put the foam on walls that are directly facing eachother. Therefor if this is true, should I just put the foam on just two of the 4 walls? I pretty much have all of the corners treated. Any advice will be greatly appreciated!!

3,

> How exactly do I know where else I should put the foam. <

First, see the Acoustics FAQ, second in the list on my Articles page:

http://www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html

It explains the basics of acoustic treatment in depth, and should answer most of your questions. But if you're still unclear on anything you can ask here and we'll be glad to help.

--Ethan

I guess my main question is this: Is it ok to not treat the wooden closet doors at all and just treat the wall directly across from them and then treat the wall behind where my recorder and monitors are and then just some of the wall directly facing this wall??

Also, I've treated 3 of the vetical corners with bass traps and the other corner is where a door is so I treated the ceiling/wall corner of that area. I have some 1 inch acoustic foam, 2 inch foam and 3 inch foam. Should I put the 3 inch foam in the areas closest to the bass traps in the corners??

Thanks for your help. I read most of your other article but I think if you can just answer the above questions I will be able to figure out my room. Thanks a lot!!

3,

> Is it ok to not treat the wooden closet doors at all and just treat the wall directly across from them <

Treatment should be symmetrical, especially for the side walls extending from the front wall to a few feet behind you. Non-symetrical treatment is less of a problem behind you.

> I've treated 3 of the vetical corners with bass traps <

What sort of bass traps? Typical corner foam? That's only marginally useful at bass frequencies.

> Should I put the 3 inch foam in the areas closest to the bass traps in the corners?? <

Again, the Acoustics FAQ I linked earlier explains this. In particular, see the sidebar "Creating an RFZ" because it relates directly to that question. You want absorption on the side walls in specific spots to trap first reflections, and optionally a little more placed around the room more or less evenly.

--Ethan

The bass traps are the big corner bass traps like the lenards bass traps from Auralex. I treated most of the rear wall because my digital recorder and speakers are in front of it and I thought I'd get better monitoring from my speakers if the wall behind the speakers was treated. I didn't treat the wooden closet doors because I can't do it without permanently changing them and I also thought it would be good to have a little reflection in the room for acoustic guitar. I thought that if I treated all the walls symetrically I would have a dead room.
Perhaps I can just sit positioned differently facing a different direction to record and get the desired effect. Am I understanding you correctly that it is good to have a lot of corner treatment for bass frequencies in a room this small??

I also forgot to mention that I am planning on using a variable pattern tube mic to record acoustic guitar with the mic set to omni pattern. I'm not sure if that is a crucial piece of info or not. Just thought I'd mention it.

3,

> I also thought it would be good to have a little reflection in the room for acoustic guitar. <

Yes, but I usually prefer to get the reflectivity from the floor, rather than from nearby walls. One nearby reflective wall is okay if the floor is not reflective.

> I thought that if I treated all the walls symetrically I would have a dead room. <

Symmetrical doesn't have to mean covering every surface completely! That's what makes a room too dead sounding, not the mere act of applying treatment in the same places on the left and right sides.

> Am I understanding you correctly that it is good to have a lot of corner treatment for bass frequencies in a room this small?? <

Yes, and the more absorption you can get at low frequencies, the better.

--Ethan