Acoustic treatment for home studio/practice room

Dicus

Dicus

Enthusiastic Member
Hey guys,

I've been checking and loving this forum for a while now but never have done much posts. Coming year however I'd like to take my music and my studio to a higher level which brings me to quiet some questions regarding studio building and investments I have to make.

This room has mainly been used for songwriting and practicing with my band, for teaching the drums and also for compositions I sometimes make for advertisements and other short videos. I have recorded some stuff but mainly for ourselves to remember what we wrote. I'd like to be able to make nice demo's, as professional as possible within the limits of this space, my abilities and my money :D. I would also like to design it a bit since I think that might make the songwriting and teaching in this room more enjoyable and for teaching it also helps to look professional. And while I also have much equipment that needs improving I'd like to start with the acoustic treatment so I can finish the design of my studio.

My main question is what should I do regard acoustic treatment. I found on the interwebs that Rockwool 221 (55kg/m3) is good stuff for acoustic treatment, when you staple a piece of cloth over it, and that 15cm of it would be best. I had the idea that it could save room if I made some holes in the walls marked with 1 and 2 to place the insulation in line with the wall to create a basstrap, I have got, however, no idea if this would work (and also got to ask my landlord for permission).
To long didn't read: How should I go about with acoustic treatment in this room and is it a good idea to place Rockwool in the spots marked with 1 and 2? Thanks a lot!

If you're still with me and would like to answer some more questions (feel free to direct me to another part of the forum if that would suit some of the questions better).
I put thick carpet with two layers of heavy undercarpet on the floor to make the noice, while I read in another post that hard wood is preferable. I think putting the drumkit straight on the wood with nothing in between wouldn't make my housemates happy, any suggestions what to do in this case?

A third question I have is the following. I have saved some money to spend on gear and am not really sure what to spend it on. I'd like to buy a device with which I could track 12 or more tracks simultaneously. At the moment I do everything with my M-audio Fast Track Pro. I'm also considering to upgrade my Garageband to Logic mainly for the extra midi-sounds that come with it, this could help me tremendously with the composing for short videos which I do mainly on my midi-piano. I always read on this forum that you should really have studio monitors but until now comparing the sound of 2 headphones and 5 sound systems took some time but made me able to create a nice mix/master of my tracks. Eventually I'd like to invest in all of the three but for now I've got to choose. Anyone any advice which of the three I should give priority?

Thanks a lot already! I love this forum and all the knowledge that is gathered here!

Studio with furniture.png
 
4" rockwool is hte minimum thikcness for bass traps, 6" (15cm) is better, but not sure you have the room for that. That little corner where you have your computer desk - you absolutely do not want to use that for your mxing area! use it for storage, and put a bass trap right across the opening. then move your 'mixing desk' (you need monitors) up to that front wall (opposite the drums). Trap the front wall in the space created when you put the desk up to the projection of the wall next to the current desk nook.
Floor-to-ceiling bass traps or super chunks in hte two corners next to the window (behind the drums). Don't try to put your traps IN the wall, frame them and you can move them when you move (it'll happen eventually).
That front corner where the door is will need trapping, too - put one on wheels, and you can use it as a movable gobo. Ceiling cloud (at least 2" thick rockwool) over the mixing area.
 
Thanks a lot for your reply!
As you probably can see is space something I haven't got much of, that's why I put the desk in the corner. It is nice to work at but I know it is rubish for mixing. I have considered to place my monitors facing the drumkit and then sit behind the other desk on the other side then the piano in the middle of the room for mixing. I'm not sure if I understand what you mean with trapping the front wall. Would that mean placing rockwool between the chimney and the door in line with the chimney?

Would basetrapping all corners and putting a ceiling cloud be enough, I thought I also had to put absorbers against the walls in certain places?

Is this absorption set-up only recomended when I mix or should I also use it while recording?

How large would recomend the sealing cloud to be?

Thanks again this helps me a lot!
 
From my personal experience, a low ceiling like yours and mine are the worse case scenario for drum recording. I would first concentrate on treating for reflections on the ceiling above your kit. Best to place absorption above the kit and leave the floor reflective. Forget about carpet man. Bass traps in a small room like this may be good, but it is tough to say really. Sometimes those room modes can be good for a recording room.

This above is just for recording.

The problem you may have is making this a good space to mix in as well. That is hard to judge as they are two different situations. Typically you would go with bass traps everywhere you can in both applications, but yet that is tough to judge without testing.

Mixing/control room: You are not likely able to place enough bass trapping needed in the space. Not sure it is possible to have to much.

Recording room: Who friggen knows. Some rooms have character the way they are. That is rare for a small room tho.

Compromise: Make sure the frequency response is not killing either of your needs. Likely best to treat the room as a control room and take out some treatment if it seems to work better.

What I would do: Treat the ceiling with many hanging 2" thick clouds, and 4 or 6" bass traps leaning in all corners. 2" panels at reflection points from monitors. See what happens.


Just my opinions. :)
 
I know the walls are not entirely symetrical, but have you considered putting the desk with the mixer/computer where the drum kit currently is? Having speakers firing down the long axis of the room is probably a beter bet than having them in the middle/firing along the short axis of the room.

