Roominators

[c7sus]

GC's new flyer has the Auralex Super Roominators for $300US. Is anybody out there using any of the Roominators stuff? From what I've been reading it seems that just about any room would be improved with some treatment. I have been looking at the MaxWall too. That would be handy for knocking down ambient sound and can be put away. My "studio" is the dining room off my living room so putting a lot of foam and diffusers on the wall is kindofan aestetic drawback, if you know what I mean.

The way my setup is now could be improved. I'm using a corner desk with monitors straddling the PC monitor. Having the speakers in the corner cuts down on their accuracy, I believe. Plus, the speaker on the LHS is in front of window, so I know I'm getting weird reflections with that. Anyway, I've been thinking about reconfiguring things so the monitors are out of the corner and possibly have some treatments on the wall behind them.

Here's another part of the puzzle. The room has a slightly vaulted ceiling, rising from 8' to about 11' over a 12' span. Will cornerfoam treatments mounted at the top of the 8' wall line and run parallel with the floor (rather than following the rise of the ceiling) be effective? I know they will look weird. Surprisingly, the room is not real lively right now, but I am subject to sounds from throughout the rest of the house. There is a sofa across the room, about 20' behind my setup now. If I move to the flat section of wall that is to my right as I face this corner, the wall behind me is 8' from the front of my monitors. And has a passthru door that leads to the kitchen. Would a medium weight curtain over that pass thru door improve things sonically? Or would I have to cover the entire wall evenly for best results?

Anyway, I have a lot more questions about sonic treatments. But any responses will be greatly appreciated. I know some of you guys have spent a considerable amount of time planning your studios so I'm sure you have some great tips to pass along. Anybody else that wants to add questions on this jump in!

[CMiller]

I'm pretty sure that OldGrover uses the Roominator stuff. I think he's pretty happy with it too if I'm not mistaken. Check out his studio...

http://greysfiles.com/Studio/Pages/Grover.htm

[Blue Bear Sound]

I use the MaxWall panels - they work very well and the Roominators stuff is the same material, if I'm not mistaken. But damn, that sh*t is expensive (here in Canada, anyways) - cost me $1300cdn for 9 4-by-2 panels.

Big yikes!!!!!

Bruce

[John Sayers]

I looked at the auralex roominator stuff at their site and it's a good package of foam. They deal entirely in foam for all their treatment.The max wall stuff is foam on a board like we have discussed here for gobos. The bass units are made of thick foam that you stick in the corner.

The basic formula for acoustics is to work out the square footage of absorption in a room and from that you work out the reverb time. The Reverb calculator at my site does exactly that when you enter the areas of the different surfaces and it calculates the rest. The auralex bass units are 4' x 2' in surface area and whilst they might absorb the bass in the corner they only account for 8 square feet of absorption at that low frequency (relative to the whole room square footage).

Now if you look at a Hidley room he will take up to 1/4 of the floor space to absorb bass. At the back of his rooms he will have 3 - 4 feet of cavity JUST to absorb BASS.

The Tracking Station Control room in Nashville is a 35' x 35' outer shell with a control room built inside with an outer bass trap area 3' - 4' wide all the way around.

Now we can't afford to do that cos we don't have the space. But you C7sus have an area in your ceiling if you flatten it at the 8' mark. This cavity goes from 8' to 12'. Were you to hang hangers that vary in size in that area



you would effectively get a lot more area and a lot more absorption. plus it will absorb the low mids as well.



Now these are not hard to build - especially if you are an electrical contractor and should know a few people. It's just Dacron wrapped around fibreboard and hung from the ceiling.

Now the maxwall panels are just gobos like we discussed. You can use foam as they do or you can buy something like this:

http://www.owenscorning.com/around/s...e-acoucore.asp

Put this on the wall and cover it with cloth and you have the same thing.

I can't price it cos I don't live over there but you can, I would be interested in a comparison between "do it yourself" and the purchased product.

cheers
john