What can I do with what I have?

[publicradio]

Hey all,

First of all, please pardon my mess. second of all, understand that like many of you, I am in a very tight economic situation.

Now that said, I live in a coop in Chicago and we have an absolutely beautiful and amazing music room. I am in the process of turning it into a functional recording space. I've fixed, strung up and tuned up all these great musical instruments, although i can't play most of them. I have some really nice high end Kenwood speakers that function just fine as monitors for me, for now. I have a Behringer B-2 pro condenser mic. this is what the room looks like:



I've put the foam I have up around the room just to test it out. Here's what I have:


Two squares of eggcrate foam, the size of large pizza boxes


Two blocks of stiff, relatively dense foam pulled out of loveseat cushions


Another, big piece of foam from the same loveseat (note: there was obviously a big burn in this loveseat)


Four strips of flat memory foam matress pad


An eggcrate-formed piece of mattress pad


Another pad, cut in half, with an egg crate form, only less deep


Another flat foam pad, from that busted loveseat I mentioned earlier

So anyway, I stupidly tried to make a soundproof both in the closet before, and it was too damp. Also who wants to sit in a closet all the time? now my foam is all cut up into irregular sizes and full of staple holes. I was thinking of spraypainting it all black and trying to cut it into equal-sized squares. Maybe the paint would make it less absorbant, I don't know. I was also thinking of cutting the thick cushions into logs and using them as bass traps, and then going out into the alley for some plywood to use as diffusors.

One wall is painted concrete; the other is painted brick. The ceiling is concrete with a half inch of that kind of drywall you stuck pencils into during detention as a kid. the floor is painted cement with a raggedy rug on it.

The loudest real drum that will be used in this room will probably be the djembe. I don't forsee getting a drum kit. The guitar and bass guitar are most likely just going to be line in to the computer with a virtual amp, although I might use the amp you see in the picture.

So what do you think? What can I do with what I have??

thanks so much in advance,
Morgan

[publicradio]

I also thought maybe I could make a gobo out of some of this. Just throwing that out there.

[publicradio]

Nothing in three days? I'm really surprised.

[mikemorgan]

Grandma's basement?

[KineticSound]

Originally Posted by publicradio

I was thinking of spraypainting it all black and trying to cut it into equal-sized squares. Maybe the paint would make it less absorbant, I don't know. I was also thinking of cutting the thick cushions into logs and using them as bass traps, and then going out into the alley for some plywood to use as diffusors.

As you have quite a bit of foam (of a decent thickness) lying around, you could absolutely make some "panels" out of them. Rigid fiberglass would be preferrable, it seems like the objective here is to make do with what you've already got (which I absolutely understand! ).

I would stay away from spraypainting the foam sheets. Instead, some DIY frames and some fabric coating may just do the trick. Someone posted a great step-by-step here with pictures a while back; you'd just be using the thick foam in place of the 703 fiberglass...

[A Reel Person]

All that foam is a tremendous fire hazard. Spray painting them would make it horribly worse, plus exuding the petro chemical fumes at all times (pre-combustion). Not sure of the fire hazard profile of rigid fiberglass (definitely less than the foam you have), but I believe the rockwool-equivalent material would be least fire prone sound absorbing material. That's in consideration of other covering materials, too.

Plus, that cheap loveseat foam has a fairly poor sound absorption profile, compared to other materials. I'm no soundproofing expert, but I'd try to be careful about fire hazards in the home (studio), if you feel you need sound dampening.

I like your collection of stuff!

[nate_dennis]

Based on my (admittedly) limited understanding of studio construction my advice would be as follows . . . .

Divide your room. Set one section as your "control room" and one as your "live room." focus your sound obsorbtion efforts on the control area and less on the live area. You have a great space (one I would love to have) and you can do a lot with it. When working with limited space though (anyone with a home studio) it's important to maximise your real estate. So I would pick an area (away from corners b/c of bass frequency build up) and set it up for mix/control and the other section as the live section. I could be wrong and if so I'd love to know about it so I can learn too. But that's where I would start. Nice room, and nice collection!!

[publicradio]

//edit

Thank you for all your responses. I think I'm going to make frames and put the foam in them and stretch fabric over it. That's my plan for now. My only other question is, how much wall space should I cover? 50%? should I put something on the ceiling? Should I just have one big thing on the wall i'm recording against and use gobos? should i use a bunch of little squares on the wall or tall strips or what?

[nate_dennis]

From what i have read/heard about half is good. i.e. if you have carpet, don't treat the ceiling, if you treat the west wall, leave the ease clear, etc. BUt I"m not 100% on that.

[KineticSound]

I would also suggest that before you start placing the panels, gobo's, etc. around the room, invest a few dollars in Rod Gervais' book Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pro's and/or Mitch Gallagher's Acoustic Design for the Home Studio. I'm partial to Rod's book, in part because he's a regular contributer to this forum, but also because his book is considered by many to be the DIY guide for home-studio owners. $25 now and a little reading time could save you a lot of aggrivation down the road.

The "challenge" is to get your room sounding good for both tracking and mixing. If I were in your spot, I would hang panels in the corners to deal with bass build-up first, followed by wall treatment placed where the primary reflections would occur. I drew a little mock-up of what that might look like... the red boxes would represent acoustic panels and how they might be placed to diffuse the reflections. Use your thickest material in the corners.

[publicradio]

Makes sense. I'll use the thick foam for bass traps. So they only have to be in the corners where the walls meet, not the walls and the ceiling? your drawing appears that way.