Prepping Reheral Room

A

adam79

New member
I'm about to setup my rehearsal room and i'm looking for some prepping advice. The room is basically a rectangle. The soundproofing is virtually non-existent, so it'd be WAY too expensive to start making soundproofing moves.
Removing some of the undesirable frequencies would be nice. I have a DBX 231 Graphic EQ. Should I hook it up to the PA, set everything to 0, put a mic in the center of the room and slowly raise each band until I get feedback? Then put the freq that has feedback down as much neg as it was positive (when feedback occurred)? i.e. if feedback happens at 2dB at x Hz, set the slider for x Hz to -2dB?
That's pretty much all I got! Any other suggestions would be rad! I don't have much money to throw into this, so price is of great importance.

Thanks,
-Adam
 
Are you after soundproofing or acoustic treatment? There's a huge difference. One means you neighbors can't hear you. The other means, things sound flat and there's no obvious build-ups.
AFA treatment for a band rehearsal room: You shouldn't have to spend tons. Let's face it, most of the places you play outside your room will not be acoustically perfect, so getting used to how the EQ works (get some test tones and an SPL meter).
Your feedback solution is counter-intuitive. If you're not getting feedback till +12, you don't need to drop it back to -12. The way we used to do it was to get each to feedback and drop back 3db (each) Now you have about 2dB of headroom if you need to turn up (get a bigger crowd), but remember when the crowd comes in, bass gets knocked down...
Also, measuring from the center of the room kills feedback at the center of the room. If you're using the mikes on a "stage" in the room, leave them where they are and kill the feedback to/from the mikes.
Honestly, if you're not using it to record, you won't need clouds and wide bands, but some decent bass trapping will help you out a bit. There's a lot of crap about egg cartons on the walls and other stuff...One that will actually do some good: blankets are cheap, and if they're thick and spaced from the wall, they'll give some help.
Hope that's helpful. Haven't been in full band rehearsals since '91, but I still remember some of the junk...
 
What are the walls made of? Floor?
If feedback is an issue once you get playing, THEN look at EQing those frequencies down.
 
mjbphotos said:
What are the walls made of? Floor?
If feedback is an issue once you get playing, THEN look at EQing those frequencies down.
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Drywall, drop ceiling, cement floors. We haven't started playing yet. I'm about to setup all the equipment.
Like I was saying, I have a giant problem with major sound leakage from two separate adjoining rooms. Soundproofing is so pricey that it's pretty much outta the question, especially since I'm renting the room. Is there an inexpensive way to atleast muffle the sound coming thru?
Also, someone mentioned bass traps. How do I figure out the ideal placement for these?
Thanks.
 
Bass traps = corners. Bass gathers in the corners of rooms.
Will help you hear truer. Won't help the neighbors not hear you. Buy some Roxul or OC703/705 and cut them diagonally. Stack the diagonal pieces in the corners (preferably floor to ceiling) and cover them if you want it to look pretty...
 
Is this one of those 'rent a practice space' warehouse places? The usual solution to sound leaking in: turn it up! Bass traps in the corners, some moving blankets on the wall to absorb the drywall reverb, that's about all you can do.
 
mjbphotos said:
Is this one of those 'rent a practice space' warehouse places? The usual solution to sound leaking in: turn it up! Bass traps in the corners, some moving blankets on the wall to absorb the drywall reverb, that's about all you can do.
Click to expand...

Ya, it's a rehearsal room rental. It's not a matter of not hearing my band play. The issue is that it's hard to write new material - hear the music in yer head when there's crap music busting thru the walls. It was just wishful thinking on my part that there was some sort of solution...I kinda already knew the answer to my question.
 
I used to own a 6 room rehearsal facility in Hollywood. The #1 Thing you want is Soundproofing. The #2 Thing you want is A/C. Those places get hot after an hour or so.

Sound treatment is of little importance. You can spend hours tweeking your sound, only to have it all useless when you hit the real world. All clubs are different and sound different, and the sound changes with how many people come to your gig.

Rehearsal studios are all about honing the songs and getting the band to function as one unit. Tight.

Soundproofing can be expensive or not.

