diy sound treatment

guitarboi89

New member
well i have been told that to get good recordings i need to sort out the acoustics in my room.
I have looked at stockists of specialist panels and they seem excessively priced.
Is there a way to diy (websites please!) ?
Also what do i need to do to my room? (general faq?)
 
just for the record..................DO NOT COVER YOUR WALLS WITH EGGCARTONS

































i shouldnt have to say that, but people these days............you just never know
 
I am in the process of building a studio in my basement, and as far as acoustics go, I actually took heavy duty painter's tarp and loosely tacked it on the walls and i have some foam i put in random places where sound was bouncing off. And im convinced that the tarp is almost better than some sound treatment you can get. The room used to echo like crazy and as soon as i put the tarp in (before i even put the foam in, that was just for fine tuning some drumset issues) it was almost 100% better. I hope that helps a little bit,
 
Curtains, blankets/sheets, drop cloths, etc. all help to absorb sound. Carpet and other furniture in your studio will help a bit as well.
 
Curtains, blankets/sheets, drop cloths, etc. all help to absorb sound. Carpet and other furniture in your studio will help a bit as well.
The room used to echo like crazy and as soon as i put the tarp in (before i even put the foam in, that was just for fine tuning some drumset issues)

Only for high frequencies, which is why it worked for some drum aspects such as impact frequencies-ie, snare and cymbals Since higher frequency wavefronts propogate as rays, reflections are heard as flutter and other echos, and since carpet and blankets are quite thin, resistance absorption occurs at 1/4 wavelength which amounts to those frequencies whose 1/4 wavelength approximates the thickness of the material. When hung off the walls with an airgap between the wall and material, this will lower somewhat the frequency of absorption. However, considering frequencies whose wavelengths are longer and even approach the 3 dimensions of the room, carpets, blankets, and other thin materials have no absorption effect, and room modes will dominate the acoustics. Furniture such as couchs WILL absorb somewhat at mid frequencies, while bookcases and other types of geometrical protrusions in the room will act "somewhat" as diffusing elements for those wavelengths approximating the size of the elements.
However, once you cover one complete plane or more(walls, floors and ceiling are a plane), with materials equivilent to the thickness of carpet, you begin to suck high frequencies from the response spectrum. Better to have patchwork absorption on all surfaces than covering whole planes, such as carpeting a complete floor.
Because you have "succesful improvement" with using a tarp for acoustical treatment, does NOT guarantee a smooth room response with few peaks and valleys. The proof is in your recordings "translating" to other systems. Yes, you have improved a region of reflection control, and to your "ear", this may seem as a tangible and cheap way for one to treat ones room. However, it doesn't guarantee low frequency will not dominate your recordings. Unless you have a balanced and smooth monitoring environment in a seperate control room, you have NO way of knowing what your recordings
sound like untill played back in another room and system. And THEN, the response of THAT room and system will LIE to you again. This is the MAIN problem of most home recording setups whereby you MONITOR in the same room you are recording in. Unless this room is treated for low frequency control, it WILL dominate your recordings. Yet you won't know cause not only does the room lie to you WHILE recording, when you playback in the same space, it lies to you AGAIN, and then when you playback in another room and system, IT lies to you, so you never know what the real recording sounds like.
Hence the importance of treating the room for the flattest response possible. Untill you have a room you can trust, you will be constantly trying to EQ after the fact. Well, thats my .02 anyway. Of course, as usual, my disclaimer is in full effect. ie...I'm no expert.
fitZ :)
 
RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Yet you won't know cause not only does the room lie to you WHILE recording, when you playback in the same space, it lies to you AGAIN, and then when you playback in another room and system, IT lies to you, so you never know what the real recording sounds like
You got that right, Fitz. Not only does my studio lie to me, it steals from me, then gets drunk and sleeps around. But -- god help me! -- I still love it.
 
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