You don't have to spend a lot for acoustic treatment

It's not only the high end that is an issue, it's the low mids and bass that gives the most trouble in a home studio. He didn't test those (with good reason). Absorb all the highs and you are left with a boxy sound and uncontrolled mud and bass reflections.
 
For just voice work, or something like acoustic guitar, it should be sufficient. You don't have a lot of low frequencies to deal with in that situation. The simple comparison of his room before and after are pretty convincing of that.

If you're planning to do drums, bass guitar, or mixing with lots of bass heavy work, then yeah, it won't control all of that. It also doesn't mean that you can't build bass traps as well. In any case, it's better than putting up egg cartons and cheap foam.
 
Quite a pretty way of making first reflection/absorption panels. As usual, likely better than nothing and much more effective than the typical foam stuff sold. But, have you ever looked at the cost of quality towels?

Likely fine for the home broadcaster for sure. If you going to actually build panels for this, seems to me using safe n sound or rockwool would be better choice. Or wrap proven materials in the frame with a pretty printed towel? Or any breathable cloth...

This video is obviously not for those that plan to record drums or mix records with audio monitors, so that is irrelevant to discuss other than making sure one does not think that this is the fix for everything. That being said, I have had crappy acoustic guitar recordings without room treatment. My rooms now have much better rockwool acoustic treatment as well as bass traps. It does make a huge difference for acoustic instruments as well as vocals, because the room is a big part of what is being recorded. If the room sounds like shit, a condenser mic will tell you.

By the way, not all bath towels are the same. The cheap ass half + nylon ones that don't absorb water when you get out of the shower, are also not as effective for sound absorption. Those are the ones I usually in thrift stores or free in crappy beach hotels. The 100% cotton ones that are $40 a towel are awesome! LOL
 
If you can source rock wool (mineral wool) locally, I am sure you can build panels as cheaply as any towel solution and it will be far better performing. The 12-pack of Safe’n’Sound was probably $60 with tax. About 60sf of good broadband trapping material 3.5” thick. Much better than towels.

The real cost of the panels is in the framing material, hardware and fabric covering.
 
I looked into this. It may be well and good using something of natural materials like cotton toweling. But there are pitfalls.

One as already highlighted is cost. Cotton toweling is hard to get cheap and it also differs in quality as it has polyester added to it and the cheaper has more polyester. This is basically plastic. So the mix of materials will affect the sound absorption qualities. You can actually buy blown polyester loft/attic insulation made from recycled plastic bottles. Regards sound insulation it is rubbish. You find it inside coats as padding.

It is a natural material and holds moisture. So any condensation in your sound room will be sucked into it. This means acoustic panels yes. But any room sound insulation no.

Is it better than acoustic fiberglass? Dunno.

Is it cheaper? Most likely not.
 
Acoustic guitar (unless you are capoed way up the neck) has plenty of 'lower' frequencies. Yes, low E is around 83Hz, but there are lower resonances (just use a graphic frequency view to see them). EQ everything out below 160 Hz and the guitar will sound weak and 'body-less'. And its those frequencies below 200Hz that won't be touched by towels or foam.
 
I don't know if that's true that his panel won't catch frequencies below 200 hz. He didn't test them that low, but that doesn't mean it won't help with low frequencies.

I guess we'll have to build one and do the test.
 
Well, the points behind the post were a couple: one, it doesn't cost much money, you just have to think how to do it. And two, you should do it if you need to get your tracking room tamed.

This guy was more or less talking about this more or less in regards to podcasts. But it was underscoring the point of room treatment. When someone says, "I am a poor student", I took this is, yea, you just have to improvise. That was my thought behind the post.
 
I think you can basically use anything to treat sound. Everything works to some degree. It all depends on the cost or how much time you have and also tools and skills.
 
Duvets on a mic boom stand work too, they’re just not pretty. Listening to YouTube videos, these types of room absorbers give huge benefits. Of course they leave any LF issues untouched, but boomy bass is more responsive to EQ. Trying to use EQ on HF issues makes it dull. I’ve got one new nasty honk in my studio at home because I needed to put in a green screen wall for a contract, and to get enough width it spanned the corner with a curve, and the curve introduced a strong resonance centred on 55Hz. Starts at 50, back to normal by 65. I can deal with it with an eq notch, so I’ve kept the walls and the notch is quite workable.
 
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