Non-destructive room treatment

[A1A2]

I'm moving into an apartment in a couple of months, and I have a some materials that I thought could be helpful for room treatment in my future apartment (of course I won't be able to nail anything onto the walls there, non-destructive).

What I have are some 1x1s, 2x4s, a lot of carpet, carpet paddings, fiber glass, and some thin partical boards. Here is a picture of them in case I named anything wrong.

So, what do you think? I just need an ok environment for mixing and tracking acoustic/electric guitars and vocal. I might just do the vocal in my closet. I was thinking alone of line of one of those boards with some air space in between each side of it and put it up against the wall behind me, bass-traps?? I'm really a greenhorn about this...

Any idea would be great, otherwise these materials are gonna go to the dumpster

Al

[A1A2]

Forgot to add, I am not trying to achieve isolation since I am not planning on recording anything louder than my voice/guitar. So, just some units that can enhance the mixing or tracking environment.

thanks in advance

Al

[A1A2]

how bout this, I build a panel with some 2x4s as the frame, and attach those thin partical boards on each side, then maybe stuff those pink fiberglass in between, and put it up agaist the wall directly behine me (oppisite wall from the monitors).

is that gonna do any good? or just plain silly?

btw, it gonna be a small, almost square room with not so high ceiling.

Al

[c7sus]

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

The pink stuff really doesn't have an acoustical rating. As material for bass traps it's essentially useless.

But you might make use of it as a bit of treatment for tracking as opposed to mixing.

If you build a casework panel out of your chipboard and 2 x 4's, stuff the pink stuff in there, and then cover it with cloth you might find it useful as a gobo. If you have enough to make four panels you could set 3 of them, held together with door-hinges, in FRONT of you and the 4th one BEHIND you when tracking acoustic guitar or vox. To support the rear panel you could use either large feet on it or get really fancy and put a hinged leg behind it like a tabletop pictureframe has.

This setup could cut down on misc. noise getting into your mic from the room or through windows and such. The panel behind you will help cut down reflected sound of your playing and misc. noise that would otherwise be directed into the front of your mic.

............____
.........../..mic.\
........../..........\
.............you.....
..........._____.......

Something like that.

3-inch, or even 2-inch Rockwool would be a much better fill for such a panel.

If you sandwich the pink stuff between the chipboard you're just replacing the reflective surface of the apartment wall with another reflective surface. And not gaining anything in the way of treatment, really.

Check out the link above and much more will be revealed..........

[A1A2]

c7,

thanks for the reply. Making gobos sound like a great idea for tracking. One question tho, if they make tracking better by preventing reflected sounds bouncing off the wall, wouldn't they serve the same job for mixing as well? Or by treating one wall opposed to the whole room makes matter even worse?

If those pink flberglass reflect more than they absorb, how about leaving an inch of air space in between the partical boards and let them absorb some lows and then maybe place some carpet/carpet paddings on the outside to absorb the highs? Does that sound right?

I've been to that link before, gotta go study it again.

thanks

Al