Setting Up and Acoustically Treating a Mixing Room - GIK Acoustics Tutorial

This video explains common strategies for setting up and acoustically treating a successful mixing and mastering room.

Creating a Mixing and Mastering Room is very similar to how you’d set up a listening room or home studio. However, with a mixing room, it’s even more important that the sound you're hearing is an accurate reproduction of the source material, with little or no coloration from the room you are in. You don’t want to spend hours tweaking a mix only to find out that you overcorrected for the room's influence on the sound. The bass being way off -- either too loud or too soft, or both at different points -- is the most common sign of an inaccurate mixing room, but there are others. A well-treated mix room allows you to do your work more quickly with less frustration, with better overall results.

Starting with a dedicated room with good dimensions is always the best place to begin your setup. Small or square rooms will be more difficult to treat. Same with rooms that have odd geometry or windows.

Place your speakers and listening position in an equilateral triangle with the listening position facing a short wall and centered between the long walls.

The High and mid range of a speaker is directional but bass tones will reverberate in all directions. Placing the speakers as close as you can get them, but not quite touching, can help alleviate this. You’ll also want to make sure your speakers are at ear level. Angling the speakers up or down can cause the perceived sound to change if you move around even a little bit in your listing position.

You also want to be careful when placing your speakers on your desk as this can create an additional reflection point on the desk.

Decoupling your speakers by placing them on isolating stands can help keep whatever surface they’re standing on from creating unwanted vibrations.

The First step for treatment is naturally the first reflections. Any surface between the speakers and your ears can create a first reflection. That means walls, floors, and ceilings. Even spots on your desk can be treated if they create a first reflection.

Treating your corners with bass traps will improve the low end response as this is where bass tends build up the most. Remember it’s not just the vertical corners. The corners along your floor and ceiling can also be treated to improve bass response.

If you’re unable to place your speakers against the wall you’ll want to place thick bass traps behind them to absorb their omnidirectional sound.



The back wall can be responsible for large peaks and nulls, not only in the low end but in the mid and upper frequency range. Thick panel traps (such as Monsters) will restore a smooth bass response across the room. The back wall is also a great place to start experimenting with scattering and Diffusion.

Diffusion can also help achieve a better sound, but the smaller the room the more careful we have to be with diffusion, and diffusion probably doesn't make sense for the smallest rooms.


Remember, a Mixing room should give you as little room color as possible. This means placing acoustic treatments in all the key locations, using a good mix of absorption, bass trapping, and diffusion,so that the sound at the listening position is as close to the original recording as possible.




As always, follow these guidelines to get started, but be sure to experiment and test what works best for your space. Our designers are always here to help you get the most out of your room setup and treatment. Hit us up on our website or sketch up your room in our Free Visualizer Tool.