Acoustically treating the sound room

  • Thread starter Thread starter mr. torture
  • Start date Start date
M

mr. torture

Member
I have finally been able to track down some Rigid Fiberglass and will be preparing to treat my sound room. The control room is seperate from where the amps, vocals etc. are. and I will get to that as soon as I set up the sound room.
I will be recording metal music meaning big guitars and vocals
and would like to know how to properly treat the room.
The room size is as follows:
Length= 31'
width= 12-1/2'
height= 7-1/2'
(This is a basement)
one wall protrudes out 6" on the 31' length for a distance of 10'
in the center of it.
the other walls are straight.
The ceiling is open joist with regular fiberglass in between.
It has a cement floor.
If someone could give me a rough idea on what type of placement of panels I should have in a room of that size It would be greatly appreciated.
I am planning on building the traps on Ethan's site low/mid/high
absorbers.
I will have 1" and 2" thick owens corning fiberglass panels.
Thanks!!
 
First, basements are usually pretty solid walls; either concrete block or solid concrete - this means more bass in the room than if the walls were more flexible, so more bass trapping is required to get to a "neutral" sounding room.

Second, your room comes really close to having its dimensions be multiples of each other, so there will likely be some problem frequencies - the more treatment (trapping, absorption mainly) the less these will stand out and cause problems.

Third, you mentioned nothing about sound proofing - is that NOT a problem, or an oversight? Acoustics within the room and sound isolation from inside to outside are two entirely different, but still inter-related, problems.

Fourth, you will need to clarify just how "live" or "dead" you want your room - generally, if you use too much thin absorbent (especially carpet and drapes) you'll suck all the "shimmer" out of the room - it's better to record things a bit too bright, then reduce the top end with EQ at mixdown, than to record them too "dull", and have to ADD top end - equalizers, both digital and analog, tend to sound better with less phasing problems when you use them to cut rather than boost. In either case, less = more.

If you can clarify what you think you need after all the above comments, we can come a lot closer to helping you get it... Steve
 
Thanks for the reply. Bass is bad in the room I know this for a fact so I will be building bass traps in all 4 corners. The room is completely finished with drywall and insulated just the floor is bare concrete and the ceiling is open joist.

Soundproofing is not needed where I am located.

I was thinking of building ethan's trap designs low, mid, high
and running them right down every wall with maybe 2" of spacing between each trap. I was also thinking of building the low-low bass traps (4" of rigid fiberglass) and stradle the corners.
Is this too much absorbtion?

I am also thinking of doing a "cloud" per ethan's design on one half of the ceiling.

I guess i really dont know if I need a live or dead room
The style of music is Metal , example: Black Sabbath, Maiden, Preist etc.

This is all so new to me as I never had access to these forums when I first started to get into recording because that was pre- Internet!
These sites are such a treasure to have around and I want to use any information I can to do the room correctly.
Thank you!!
 
Ethan's panel traps won't hurt high frequency absorption characteristics, because they don't absorb highs much at all. They will help your bass problem quite a bit. The corner absorbers will also help, as will doing a cloud at least over the mix position.

One other thing I've had good luck with for single room studios is to build false walls at the mix end, forming a trapezoid to kill flutter echo and eliminate early reflections from the side walls without deadening things too much. You would still use a cloud over this, and it can keep the room brighter if that's what you need.

Your concrete floor is a good thing, you may want to just stain it. I've seen some really beautiful stained concrete floors, and that way you can add area throw rugs only where you want them without sucking all the highs out of the room... Steve
 
knightfly, Thanks for the reply I signed up with John sayer's site
and asked the same questions to see if anybody over there had some opinions on the matter, then I noticed that you were the moderator!

Do you think it would be a good plan to run the traps right down the walls on all 4 walls alternating high, mid, low and really low 4" panels in the corners?

Thanks again!!
 
If you need that many bass traps (and you just might) there are other ways that are simpler to build - but first, could you possibly post a basic floor plan of your space and tell me if you could afford to lose 2-3 feet of length in the room if it improved your sound drastically? Thanks... Steve
 
Steve,

> Ethan's panel traps won't hurt high frequency absorption characteristics, because they don't absorb highs much at all. <

Just to clarify, the plans on my web site show two types of panel traps, and also 703-based absorbers for mid and high frequencies. So all three types work together as a total system to treat the entire range.

--Ethan
 
Thanks Ethan, I made the mistake of assuming he was referring to the panel traps, since those are the most commonly associated with you -

Mr. Torture, one thing I forgot to mention is that generally control rooms are kept somewhat deader than tracking rooms - so in a one-room facility, figuring out a means of "variable acoustics" can be a help to getting best results... Steve
 
I can easily afford to lose the 2-3 feet of length in the room.
Especially if I can drastically improve the room.
Please let me know and thanks again.
 
Printed out your plan, I'll play with it when I get some time... Steve
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top