Help with room set up please

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brahmawayrecord

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Was up??
im new to this whole home studio thing. I just need to know if I made these diy sound panels correct? I bought some sound proof insulation from lowes and I built a frame for the stuff to fit in. I bought some fabric from Walmart and covered them. Me being the paranoid guy I am, I then recoverd them with moving blankets. I just want to know if that's too much because I have more of the insulation and want to make more. any help please.
 
Hey. Welcome to the site.

Depending on what Lowes sells as "sound proof insulation" will depend on how good your panels will be. In most home studios, the problems lie with the lower frequencies. Say 500hz and down. A good sound absorbing panel will have a density of about 3lbs per cubic foot. Something like Owens Corning 703 or 705. Rockwool is similar though not a bonded fiber type material.

I think adding the moving blanket is not going to hurt anything and might even help. You might lose more top end freqs, but can maybe compensate for them.

The big questions are: What is the size of your room, what are the dimensions of your panels and how many panels did you make? Oh and what is the sound proof stuff that Lowes sells?
 
If it’s Roxul Safe’n’Sound, which I also got at Lowe’s, you are good.

I used up 2 bundles, or 24 batts, in my small room. 12 went into 3 floor-to-ceiling, double thick bass traps.

I didn’t add any moving blanket material though.
 
room dem....11ftx10ft and 8ft high
the panels I built are 34inx49in(including the 2x4's)
insulation is the roxul sound proofing... I layed two panels next to each other and framed them...2in(1.5) deep
 
I don’t know the specs of the material you used but bass traps need to actually trap bass frequencies so usually are pretty thick. Safe’n’Sound comes in 3” thickness so I doubled that with a 3/4” airgap for my corner traps. It’s designed for use in walls with 16” centers so it sounds like what you used is that wide but thinner?
 
brahmawayrecord said:
room dem....11ftx10ft and 8ft high
the panels I built are 34inx49in(including the 2x4's)
insulation is the roxul sound proofing... I layed two panels next to each other and framed them...2in(1.5) deep
Click to expand...

Your room is about the same dimensions as mine except I have a higher ceiling meaning more of a cube; the worst shape for a studio. I have about 14 panels in my room, mostly 2ft x 4ft x 2in thick. Corners behind the monitors, 1st reflection points, cloud, back wall, back corners. I also have book shelves and all kinds of garbage in the room. Most of my panels are 2 inch thick, the back wall panels are 4 inch thick. The panels straddling the corners have rolled up pink fluffy insulation behind them.

I justify using 2 inch thick panels by keeping overall volume down when mixing. Lower volume, less compression waves, less penetration into the bass trap. Plus the energy has to fight through the rolled fluffy stuff bounce off the back wall and go through the bass trap again on the way out.

Still, with all that I get some peaks and valleys in the room's audio response. I deal with it.

I think 1.5 inches of Roxul might not be enough. The moving blankets will help, maybe a lot, maybe not.... kind of an unknown quantity.

There is a small program called Room EQ Wizard that will help to measure your room's response. You run it through your monitors and record with a mic at your sitting position. It's probably time for me to check my room again.
 
Here you go.
http://www.bobgolds.com/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm
Compare the 125Hz figures. As you can see throughout most of the common densities (pcf), per each thickness- they are quite similar in effectiveness.
It is depth where you pick up better performance.
Therefore, double up your depth, hit the first reflection points and corners first. Generally' for a given cubic feet of treatment, better to have fewer deeper well placed than thinner' covering all over'. Generally.. :>)

Add.. Don't know how many you built, but if not a whole bunch certainly it's no harm to keep them and add on from there.
 
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As said^^^ you need to double the thickness - at least 4" for bass trapping. 2" is ok for point-of-first reflection and ceiling cloud.
 
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