Studio Acoustics Part 2: Standing Waves

askaudiomag.com by Joe Albano March 18, 2015

This mini-series sees Joe Albano demystifing the science of studio acoustics. In
Part 2 we look at low-frequency standing waves which can get in the way of
getting a well balanced mix.
In the first installment of this series, I outlined a number of room acoustics
issues that can get in the way of achieving good recordings and mixes. In this
article, Ill start going over the specifics, beginning with one of the most common
causes of problems with getting a good mix balance, and the ability of a mix to
travel wellto sound good in other locations. That issue is low-frequency
standing waves.

Stand By Me
Whenever sound waves occur in an enclosed space, they interact with the room
boundariesthey can either reflect off them, be absorbed by them, or pass
through them. Standing waves, a.k.a. room modes, are a function of reflected
waves. When mid and high-frequency waves bounce around a room, they can
either result in a pleasant sense of ambiencelivenessor cause unpleasant
artifacts, like flutter echoes. But when low-frequency waves reflect off room
surfaces, they manifest themselves a little differently.

Fig 1 A
typical Studio Control room layout
Without getting into the physics of it too much, all audio waves have a particular
fhrequencythe rate of vibration of the sound-producing object, measured in
vibrational cycles-per-second, or hertz. The wave itself is a series of air pressure
variations (higher than normal pressurecompressions, and lower-than normal
pressurerarefactions), that emanate out from the source and propagate
through the room. When one of these waves meets a room surface (wall, floor,
ceiling) it will reflect back into the room, bouncing from surface to surface. At
mid and high frequencies, this can be subtle, but low frequencies present a
different case, because of their wavelengths.

The Long and Short of It

Every wave has a wavelengththe physical distance that wave travels in the
room is the time it takes to complete one cycle of vibration. Since low-frequency
waves vibrate more slowly than mids or highs, their wavelengths are longer.
Mids and highs may have wavelengths of anywhere from a few inches to a few
feet, but lows often have wavelengths that approach and exceed the room
dimensions themselves. When such a wave reflects between two parallel surfaces
in a room, it doubles back on itself, causing interference, in the form of

reinforcements and cancellations, at the particular frequency associated with

that wavelength.
When this happens with mids and highs, these cancellations and reinforcements
are distributed throughout the room. However, with longer, low-frequency
waves, the cancellations and reinforcements are localized to specific areas in the
room. The result is that the bass response of the room is uneven at certain
frequenciesthere will be too much bass at a particular frequency in some spots
in the room, and not enough at others.

Fig 2 Standing waves reinforcing and cancelling a particular frequency and its
harmonics at various locations in a room
If the engineer/mixer, or a speaker, is in one of these spots, then the sound
heard in the room will be a false picture of what the recordings low-end is really
like. Typically, this leads to EQ decisions that compensate for that one rooms
low-frequency issues, rather than for actual issues in the recording itself. When
the resulting mix is heard in other rooms, which dont share those exact same
low-frequency irregularities, they sound baduneven low end, either too thin or
too tubby, overall.

Mapping it Out

To deal with this issue, the first thing thing that must be done is to determine
what frequencies and what locations in a given room will be affected.
Fortunately, for a particular room, the specific frequencies at which standing
waves will occur, and the locations of the problem areas, can be calculated based
on the dimensions of the room. Im not going to go through all the physics
formulas for thistheres no room here, and they can be found in any number of
books on studio acousticsbut I will mention one or two of the most basic
calculations that can be done.
Standing waves occur between all parallel room dimensionswalls (length and
width) and floor & ceiling. There are three typesaxial, tangential, and oblique
modes. The only ones that can really be determined easily are axial modes, and
theyre usually the most prominentthe most problematicso Ill only cover
them.
When the wavelength of a particular frequency is exactly a multiple of a room
dimension, a standing wave will occur at that frequency. Additionally, since
complex musical waves all have harmonics, which are multiples of the
fundamental frequency, then the harmonics wavelengths will also be multiples
of the same room dimension and will also result in standing waves. But the
cancellations and reinforcements for each harmonics standing wave will occur
at different spots in the room.

Dont Fear the Formula

This can be calculated and mapped outwithout any need for test equipment or
special physics knowledgewith the simple formula 11302L (where 2L = room
dimension x 2, and 1130 is the speed of sound). This gives you the frequency at
which a standing wave will form in that roomstanding waves will also form at
whole-number multiples of that frequency (the harmonics).
The frequencies of all the standing waves will have reinforcements at both
wallsthese are called antinodes. The primary standing waves will also be have a
cancellationa nodehalfway between the walls. The next harmonics standing
wave will have cancellationsnodesa quarter of the way out from each wall,

with antinodes in between. The third harmonic will have alternating nodes and
antinodes a sixth of the way from each wall. The diagram in Fig 3 shows how
these first three standing waves affect the balance in the room at those
frequencies. Audio example 1 is what you might hear if you walked from one wall
to the opposite wall in a room with standing waves.

