a booth for me and a box for my loud mac?

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boze

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hi folks- here's my sitch:

PART ONE- THE COMP
my new tower is a new 'windtunnel' g4 dp867. 5 fans in it and it sounds like a dustbuster when the aux fans on the powersupply kick in. so i want to put it in/under a box or something if i can because there are no closets anywhere near by and even outside of recording it's just annoyingly loud. the thing is, i'd need a door to access the cd tray in the front and i'd also need a place for all the cables out the back- preferably with an option to swap out the firewire drive for my laptop (a fw extension cable would probably do the trick on that if they make such a thing).

so how to buy/build a solid box that makes this room less hummy to start with but still gives me convenient access to the front of my tower. advice on general approach, materials, construction would be helpful because i don't know much about isolation or sound absorbsion. also, these new macs are getting deservedly badmouthed on a number of issues and since i plugged in my new fw drive i'm hearing a beep noise from the tower that might be heat related so i'm curious about what a box would do about that whole thing. the damn 5 fans should be enough to keep air moving in there as loud as they are!:)

PART TWO- THE BOOTH

i'm thinking the best way to get a quiet area for recording is to make some kind of booth in my dining room, but the whole appt has lowish ceilings and bare wood floors and the front of the house has dormers that give it unusual lines.

i'm thinking of putting a booth inside the dormer look at the right side of this pic here: http://www.boze.net/jpg/afterDR.jpg the walls are plasterboard so i'd have to put mollies in it to hold anything of substance. i've seen in mag where a tent of egg crates was suspended from the ceiling...

i'm not sure on this one, the booth should be able to accomodate guitar, vox, bass, trumpet or sax in isolation and ideally i'd like something i can snap together and then take down and have my livingroom back. the rooms in my appt have a ton of reflections right now but i'm not trying to auralex the whole diningroom- i'd rather just have one really tight booth that me and my player friends could take turns getting locked into for tracking.

does density have to mean heavy? is there some solution like plywood with auralex or something and then hinge them together into a box? i'm just thinking if it could be really isolated but still not too heavy it would be easier to errect and take down. and we all like easy errection!

ahem...

anyway, thanks- sorry the post is so long.
 
no ideas?

sorry to reply to my own post, but doesn't anybody have any suggestions for me?

i'm thinking now that the best thing might be to foam up the bedroom- the lack of dormers make it bigger and i'd just have to tilt my bed up against the wall if i needed extra space.

not sure of the cheapest least invasive way to make a bedroom quiet for recording.. and i just did a test and you can still here the computer from in there, so something needs to happen still to box it up..

thx again..
 
damn!

i just read the acoustics101.com site and now i'm thinking maybe folks aren't interested in commenting on my bedroom situation because it's just so lame compared to the ppl here who are building studio's.

i feel like there's hope for that bedroom idea though- it's all tiny and echoey in there now, and it has 3 windows, but i'm not above doing it up with auralex- might be cozy actually.

the room is like 10'x13' with wood floors and a low ceiling of maybe 7 1/2'.

how much auralex, how thick and where should i put it?

if i get that spray stuff from them and put auralex blocks all over the ceiling and walls, will i be able to take them with me if and when i move out of my appt? will making the walls look presentable again be a problem?
 
Dude, sorry for replying soooo late. About the acoustics of the room, you might wanna check out other threads here or visit this site and browse through the topics:
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

As for the isloation box for the PC, right now I am looking for a blueprint of that that is in one of these threads somewhere. Try searching for isolation box with the search engine, I will do it now and if i am successful, I'll post it here.
 
