Foam Placement!

[mattimus]

ok.. my bands have been rehearsing in the back room of my dads companies office for a year or so now. and after cleaning out the ajoining storage room i realized although not ideal, it would make a good control room. so after begging and begging, my father has aproved me turning the back room into a recording studio... its a nice sized space... my live room is 17ftx20ft and my control room is 6ftx7ft. so construction starts soon (all the walls are there and i cant add or subtract physical walls.. just putting a window in and soundproof and such) i used to work as a producer at rogers televison(local cable cominuty television station) i stole a heap of studio foam when they renovated there studio. ok.. im sorry for the rant.. but the main part of the story is i dont know where to put the majority of the foam.. do i focus on isolating my tiny control room and just hang heavy curtains on the walls in the live room so sound doesn't bounce off the walls or do i use the foam to dampen the live room and fuck the control room? i will attach a picture of the amount of foam i stole (basicly i stole everything that could safely fit in my windstar before the station manager got back from lunch)

any help would be great thanks (also.. im planing to out in a window on the north wall of the control room facing the main live room)

[timboZ]

Turn yourself in to the cops.
When you get out of jail then ask for advice.

[mattimus]

hey! to my defense.. all the foam was supposed to be thrown out... i just took a bunch before they tossed it. if you knew the station manager youd know hes a cheap schmuck and he would rather see the stuff in the trash than in the hands of a hardworking employee...

and also to my defense a senior producer and a reporter were helping me fill my van with it

[Cult_Status02]

In the control room you'll want to put it on the wall your monitors face, as to kill reflections. On the side walls, use the mirror technique to see where you need the foam (sit where you will when you mix, have a friend move a mirror around on the walls, anywhere you see the monitors in the reflection is a potential spot for the sound to be reflected back at your ears and create a reverberation you may not notice is not actually in the recording.)

In the tracking area, I just put my foam up enough to kill all the reverb. You have large sheets so it won't be hard to cover most of a wall and kill the reverb. Unless of course the room sounds pretty good already with it's natural 'verb, in which case, put up some bass traps and call it a day.