Fig 3 The distribution of the nodes and antinodes of the first three (of one set of
axial) modes in a room.
Audio example 1 How standing waves affect the sound: A repeating bass part is
heard, while the listener gradually walks from one wall, through the center of the
room, to the opposite wall; the tonal variations heard are due to the nodes &
antinodes, as shown in Figs 2 and 3.

The first three or four axial modes, at the lowest frequencies, are usually the
most problematicabove 300 Hz or so the nodes and antinodes are so close
together that they average out for a more even response at those higher
frequencies. But remember, these nodes and antinodes occur for each of the
three parallel room boundarieslength (front & back walls), width (side walls),
and height (floor & ceiling).

What to Do
While its easy enough to determine where in the room the response may be the
most uneven, fixing the problem can be a bit more challenging. Commercial
solutions include a variety of products, like bass traps, that are placed against
walls, or, more likely, in corners, to break up the standing waves, and restore a
more even balance to the space. These must be tuned to the particular room, so
the companies that sell them usually provide a way for their customers to enter
room data, which is used to calculate the best products at the correct sizes to
deal with that particular location.
If youre involved with the initial construction of the recording/mixing space,
from the beginning, then cavities can be designed into the walls themselves to
counter the effects of standing waves. This does require a bit more math &
physics, though, again, the methods and calculations are well documented in a
number of books on studio acoustics. The biggest drawback is that some square
footage will need to be sacrificed to allow for effective treatment.

The Golden Mean

One way to minimize the negative effect of standing waves is to construct a room
with a set of whats called golden mean dimensions. These are specific
combinations of width, depth, and height that insure that there wont be any
overlap of (at least axial) standing waves between those three dimensions at
which they form, and that the nodes and antinodes that do develop are spaced in
the room so as to not interact with each other, and balance each other out, for an
acceptably even low-end response throughout the room. This means no surface
dimensions that are multiples of each othera room thats 24L x 16W x 8H

would not be ideal, because 24 and 16 are multiple of 8, so harmonics of one set
of standing waves would coincide with different harmonics from the other(s),
making the low-frequency unevenness two or three times worse. A cube would
be the worst possible shape! Some traditional golden mean dimensions are listed
in Fig 4.

Fig 4 Some established golden mean room dimensions

The Standing Wave Shuffle

Even if you dont have the option to apply any of the treatments mentioned, the
least that can be done is to insure that the engineer/mixers sweet spotthe
primary monitoring positionand the locations of the speakers, are not right in
the middle of a node or antinode. That means that having the speakers up
against a wall is probably best avoided, unless those speakers are specifically
designed for that placement. Even though the bass response may have less
oomph with a console or desk-top placement, the low end will likely be more
even, and thats much more important than bone-rattling bass. If you map out
the positions of the strongest standing waves, as in Fig 5, you can position the

sweet spot in-between nodes and antinodeswhile this doesnt eliminate the
problem, it will provide a more even reference for mixing.

Fig 5 Top) A studio with speakers and engineer/mixers sweet spot coinciding
with standing waves nodes & antinodes (problematic); Bottom) The speaker
position and sweet spot relocated to avoid the nodes & antinodes of the most
prominent standing waves (better)

Most important, you need to get to know the sound of the room, so as not to
make EQ choices that will only be valid in that room, and will make a mix sound
worse everywhere else (Audio Example 2).
Audio Example 2 A 4-bar passage is repeated 4 times: A) The original un-EQd
mix, as it would be heard in a room with no standing wave issues; B) The same
mix as it might sound in a typical room with an uneven low-frequency balance
from standing waves; C) EQ applied to compensate for the room imbalances; D)
What that mix might sound like when heard in a different room, that doesnt
have the same standing wave imbalances
To do this, assemble a collection of good, commercial recordings, and use them
to get to know how the low end sounds in your room with mixes that are known
to have a proper low-frequency balance. Then use that as your reference for what
the low end balance in your own mixes should sound like in your room, and,
whenever possible, check your mixes on other systems, in other rooms, before
finalizing them. Its certainly possible to make good, well-balanced mixes, even
in a room with a less-than-perfect response due to standing waves issues, as long
as you know the room well enough to not let it trip you up.
Next time, Ill continue this series with a look a mid-and high-frequency
reflections.