Help me help my room!

S

SteveCPerrino

New member
In my opinion, my recording room is the worst for recording ever, but its the only one I have. It's in my parents basement, all the walls are completely isolated, the walls are all parallel to each other, and there's carpeting on the floors. So no natural reverb, and dull sounding everything.

One piece of advice I got was to get 6 pieces of 4x8 plywood. Put two under the drums as an 8x8 drum riser, with foam under the riser to lift it off the floor.

Then put the other 4 pieces against the walls (2 pieces on 2 different (not the opposing) walls). Lay it against the wall and kick the bottom about 1foot to create an angle.

They said this would elimate (or at least reduce) standing waves and add some reflections in my room and make my drums sound brighter and more full.

Is this valid advice? Or does anyone have any additional advice? I just don't wanna spend all this money on plywood only to realize that it sounds like shit.
 
SteveCPerrino said:
In my opinion, my recording room is the worst for recording ever, but its the only one I have. It's in my parents basement, all the walls are completely isolated, the walls are all parallel to each other, and there's carpeting on the floors. So no natural reverb, and dull sounding everything.

One piece of advice I got was to get 6 pieces of 4x8 plywood. Put two under the drums as an 8x8 drum riser, with foam under the riser to lift it off the floor.

Then put the other 4 pieces against the walls (2 pieces on 2 different (not the opposing) walls). Lay it against the wall and kick the bottom about 1foot to create an angle.
Click to expand...

So far, so good. That'll work fine.

SteveCPerrino said:
They said this would elimate (or at least reduce) standing waves and add some reflections in my room and make my drums sound brighter and more full.
Click to expand...

Okay...here's where it goes astray. It'll do nothing at all for standing waves. It won't prevent them, it won't mitigate them. Everything under 100Hz will pass right through it. It should make the drums sound a bit brighter though.
 
Hey Bob! Great site...love the DIY mounting solution. There's only one sentence I'm going to quibble about. You were referring to 1'x1' Auralex tiles when you said:

"The 1'X1' foam panels help with the nulls and voids as it is advertised to do."

I disagree with this as stated, though I might be misunderstanding it. They'll do absolutely nothing to sovle anything below around 500Hz or so, and at that point we're really not talk about "nulls" anymore. We're talking about short-reflection interference. That's where the Auralex stuff starts to make a lot of sense.
 
Weasel9992 said:
Hey Bob! Great site...love the DIY mounting solution. There's only one sentence I'm going to quibble about. You were referring to 1'x1' Auralex tiles when you said:

"The 1'X1' foam panels help with the nulls and voids as it is advertised to do."

I disagree with this as stated, though I might be misunderstanding it. They'll do absolutely nothing to sovle anything below around 500Hz or so, and at that point we're really not talk about "nulls" anymore. We're talking about short-reflection interference. That's where the Auralex stuff starts to make a lot of sense.
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Thanks for the FYI.
I was parroting what I found on the Auralex Website...............
BG
 
homestudioguy said:
Thanks for the FYI.
I was parroting what I found on the Auralex Website...............
BG
Click to expand...

Ah...I see. Typically here's the best way to start in terms of getting the room treated:

Make sure you setup so that you’re firing down the longest dimension of the room.
Your head should be placed 38% of the way into the room, centered between the left and right walls
Your head should also be located at the tip of an equilateral triangle with your speakers. Start at a 5’ width and go from there.
Use at least 4” bass trapping in all the corners, floor to ceiling if possible.
Use 4” or 6” bass traps on the back wall; the thicker the better basically.
Use 4” panels behind the speakers on the front wall
The reflection points to the right, left and above your head can be treated with either 2” or 4” panels. I prefer 4” panels personally; you can never really overdo bass trapping.
You can use diffusion on the right and left walls near the rear of the room, between your bass traps on the back wall or on the ceiling to the rear of your ceiling panels.

Once you've done all of that, then you'll know more about what your room actually sounds like, which will influence further treatment, monitoring and coversion decisions.
 
Weasel9992 said:
Ah...I see. Typically here's the best way to start in terms of getting the room treated: Make sure you setup so that you’re firing down the longest dimension of the room. Your head should be placed 38% of the way into the room, centered between the left and right walls Your head should also be located at the tip of an equilateral triangle with your speakers. Start at a 5’ width and go from there. Use at least 4” bass trapping in all the corners, floor to ceiling if possible. Use 4” or 6” bass traps on the back wall; the thicker the better basically. Use 4” panels behind the speakers on the front wall The reflection points to the right, left and above your head can be treated with either 2” or 4” panels. I prefer 4” panels personally; you can never really overdo bass trapping. You can use diffusion on the right and left walls near the rear of the room, between your bass traps on the back wall or on the ceiling to the rear of your ceiling panels. Once you've done all of that, then you'll know more about what your room actually sounds like, which will influence further treatment, monitoring and coversion decisions.
Click to expand...
 Thanks for sharing your wisdom on this so-important topic! :D
And no matter what, don't forget to buy the Lava Lamp! ;)
 
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