Acoustic Treatment Advice?

[El Barto]

I am now the proud owner of my own studio upstairs in my house (used to be sisters' room). The room is 20' long by 16' wide, and the ceiling is arched in a way that it's 7' tall in the middle of the room for about 6' then angles down on both sides, and at the bottom of the angle the room is about 5' tall. Make sense? It's shaped like this sorta:

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/     \
|___|

The walls and ceiling are painted and are not drywall (the house is about 40-50 years old)...but I think it's plaster or something...either way, it's a hard wall. The floor is uncarpeted hard wood. Yes, you can imagine the sound of the room. The only absobant in there is a bed. What is the best way to make the room a little more dead? My parents don't want me taping or gluing or whatever anything to the walls. My mom suggested getting a 16'x20' area carpet. What should I do and how much will it cost? Any advice is appreciated. Oh, and for the record, a full band is recording up there. Drums, vocals, guitar, and bass.

 

[John Sayers]

El Barto why not make up some wall panels that you can lean against the wall without attaching them. One idea I had recently was to get a few of those cardboard packing boxes you use when moving house and filling them with some absorption like crumpled newspaper, old blankets and clothes etc and stacking the boxes randomly around the room. They will absorb some of the low mids yet keep the top end OK - justa thought

 

[Tim Brown]

My parents don't want me taping or gluing or whatever anything to the walls. My mom suggested getting a 16'x20' area carpet. What should I do and how much will it cost? Any advice is appreciated. Oh, and for the record, a full band is recording up there. Drums, vocals, guitar, and bass.

Okay El Barto, I'm gonna throw a sick little Idea of Mine at you.

How to Design and build a "Foam Wall".

You go and Buy a 4" or 5" Thick FOAM Mattress. (Just look in your Yellow Pages for a LOCAL foam Company. Foam is normally a LOCAL product-because it is essentially a synthetic and AIR (think about it-it's a bunch of air pockets!)

Then, buy enough PVC pipe and Connectors to make a "frame" that goes on the outisde of the foam.
THEN, you use a hotglue gun (but do NOT touch the foam with the glue gun, because it will put off a poisonous gas! something like Cyanide or Mustard Gas!)
and Hotglue VELCRO strips to the mattress.
You'll need to measure these to make sure that they can go around the PVC pipes, and to the other side of the Mattress.

Then you can use the Velcro to strap the foam mattress to the PVC frame.

You use PVC "Tee's" for the bottom of the frame to put on LEGS.

What you have made is a foam "gobo"/wall that will help some.
Make a couple of these and you can move them around for a little absorption.


You could also glue the Foam to each side of a piece of 1/4" plywood (or even PEGBOARD for that matter)and have holes in it to strap to the PVC pipe frame.

I'm working on a design for this.

DO NOT try to HEAT/MELT/BURN this foam-it WILL Kill you.
I have a friend who tried to burn a hole in some of this foam-and it put him in the hospital for 8 weeks so, heed my warning on this! (He was designing electric drums)
If you need to cut it-Buy an electric Carving knife . (What we use for foam in the custom roadCases)

No, Don't use your Mom's electric carving knife-she'll put a hurting on you for it! Hahaha


btw, this is my own idea based on the "silent room" design-I mean, Foam and PVC is cheap. After all, what you're looking for is knocking down the sound reflections around the band.
IF you're attempting to SOUNDPROOF, forget this idea-because it wont STOP sound, it would only knock down a few of the reflections...

Good luck!

Tim

 

[Brian Grey]

DO NOT try to HEAT/MELT/BURN this foam-it WILL Kill you.

For this reason alone, I would not suggest using this method. Say, for instance, your studio catches fire. Now, I know it's a rare occurance, but it happens. In most cases you're going to be able to make it out of the house ok. What's the number one cause of death in fires? It's not burns... it's smoke inhalation. The smoke that kills most peple in a house fire is from wood, carpet, regular house things. Now, just picture a room filled with a material, that when burned, is extremely toxic. Two big breaths of this stuff and you're in trouble. These are the things Auralex, and the other Studio Foam manufacturers keep in mind, and they design products that will not kill you when burned. Hell, they make them so they don't even burn. You could put out a small fire with Auralex studio foam. I wouldn't suggest doing that with the standard Wal-Mart white bed foam.

This has been your PSA for the day.

Later,
-Brian