Cloud air gap for small drum room

M

Mastiff

New member
I just stumbled on this forum and it looks like there's a lot of knowledge floating around. I have a small sound isolated drum room that I now want to improve the acoustics of for some amateur recording. At the moment I have a hodgepodge of random insulation thrown up on the walls. The room is about 8x10x8 feet. It's plenty for the drums, but I realize quite small for optimal recording. My basic plan at the moment is to put up panels based on Safe'n'Sound on all the walls, bass traps in the corners and a cloud up top. I'm open to all input on this.

My current question is in regards to the cloud. I'm currently building these as 2x4' panels (planning on two over the drums) with one layer of denim insulation. I'm using this because I have it around, and it has the benefit of being less irritating if some particles drift down. I put one up and the convenient current spot has about 5" of air gap above the insulation (4" thick-ish). Are there some rules of thumb about how much air gap is good? I probably don't want to come down too much, but I could easily go up if it would be better. Thanks.
 
What are you using for 'bass traps'? Safe and Sound is alright, but not as dense as OC703 or 705, which will provide better sound attenuation. In a room that small, you need to really fill it with sound insulation. a couple of inches for airspace should be fine.
 
mjbphotos said:
What are you using for 'bass traps'? Safe and Sound is alright, but not as dense as OC703 or 705, which will provide better sound attenuation. In a room that small, you need to really fill it with sound insulation. a couple of inches for airspace should be fine.
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My plan for the traps is to build a floor to ceiling corner triangle of safe'n'sound, 2' across where it hits the wall (triangle by cutting diagonally 2' squares). I think this is considered a "superchunk". I had wanted to use 703 or rockboard 40 for some of the wall panels, but I'm at a complete loss how to obtain this stuff without paying exorbitant shipping costs. Nobody local to me carries it. My understanding for bass traps is that fluffier stuff is actually better if you are going deep. For shallow panels, I've read that the denser rigid panels may be better. I also read that at around 4" (the thickness of safe'n'sound) it's kind of a wash. This could all be bogus though, I'm coming up to speed and it seems to be kind of a dark art anyway.
 
Yeah, $75 plus $45 shipping for me. I guess I could eat it, but will I notice the difference compared to safe'n'sound?
 
Mastiff said:
My current question is in regards to the cloud. I'm currently building these as 2x4' panels (planning on two over the drums) with one layer of denim insulation. I'm using this because I have it around, and it has the benefit of being less irritating if some particles drift down. I put one up and the convenient current spot has about 5" of air gap above the insulation (4" thick-ish). Are there some rules of thumb about how much air gap is good? I probably don't want to come down too much, but I could easily go up if it would be better. Thanks.
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I think in my drum booth I have about a foot above the suspended clouds but I have almost 10 foot ceilings.
I think 5 inches is fine though as it still has sound hit the face of the panel and there is enough gap to absorb the reflected sound into the back as well.
I think my wall absorbers have about 5 inches between the top edge of the wall panels but it tapers to about a half inch at the bottom edge.
 
There is negligible differences between low frequency absorption when comparing compressed rock-wool or Fiberglas products. I’ve collected the specs and posted them repeatedly. Use what is budget friendly, and that usually means what you can source locally.

The air gap just exposes more surface area of the panels so makes them more efficient. Low ceilings and smaller spaces may not benefit as much (speculation here) because how many wave bounces and “bank shots” will still have much energy to be absorbed, since you’re probably treating the crap out of the space already. Can’t hurt, but you don’t want to make it claustrophobic.
 
jimmys69 said:
Can you remove the drywall from your ceiling?
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No. I have a sound isolated room in a room. I spent a ton of time and money doing it right. So far, I haven't even mounted anything in the walls or ceiling besides with gaff tape or 3M adhesives strips. I know this is a little paranoid. My current incarnation of the acoustic treatments is based on a frame of 1x4's built inside the room. I'm planning for my bass traps to be free standing, perhaps loosely tied in to the frame.

When I was building the room in a room, people were suggesting making the inside room walls "inside out" (stud visible, sheeting towards the outside) so I could basically have 100% coverage with absorber, but I opted to make the air gap larger to get more isolation. Now I'm basically eating up my interior space anyway with this frame thing. But, I really needed the isolation or I couldn't play at all.
 
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