ETHAN, JOHN, I need acoustical room help.

[smellyfuzz]

All right guys, I finally got around to working on my bedroom studio. The past couple of years I have been dumping money into equipment, now I want to spend money on things like furniture and acoustical treatment. Eventually, I should be moving everything down to the basement in a build control room, but that is at least six months down the road, plus I need time to learn about room treatments, angled walls, materials used, floors and ceilings.

I found here in Syosset, Long Island, a place that sells Mineral Wool on the cheap. I got 10 - 3 inch bats, 16x48 for $28.00, plenty I think, to get started on my bedroom/control room.

Last night, I made my first 3 traps. I took a very thin piece of wood, kinda’ like peg board without the holes, put the mineral wool on it and then covered it with cloth that I bought from evil Walmart for $1.69 per yard. I then fill 2 pillowcases with some insulation.

I placed 2 of the traps in each front corner of the room closest to the mixing area and the third I placed in between the speakers, which are on stands, angle about 45 degrees upward cloth facing out. I then placed one pillow in-between the ceiling fan blades over my head. The final pillow I move around a lot, but I never heard any difference in the music no matter where it was positioned.

OK, the good news is that over all, the sound improvement was astonishing. The highs sweetened and clarified ten fold, the midrange, however, was where most of the improvement was. The vocals and guitars and strings, sounded just like liquid, totally blew me away. Even the soundstage grew larger, first of all, the vocal never came from the speakers, they where always right in between. The strings and synths sounded like they were coming from an area larger then the distance that the speakers were apart, just fantastic.

So what is the problem?

THE BASS!

Not only did it disappear from the heaviest of bass recordings, it became in credibly MUDDY.

No matter what CD I played, the bass sound worse then ever before.

WHAT CAN / SHOULD I DO?

[Ethan Winer]

Fuzz-man,

> the bass sound worse then ever before. <

The problem is you tightened up and damped the mids and highs, so now by contrast the lows are a mess. I assure your treatment did little if anything to the lows. All of what you hear is simply caused by damping only the mids and highs.

Part of the problem is the way you built your panels. For a corner trap you want thick, dense, rigid fiberglass, not fluffy batts. You also don't want to attach it to a backing, because that reduces the effective at low frequencies.

--Ethan

[HangDawg]

I just scored 20 sheets of 1" 4'x10' rigid fiber glass. Do you think if I cut the corners off of my room with about 3" thick of this stuff it will help the lows?

[smellyfuzz]

Part of the problem is the way you built your panels. For a corner trap you want thick, dense, rigid fiberglass, not fluffy batts.

But I bought MINERAL WOOL, 3 inches thick.

[Ethan Winer]

Dawg,

> Do you think if I cut the corners off of my room with about 3" thick of this stuff it will help the lows? <

Yes.

--Ethan

[Ethan Winer]

Fuzzy,

> But I bought MINERAL WOOL, 3 inches thick. <

Mineral wool, fiberglass, rock wool - it's all the same, or nearly the same. What really matters is having the rigid type. You said you bought batts, which to me implies the fluffy stuff.

--Ethan