I'm trying to get my room straight right now and I'm dealing with much of the same things. I have about a 15'x'13'9.5' room with wood floors. This weekend, I hung two 2'x4'x2" panels of OC703 over the recording spot. I did some test recordings before/after and it was definitely tighter and more focused after adding the ceiling treatment (with nothing on the floor). It did, however, affect the feel of playing in that spot. Not terribly but enough that, when I first sat down to play, I found myself playing a little harder/more-aggressively to try to get the same sound/feel.
Last night, I was doing some tests with putting things on the floor to stop those first reflections. I didn't really get anything down that I felt was conclusive, but I only tried (a) wood floor only, (b) putting a 1'x3' strip of acoustic panel covering material in between my seat and the mics, (c) putting down a sweater, and (d) putting down a really thin, crappy rug (nylon?). When the mic was 22 inches away, I felt I could hear a difference - putting something on the floor (anything actually) made it sound better/tighter/more focused. But when I tried 14 inches and 18 inches for mic placement, I don't know if my ears were tired or playing tricks on me but I couldn't be sure that I could tell a difference. In an ABX test, I think I'd probably have scored 50% haha.
In my last studio, I had carpet. I went to Home Depot and bought a 42"x42" plexiglass shield and placed it on the floor. My recordings were wayyyyyy better. In this studio, I'm doing the opposite. I now want to dry a thicker, better quality rug in that spot.
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