you need to have your absorption balanced (think it as a tone control for the room, too much high frequency absorption will cause you to turn up the treble…). so on your reflection points, try to use at least 2″ and better 4″ 3 pound/cubic ft rigid insulation wrapped in flame retardant cloth. this will absorb some low end and midrange as well as high end.

stacking large plastic covered rolls of pink insulation in the corners can also make some nice bass trapping and some diffusion because they’re round. cheap and effective – cover with a light curtain or cloth for aesthetics.

situate yourself about 38% of the room length from the front wall (so if you’re room is 12 ft, then 4’6″ from the front wall will put in the position of least “room modes” – a place where you’re less likely to have strange frequency response.

Sounds like you have a great start on your treatment. As far as the side walls go, there is one option. In my mixing room, I have windows on one side, and closet doors on the other. But, its still possible to get treatment there. I put pieces of foam on regular pegboard (3′ x 3′) and hung them from my ceiling, as close to the wall as possible. The whole panel only weighs a few pounds, so hanging it is no problem. (You can see a picture of this at underthepiano.com/gear.html). The shape of the door and the windows may diffuse the sound enough to where you aren’t getting bad first reflections, but if this^^ works for you, you may want to try it out.

Your bass response will depend on where you are sitting in the room (and how you are interacting with the modes of the room). If you “know” what your room sounds like, and your mixes are translating well, then you may not need additional bass traps in the corners. What monitors are you using?

(This is personal choice) but I think its good to keep small rooms a little “live”. Putting foam EVERYWHERE turns it into a coffin, and to me, everything sounds boring.

Ok, now that the ugly has been said, here’s some good:

(You’ll want to know, anytime I say foam here, I mean the 2″ wedge foam listed on this web page: http://www.foambymail.com/Wedge.html)

The speakers are decoupled from the desk with 2 pieces of foam, the wall directly behind the speakers is also covered in foam, going a bit below the desk, and about 3 feet above it. This took 16 pieces of foam. This has helped a bunch with reflections (when I first moved in, I couldn’t tell I was listening to two separate speakers, the reflections in the center were so strong, it was like the sound was coming directly from the wall). I’ve also put three, 2×2 squares along the wall behind me (totaling 12 pieces of the wedge foam all together for that). I also stuck one piece of foam in every upper corner of the room, where the walls meet each other and the ceiling. I basically just kind of angled them at about 45 degrees, and left the back of the foam detached from the wall, so only two edges are connected to the walls/ceiling). There are also two beds behind me, which fill the two, lower back corners.

Having said that, the acoustics seem pretty good, and my mixes translate pretty well, but I was wondering if you had any advice to make the situation any better. I have no treatment on the side walls – reason being its not really feasible (one has a door leading to a bathroom, the other one has a window with blinds). The room is carpeted, and has a stucco ceiling (which I imagine is quite a bit less reflective than just painted dry wall). The room is not dead sounding, there is still some ambiance and life, but there is no noticeable reverb or slap-back or anything like that. Its probably a little more dead than would be ideal, but I’m not so worried about that as I am bass response. Any advice you may have, or if I’m doing something stupidly wrong, would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

DS