Close to the window is not ideal, but in a room that shape/those dimensions everything is a compromise. Otherwise, jimmys69 said it all.
 
Thanks Jimmy for your suggestion. Does the following picture capture the placing of the bass traps? @Jake, I was thinking of placing the monitors the way they are on this picture. (excuse my MS Paint skills :P)

@ RFR, yeah it looks nice. It's like most of my house (and some women), loads of character but hard to work with :P

Hmm, so the carpet isn't actually a good thing? It works quite nice to keep contact noice from disturbing downstairs. Jimmy, you would leave the floor reflective. Would it work to place the drumkit on wooden panels (or laminate) to make the floor reflective? Is the problem with the carpet that it only absorbs high frequencies and gives you a bass heavy sound, or are there other reasons not to put carpet as well?

Thanks again for all the advice. Am thrilled to hear my studio with all this absorption in it...


Studio with furniture and insulation.png
 
Looks like you have all the trap placements correct, as well as the monitors/mixing set up. You're oging to want point-of-first-reflection panels (at least 2" thick) on either side of your mixing position, as well as the cloud panels.
In such a small room like that I'm not sure hard floor under the drums would work - just more reflections to deal with.
 
Okay thanks! When placing the bass traps how important is it for them to fill all of the corners? Is it a problem when I leave 2cm open at the top bottom or one of the sides? It's gonna be quite a job with all the different shapes and angles.
And, how important is it to make all the basstraps the same size? That would make my room more symmetrical but does it improve the acoustic quality as well?
And, does it matter how big (the width) the bass traps are?
I am probably going for 6" thickness because I need all the treatment I can get...
 
Rockwool typically comes in 24" width, so it's easiest to make all your traps that size. You may need to put some at different angles to fit the spaces.
 
Meassuring it all up and trying to figure how I fit all my instruments and gear back in the room after the treatment I was wondering.
How neccesary is the bit of insulation right behin my monitors on the attached picture? The monitors will not be blasting from that wall instead of against it, does that make any difference?

I also have some wood lying around I could use to make 3D diffusers would that improve anything or shouldn't I bother? If so, where would I place them.

And, is it really important to fill all the spaces entirely, that might be though with the absorber in front of my door, I'll probably put on wheels.

I can imagine I'm asking stuff that has already been asked a thousand times if there is a page or something I can read to get these things answered feel free to send me there instead of answering my dull questions. All information is great help to me, so thanks!

View attachment 94352
 
Do your monitors have rear-firing bass ports? If so, then a trap behind them is definitely needed. The general rule for small room studios - as much trapping as you can fit. There's no way you are going to make it 'dead' (which you don't want anyway).
 
Hmm, alright. I'm trying to figure out the fitting :P with a piano, a drumkit two guitar amplifiers a bass amplifiers and room for all those players to practice this is tough. Could I do 15cm of Rockwool straight agains the wall behind my monitors? Would that work well enough?

---------- Update ----------

I'm already seeing the limitations of my small room, in my next house I'll look for a bigger room for the studio...
 
I'd recommend checking out the GIK Acoustics videos as well. They've got a basic layout to show you when you need absorption, when you need diffusion, and bass trapping.

Purchasing a book or two on acoustics wouldn't hurt either. I think Mitch Gallagher has one called Acoustic Design for the Home Studio that's pretty cheap. =]
 
Dicus said:
Hmm, alright. I'm trying to figure out the fitting :P with a piano, a drumkit two guitar amplifiers a bass amplifiers and room for all those players to practice this is tough. Could I do 15cm of Rockwool straight agains the wall behind my monitors? Would that work well enough?

---------- Update ----------

I'm already seeing the limitations of my small room, in my next house I'll look for a bigger room for the studio...
Click to expand...

4" (10cm) will be enough.
 
Now I've let sink in all your advice and read Mitch Gallaghers' 'Acoustic Design for the Home Studio' ideas are getting more form. I've got some more questions, is it wise to ask them in this same topic or start a new one?

I have got some fluffy glass wool and read I can use this to make a superchunk bass trap, the only corner in my room in which this would work is the one to your right when facing the large window (see pictures and map on page 1 of this post) but due to the door their I can only make it a square of 40x40cm will this be deep enough to also absorb some low frequencies or will this only make my room more boomy? Thanks already
 
'Fluffy' insulation I assume is fiberglass, not rockwool. It's not dense enough unless kept in its rolled-up (from store) state. get rockwool and cut into triangles to fit into that corner as a superchunk.
 
Thanks for your reply, it however confuses me a bit... JHBrand writes that the thicker the layer the less dense the material has got to be, also Gallagher writes that fiberglass has it's uses in the studio (he doesn't ever in his book talk about density of material, which surprised me).
Your opinion is that fiberglass isn't dense enough for superchunk bass traps? Is there anything I can use the fiberglass I have for in my studio?
And if I'd use Rockwool with 55kg/m3 density would that with a 40x40cm size be good enough for low frequency absorption?
 
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