Absorbant Materials

E

El Barto

New member
I'm planning on building some baffles using the plans in Musician's Guide to Home Recording (frame out of 2x4's, insulation inside, cork board outside). Is cork board still the best material to use for such a cause? I'm planning on making 2 baffles for mainly the drums. Plus, the room I'm recording in has a wood floor. Will a little area rug underneath the whole set benefit? Or would I need the whole room carpeted and padded?
 
be happy with the wooden floor! A rug will help you kit from slipping and sliding, and the way you are making your baffles depends on what you want to achieve with them?
so....... what are the baffles for?
 
I wanna deaden the sound a bit more...I want to achieve a nice tight drum sound with not a lot of room ambience...later on I could add in a little reverb possibly.
 
El Barto - go and find some really serious insulation (often called semi rigid) and put it in the box frame you described. Don't worry about the cork.

cheers
John :)
 
Well, I'm getting insulation for free from my drummer's dad...it's that Pink Panther stuff I believe, and I hear it rates way up there...I just need a way to..enclose it I guess.
 
Hmm, alright, that can be done. Will cloth be a better absorber? I guess I can make it about 8" deep possibly.
 
Just make sure the cloth you use has a dense weave so that bits of fibreglass don't escape. That shit is nasty to breath. And do yourself a favour and wear a dustmask while you're playing with it, especially if you cut it. The tiny particles get caught in your lungs and annoy the hell out of you.

Can you tell I just re-insulated my attic?
 
Canvas is a pretty tighly woven material, good for covering the insulation. Used this on a few homemade baffles that were constructed out of 2x4's, green insulation and 6' x 4' particle board as the backing. They worked well but were somewhat heavy.
 
If you are really concerned about the fibreglass you can put plastic over it (Garden type really cheap we get 12 foot wide sheets of it here, i'm sure you have the same) The plastic will only reflect the extreme highs and the rest will still be absorbed. It's a really good idea on a ceiling to stop that shower of fine particles.

cheers
john. :)
 
!

John, you've just given me a great idea! I think I may be able to swing covering this crazy cieling. I'm thinking I'll get some plastic, lay it out, roll insulation on top of it, then plastic on top of that, seal the top and bottom plastic together, So now I have a closed pocket of insulation, possobly doubling the layers. Get a few more and put them up on the cieling above the area we play at, letting the blankets and gobos I have forming the walls (as they are now) I'm thinking of this mainly for trying to keep heat in, at this point it's more about heat than sounding nice, but I'm sure it will be an improvement over the steel and aluminum...

...if only I could think of a cheap, non invasive way of keeping the structure from rattling with low frequencies, the rattling hasen't really been a problem in recording, I can work around it (basically close micing- it's really only a problem with bass and guitar cabs) But I'd rather not hear it while we rehearse.

-jhe
 
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