Thanks Lonsoughtfor, that was the blueprint i was looking for. BTW, I think there was another one somewhere around here but I don't seem to find it.
 
thanks guys!

better late than never =)

i checked those links- had the first one already and i guess i still need to poke around there.

i think i'm more curious about treating the bedroom effectively now than boxing in the tower. i mean i'd like to do both, but the iso box at that second link doesn't have measurements or materials or tools or steps or real pix or anything.

i'll search around some more on that one.

i think since the auralexing the bedroom is kind of a big task that involves money i'd like to be clear on what the different issues are and what i should be doing to get the best results.

i want to think that this is a pretty common idea for home recording folks so there must be something i just haven't found yet.

i'm kinda worried that if i get a bunch of auralex and hush up the reflections in the walls i'll still be stuck with the low ceiling and wood floors and my louder players won't track well.

ah well-- i'm broke right now as it is so $300 in foam isn't on the top of my list anyway.

appreciate the links and thanks for taking the time to help =)
 
Boze, I am still looking for the blueprint I wrote about, that one had a list of materials and measurements, the thing is that I dont remember if I downloaded it from here or from somewhere else,,,,,oooooooohhhhh, now I remember, i had it in a Word doc in my PC, not as an image like I thought I did, that's why yesterday I couldn't find it!!!!!!!!!! When I get home tonite I'll do another search through my Docs, i am sure I'll find it and then I'll post it here......:D
 
Taming the highs is the easier part.I spent $25 on a large roll of bubblewrap and lined a walkin closet,damping the highs down about 30dB.But rooms of any decent size will have low bass build up that the foam-type solutions don't address.It takes bass traps to absorb those low notes.
Tune a radio or TV to an "inbetween" channel and record the broadband noise-static in your intended room with your flattest mic.Maybe you have one of the ECM8000s available for about $30-40?.Look at that track on a frequency analyzer.Use the log. setting if available to see the bass better.Armed with the actual peaks your room produces,you can calculate the dimensions of the bass traps from available formulae.
 
Hello boze, welcome to the board. Say, one thing you have to learn here, like I did, is it takes a while for people to answer, cause most of em have a REAL life. And they don't mind sharing info, but only at their convienence. Crap, when I came here, I thought everyone was just hanging here waiting for MY questions.:rolleyes: What a moron. Anyway, as to your delimas, they share a common bond. And that is air. Both the computer enclosure, and the booth need it. And that is the real problem, because if you completely seal an enclosure, to make it soundproof, you also make it airproof, hence the delima. There are ways to do it, but just building a box with hinges is asking for a very uncomfortable place for humans, and your computer will hate you. But not for long. The next delima, is structural sound transmission. Vibration at audio frequencys transfer faster and better in materials than in air. Therefore, each must be structurally isolated also. That means floating the booth, and the computer too! Or the computer enclosure. Also, what is the booth for? Amps, vocals, drums? In otherwords, how much isolation do you need? 50db, 75 db 120 db? How loud do you expect the sound in the booth to be? These are the sort of questions you have to answer first. People here can only truly help if they have information. There is no sense in building a booth with a STC of 75, if you only need 30. I see your room is on a second floor, correct. And the floor is wood, which makes for a great sound in the room. However, its also a perfect medium for sound transmission to the rooms below. Mass is what stops transmission. Unless it is a structural membrane. Upper floors, are actually a perfect membrane for transmission. Also, a booth is HEAVY. And load localized. I've seen people put things in an upper area of a building that actually caused the floor to collapse.(Waterbeds are a perfect example :rolleyes:) Are there other people living there who would object to sound eminating through the floor? How about neighbors? How are you using the booth. As an isolator for one type of instrument from another? Or do you track one instrument at a time? Anyway, give us as much info as you can, and then you will get the best out of the forum. I know this didn't answer your questions yet, and everyone has their own opinions, and some have actually done it already. But you may not connect with them. Do a search here first. Theres probably lots of replys related to these questions already.
Hey bose, is that a Ampeg B15 in the pic? Cool. Nice room too! And BTW, I'm no expert at these things, I just like to extract info for the ones that are.:D :rolleyes: Well, I've opened my mouth too long now. Later. I'll be back.
fitz:)
 
good stuff guys- thanks.

let me give you some background on what i'm up to musically and the general room situation.

second floor- correct. the bedroom is probably a good candidate because it's the only real room in the appt that doesn't have dormers. (the ampeg in the pic is just a jet reissue +)

usage:
tracking one player at a time- no need to isolate the booth noise from anyplace else. and i'm leaning more toward trying to treat the whole bedroom since the room isn't that big to begin with and there are no suitable closets in the whole place.

