What should I do with my low ceilings?

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:25 pm

I just set up my studio in a small room. It works perfectly but when recording into my mic I am picking up a lot of bass. I have an SE vocal filter (http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun06/articles/reflexion.htm) but I am still picking up bass. The ceiling is about 10 inches above my mic. Is their anything I can do to get rid of this excessive bass?

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 4:52 pm

High Pass Filter.

How high is your ceiling? What type of microphone? How close are you singing to it? Could it be the cardioid proximity effect?

10" ... You must have to duck to get through the door.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:38 am

The ceiling is probably around 7 ft. The ceiling is made of wood. I am 6ft so the mic is about at mouth level. It is a rhode ntk mic.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 2:28 pm

How close are you to the mic?
Prox. affect?

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 3:29 pm

More then 6 inches. I would say about 6 inches to a foot.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:57 pm

jonnystevens wrote:

Is their anything I can do to get rid of this excessive bass?

Open a door or window. Seriously. Oh sure your gonna invite some out of the room noise, but the wave that bass creates needs room, and you aren't giving it any ;)

Lot of folks swear by bass traps. And the issue of bass building up is compounded with smaller rooms. There are many many resources search-able here and via the world wide waste about settling acoustic concerns in rooms like yours. Or mine ;)

Small rooms are the worst candidate for a low ceiling. The worst.

EDIT:
"The ceiling is made of wood." Once you get a handle on the bass, this reflective surface is going to come into play. I'm going to hazard a guess and say you have 6 reflective surfaces around you, concrete and wood. Even if that isn't correct, as it could be concrete, wood and sheetrock (who knows really) these are highly reflective. Ceilings tend to want some kind of absorption, to be made softer and less reflective. This is "all things taken into consideration".

Just an educated guess from a drop out.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:43 pm

"I would say about 6 inches to a foot."

You sir, are lying. It is 12 inches to a foot.
Fnar, fnar, fnar.

Yes, bass traps. Every corner. Seems to be the going advice.
Opening a door but making sure the TV is off in the livingroom is a good start.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:14 pm

Bass traps are overly hyped. But just to smack the lake, did you read the article about the space program were one of the experiments was to develop a way to erect walls using sound?

I'll locate the link in a few minutes, but the experiment was, and successful I might add, to have these waves that piled up in corners to "move" the material in an upward direction as the wave(s) accumulated so as to create the walls required to construte.

Getting your head around that makes you a believer in the power of audio and the strength of what it can do.

It can ruin your best recording inside the walls it helped build!!!

EDIT:
Not the one mentioned, but a good read if you like science and fiction.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2901

Acoustic Shaping (that was it):
http://www.ae.gatech.edu/labs/windtunl/aclev/aclhome.html

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:41 pm

Quote:

waves that piled up in corners

Waves don't "pile up" anywhere. Standing waves do create nodes and antinodes, and in some of the common modes the boundaries (walls) may be pressure nodes, but the waves themselves are everywhere.[/nitpick]

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:46 pm

They are forceful enough to push objects upwards and tend to move to the edges of the surface. That is where they meet in the corners. They pile up.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:00 pm

The objects pile up as a result of the forces exerted on them by the waves. The waves themselves do not pile up. A standing wave is the superposition of two waves travelling in opposite directions in a synchronized manner. While it looks like there is one stationary "standing" wave, it is only possible because the two waves are continually travelling and continually "everywhere". Bass trapping works because it absorbs the wave's energy instead of letting it reflect back and interfere with itself.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/standw.html#c4

Dangit, now I've posted a link with "hyperphysics" in the title. See what you made me do? Laughing

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:12 pm

I think you did the right thing. I get sloppy in my presentation of things I know so little about and try to find an easy way to get my idea out without having to think about it too much.

Or know too much about it, it would seem Wink

Good link. We are on the same page, I'm just reading the 2nd grade version over here.

EDIT:
Did you get far enough into the links I posted ut to get to this:

http://www.ae.gatech.edu/labs/windtunl/aclev/relwork.html

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:25 pm

yes, cool stuff! Levitating steel spheres with nothing but 183 dB high frequency sound. Sounds fun!

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