Double doors help. Carpet for sound proofing can be had for free. Apt buildings are constantly taking out the old carpet and it ends up in a dumpster or just laying outside.

I have never spent money for soundproofing with the exception of buying soundboard. Of course its easier when you have 50 bands a week. That's lots of eyes and ears on the ground scouting for you.

But it can be done for little to no money. Put out the word to friends, family, bandmates, fans, etc. Free stuff is out there. Check The CL freebie section as well.

If this is a Lock out studio, do what you can, and if someone leaves a better room than yours, rent that one
 
RFR said:
Double doors help. Carpet for sound proofing can be had for free. Apt buildings are constantly taking out the old carpet and it ends up in a dumpster or just laying outside.
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Carpet on the walls will help with absorption, but do next to nothing for soundproofing, right?
 
adam79 said:
Carpet on the walls will help with absorption, but do next to nothing for soundproofing, right?
Click to expand...

Correct. And it will only absorb higher frequencies, leaving lower frequencies untouched. This causes a "muddy" sounding room.
 
I used carpet, soundboard, plywood, carpet. Don't remember the exact order. But it was always alternate layers of hard and soft. Kept on building it up as needed. The final layer was soundboard which was purchased. It's brown kind of like a cardboard/cork. At the time it was cheap. 5 bucks for a 4X8 Sheet.

All the doors were done the same way, along with an inside door being installed.

I know......sounds ghetto. But it was mostly free. And it worked.Two rooms sharing a wall between them could each have bands with two Marshalls each, and they'd be able to rehearse in peace.

This was in the Hair Metal/ Poison/GNR era and all these bands were LOUD. But with all 6 rooms going all at once, once you stepped outside the room, you could have a normal conversation.
 
A better way to ring the room would be to put the mic where it will be, turn up the gain until it starts to feed back, find that frequency and turn it down. Then turn the gain up some more until it feeds back, first day that frequency and turn it down.

Keep doing that until you get the system loud enough to use, or you realize that you are simply turning everything down one frequency at a time.
 
My other question I forgot to ask is about instrument placement. Is it most important to find the sweet spot for drums n work from there? Is it all trial n error or in an rectangular room is there s common spot where the drums sound there best? I'll try n get off my ass n take some room measurements.
 
Are you recording, or just rehearsing? If you are just rehearsing, you are overthinking it a bit.

Unless the room is pretty good size, it really won't matter much where you put the drums. It will sound about the same anywhere.
 
Farview said:
Are you recording, or just rehearsing? If you are just rehearsing, you are overthinking it a bit.

Unless the room is pretty good size, it really won't matter much where you put the drums. It will sound about the same anywhere.
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You're totally right. I think a bit of this thread is me procrastinating cleaning up my room n setting up the equipment. I would, however, really would like to muffle the bands thru the walls. Maybe I'll take the soft/hard layer approach that was suggested, although I'm skeptical. Especially with the drop ceiling leaving virtually nothing between rooms. I don't need, n will never achieve full blockage (on my budget). Like I said tho, muffling some out would be amazing.
 
adam79 said:
Ya, it's a rehearsal room rental. It's not a matter of not hearing my band play. The issue is that it's hard to write new material - hear the music in yer head when there's crap music busting thru the walls. It was just wishful thinking on my part that there was some sort of solution...I kinda already knew the answer to my question.
Click to expand...

Do your writing at home! When you get to the rehearsal place, all you need to do is work on the arrangement.
 
mjbphotos said:
You're living in a rehearsal space? Sink baths in the communal bathroom (I've been in them - YUK!)?
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Haha! Luckily I got buddies in the area w/ showers. Although I have walked in on a dude bare ass naked starring at himself in the mirror...and it was at 4 in the afternoon! Ya think he'd atleast wait until the AM hours. The scars r still trying to heal from that shit show
 
Carpeting is probably the worst thing you can put on your walls. It will kill your high-mids and high's, while doing nothing for your low's. So, now you have a really box-y sounding room and bass has gone from being 90% of your problem, to 100% of your problem. Don't do the carpet thing, nothing good will come from it.

Besides that, it's an inferno waiting to happen. And if you do have a fire, and your insurance company sees that you had carpet on your walls, you're screwed.
 
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