kinds of players: vocal, guitar, bass, viola, trumpet, saxaphone, posibly drums- it would be a good option because there's a good drummer avail to me but he won't have his own recording setup any time soon. one at a time will be fine.

styles will range, but i don't make particularly loud music. i'm a jazz guitarist and i do brokenbeat stuff and hiphop tempo'd stuff, but mainly i'll need to be one instrument at a time as part of making a beat that has some live and some triggered elements. loudness would only be necessary if one of the players needed it for timbre or whatever- like if the horn player wanted to get all fired up.

i have a genesis3 amp modeler that i'm happy to use for my guitar stuff, so i guess that makes the loudest most troublesome instruments the bass, drums and horns.

but like i said, no worries about neighbors or housemates- just trying to get a good recording from my room.

i have two AT4033 condensers and one shure sm58, these run into an 01v, motu2408, and g4 dp867. i have event 20/20bas monitors and the whole kit is in the livingroom where the loud tower shouldn't be too much of a problem. the rest of the house is quiet as is the neighborhood- no car noise or anything.

i have no experience mic'ing so i don't know if the drummer is even realistic with my hw setup. still even an underlying brush track with some stiff sampled hits and kicks would be a great step up for the whole brokenbeat project.

thanks again for all your patience and advice.

so will i be glueing something to my walls or hanging something in front of them? bubblewrapping the ceiling??

i'm just trying to get some ideas in my head about what works. i'm open to doing the work for basstraps, but not so much on floating a booth inside the room that would make it less of a bedroom and a superbother to setup and take down.

i would hope to be able to do something proper to the walls and ceiling and then just put good mics in the right place and track.

just thinking out loud..

happy holidays y'all and thanks again =)
 
Since volume is not an issue you have it made. Don't waste the time and money on isolation. Since you don't have a dedicated space it will only cause setup, tear down and living problems. Room treatment is expensive and you can do some good recordings with out it but here are some options:

http://www.primacoustic.com/index.html
http://www.auralex.com/

I have the same problem of an extremely loud PC. My system also has five fans in it. I don't know if these will work for a Mac but here is what I have been looking into.

http://www.quietpcusa.com/
http://fredrik.hubbe.net/silence/fans.html
 
Hi bose, say, hang in there till after the database gets moved. You have the makings of a really good sounding room. Just gotta do some things to it to accomplish what your trying to do with the space. So is this your bedroom also, or your using a bedroom.
All home studios are variations on compromise. Thats not to say you can't make a decent recording. I think with some 703 folding panels(reflective one side, absorber on the opposite)gobos on wheels, or freestanding and foldup with hinges, or something like that, an absorber cloud of some sorts, or 703 panels on the ceiling/walls. The locations will be decided by your room compromises. Your bed for one, which actually can be an absorber if used correctly. I even have a 3" thick foam rubber pad which pulls out of a platform under my console, that I use when my grandkids stay:D My studio is in a 9' x 11' bedroom too! But with the high ceiling, dormers, wood floors, angled ceiling, it will be interesting. Well have a good holiday. Keep in touch if you want to go further. A floor plan to scale would help if you have a drawing program that allows you to post it here. That way we see what your intention is.
fitz:)
 
Boze, I found the doc I told you about, actually it is the blueprint for a kind of isloation case for the puter. Give me an email and I'll send you the doc tonite.;)
 
even better, i'll paste it here for everyone's enjoyment. it has a pretty accurate list of materials, measurements and directions for building it.
 
why don't you attach the file here, maybe a .txt file or a zipped word file? Cheers, Andrés
 
OK, YOU ALL ASKED FOR IT AND NOW YOU ARE GONNA GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


ENJOY!!!!!!!!
 
Darn it, I made a fool of myself....:( I cannot post the Doc because it is 304 KB and the forum only allows 100. Send me all your email or tell me where to post it, if you want it.:rolleyes:
 
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