How do I get rid of a huge resonant peak in my listening position?

MackieFX

MackieFX

Experienced
I moved house and set my monitors up in a new room, they sound pretty great with a carpet and lightly acoustically treated room.

However, in my listening position there is a HUGE increase in resonance and volume at 130Hz and only at 130Hz.

How do I get rid of this? Or identify where to treat to stop it.
 
I have the same thing, just around the same frequency. I just make a notch in the global EQ. Q at max, and then dial back the gain until it sounds more even when I do a sine sweep.
 
What are the room dimensions? That's probably a 9 foot room mode. If so, you can try dampening the reflections along that axis with sound absorbers.
 
MackieFX said:
I moved house and set my monitors up in a new room, they sound pretty great with a carpet and lightly acoustically treated room.

However, in my listening position there is a HUGE increase in resonance and volume at 130Hz and only at 130Hz.

How do I get rid of this? Or identify where to treat to stop it.
Click to expand...

There are two ways to go at this as mentioned above: Try to fix the room, or EQ at 130Hz. For me, I would have to fix the room since I am mainly preparing my presets and backing tracks to play at other venues with hopefully only minor changes. I would surely forget to remove the 130Hz EQ setting. However, if you are not playing out, then EQing may be your quickest and cheapest solution.

Also, this frequency sits almost right on top of a good AITR boost zone (125Hz). Maybe investigate some way to turn a "bug" into a "feature"?
 
EQ? I know you mentioned this is in a treated room but it's SOP for FOH guys(worth their salt) to "ring out" a venue or room before mixing using a 31-band equalizer. Each band is raised and listened to for resonance or feedback and if there's an issue the offending frequency is cut until the issue subsides.
 
MackieFX said:
I moved house and set my monitors up in a new room, they sound pretty great with a carpet and lightly acoustically treated room.

However, in my listening position there is a HUGE increase in resonance and volume at 130Hz and only at 130Hz.

How do I get rid of this? Or identify where to treat to stop it.
Click to expand...
can you post a sketch of the room, monitors and listening position?
 
Depending on the severity, one effective but more involved solution is to change the geometry of your room. Room modes form between parallel surfaces. If you push one of the walls out of parallel, you'll interrupt the formation of the standing wave. You can construct a false wall surface in front of the existing wall that skews the surface at an angle relative to the opposite wall. Many purpose built studios are built out of square and parallel on purpose for exactly this reason.

A somewhat less drastic approach is to put something large in front of one of the walls. Big, tall bookshelves can work great for this. The different depths of the books on the shelves break up the flat parallel surface quite well. The books have a lot of mass and create lots of nooks and crannies to help trap and diffuse the sound too.

Like this. Not my space (I wish) or photo:
n02bzfL.jpg
 
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GlennO said:
What are the room dimensions? That's probably a 9 foot room mode. If so, you can try dampening the reflections along that axis with sound absorbers.
Click to expand...
How do I do this. Here is a diagram. Green diamons are monitors and me.
Patzag said:
can you post a sketch of the room, monitors and listening position?
Click to expand...



Room.png
guitarnerdswe said:
I have the same thing, just around the same frequency. I just make a notch in the global EQ. Q at max, and then dial back the gain until it sounds more even when I do a sine sweep.
Click to expand...
I need to pull about 8-11dB to make it sound the same volume. Seems excessive
 
What you're hearing is a room mode on the 2.59m axis. If you move your chair, you'll hear a cut at 130Hz as pronounced as the peak you currently hear. Sound absorbers or diffusers on the two walls that are 2.59m apart will help.
 
MackieFX said:
I moved house and set my monitors up in a new room, they sound pretty great with a carpet and lightly acoustically treated room.

However, in my listening position there is a HUGE increase in resonance and volume at 130Hz and only at 130Hz.

How do I get rid of this? Or identify where to treat to stop it.
Click to expand...
Move your listening position. The nodes/anti-nodes are determined by the dimensions of the room. You will have a hard time moving the 130Hz peak.

Also consider vertical positioning along with the X-Y plane...
 
Hi @MackieFX

If you’re handy with a wood saw, a helmholz resonator is exactly what you need. It’ll suck that 130hz out without screwing up phase or other artifacts.

http://www.mh-audio.nl/Acoustics/HHReso.html

Thanks
Pauly

MackieFX said:
I moved house and set my monitors up in a new room, they sound pretty great with a carpet and lightly acoustically treated room.

However, in my listening position there is a HUGE increase in resonance and volume at 130Hz and only at 130Hz.

How do I get rid of this? Or identify where to treat to stop it.
Click to expand...
 
guitarnerdswe said:
Maybe, maybe not. I used to do 9 dB, but do 6 dB right now. Whatever works, is all I'm saying. My studio is in my living room, so treating the room is out of the question.
Click to expand...
Yeah the global eq really is an amazing tool for this. I wonder if there's anyway to automatically disable the cut when I use headphones though.... Either way I can't move my listening position that far back so this is a great solution for now
 
You don't want the arse end of your monitors pointing into the corners like that. Bass build up guaranteed. Probably exacerbating the room nodes issue that GlennO mentioned.

Can you move the closet at all? Is it free standing??
 
AndyTNBD said:
You don't want the arse end of your monitors pointing into the corners like that. Bass build up guaranteed. Probably exacerbating the room nodes issue that GlennO mentioned.

Can you move the closet at all? Is it free standing??
Click to expand...
Theyre all built in, im gona have thick curtains installed behind the monitors soon though! The A7Xs have front facing bass ports so is this really an issue?
 
MackieFX said:
Theyre all built in, im gona have thick curtains installed behind the monitors soon though! The A7Xs have front facing bass ports so is this really an issue?
Click to expand...
Curtains won't do much I'm afraid, even thick ones. You need mass to soak up low frequencies.

See if you can pull your monitors and desk back about 10cm from the wall. That'll help a little.

Also do you have your monitors on the desk, or on speaker stands? If on the desk, try and get some stands for them that can go behind the desk.
 
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