Begining Treatment

[aaronmcoleman]

Hello, I am going to start treating my room. Its 12'x12'x8'. It pings when I snap my fingers and has some mega reflection problems that make my bass sound terrible, and adds weird ringing around 300hz, 1200hz, and a few other spots. I can post some pictures later if that'll help. This is a new room to me since I just moved, so I don't want to get used to mixing/recording in a bad room and have to relearn when I get it better.

So, I can only do a little bit at a time because the room is also my wife's sewing room when I'm not making music. So I want to start with the most basic most useful treatments, then do some more once she gets used to the idea!

From what I've read, bass traps first, then first reflection traps correct? Is this corner traps (i.e. corner wedges), and/or the 4'x2'x4" traps? Then once they are built where do I put them or how do I figure out where to put them.

I've read a lot on this site and others and always want to ask questions on other people's threads, so I thought I'd start my own to avoid hijacking.

Thanks a ton. Oh, I'm also pretty handy so I can build this stuff myself, I just need to know what to build and where to put it.

 

[Dogbreath]

Yup...I'd start with bass traps first. And go with 4 inch thick instead of 2.

Start with the corners OR if ya can, do "superchunks". They go from floor to ceiling.
Basically they're OC 703 or Roxul , cut into triangles that you stack in the corners until you reach the ceiling and then build a frame with some nice fabric.

Do a search around here. There's lots of good threads on bass traps and superchunks. I just did chunks last summer and it worked out great. I took pics and posted a thread here.

Check thru man. Good stuff abounds.

 

[Obi-Wan zenabI]

I like the sound of my room, which is more like 15x25x7'2". Not really the same size as yours, but I treated the heck out of the front wall by my mixing station, with a 6'x4' cloud above it. I put lots of books along the side walls and leaving the back wall and ceilings clear.

I think that this cleans up the sound while leaving part of the room reflective to keep a lively tone in the room.

I bet the 300 and 1200 hz weirdness are related since they are multiples of eachother. Bass trap the heck out of things and don't overtreat with the hi frequency stuff and things should improve.

 

[Obi-Wan zenabI]

It's still a little boxy, but much improved...

 

[aaronmcoleman]

I like the hanging corner traps. They don't need to be full length? Also, did you just randomly throw the wall traps up, or is there some reason they are where they are? I'm brand new to treatment so my questions are probably a bit dumb but oh well, I'll learn.

I think I'm going to build 4 24"x48"x4" corner traps really soon. Will I notice a significant difference with just that?

Thanks a ton!

 

[RAMI]

did you just randomly throw the wall traps up, or is there some reason they are where they are? I'm brand new to treatment so my questions are probably a bit dumb but oh well, I'll learn.

Not dumb at all. We all learned by asking questions.

I'm far from being an expert, but what I've heard many of the experts here saying is that the important thing is to not have 2 bear walls facing each other. So, space your traps on one wall so that the bear wall is facing a covered part of the opposite wall. It might be more technical than that, but I think that's a good starting point.

 

[aaronmcoleman]

Cool. I feel like I know a fair amount about recording (which doesn't always translate into good mixes though)! But this treatment stuff is a whole different sort of knowledge.

Until I get more technical knowledge, I think I'm going to build four corner traps and a few wall traps and start throwing them up and seeing what happens. I'll try to make sure bare walls aren't opposite bare walls. I have a closet and a door on the wall behind my "mixing desk" so that will probably become a problem eventually.

I'm pretty maxed out for time right now, school gets in the way of everything! So this is likely going to become summer project. Just gathering info right now.

Thanks for all of the help guys!

 

[Obi-Wan zenabI]

I like the hanging corner traps. They don't need to be full length? Also, did you just randomly throw the wall traps up, or is there some reason they are where they are? I'm brand new to treatment so my questions are probably a bit dumb but oh well, I'll learn.

I think I'm going to build 4 24"x48"x4" corner traps really soon. Will I notice a significant difference with just that?

Thanks a ton!

I think you'll notice the difference with the four corner traps right away. I just have those two up and it tightened up the room considerably. I still have a bunch more 703 that I could frame up and hang. But the room got so nice after just those that i've been too lazy to do more.

I can see no reason why they necessarily need to extend floor to ceiling. More bass trapping, I'm told, is generally better, but I'm sure you'll get results with just four hanging traps such as the ones I've built. I left them open in back, and just staplegunned the material from joann fabric to the back.

For your reference, here is an MS paint mock up of the design that I came up with when first putting up the treatment. Some of the red lines on the walls indicate treatment.

Rear view of a panel:

I placed the other treatment (the 24"x48"x2" panels hung flat on the walls) where I did for three reasons:

1. To treat "first reflection points" of my monitors. Anywhere you could put a mirror on a wall or ceiling and see your monitors is a first reflection point. Check out how I treated the ceiling first reflection points:

2. To treat reflection points of my home stereo setup since I also use the room as a listening room from the couch further back.

3. To generally deaden one half of the space.

Rami's comment about making sure that no two surfaces are reflective comes into play here. If one end of the room was heavily treated and the other live, I'd still get a nice live sound in the room without the flutter echoes and weird nodes of an untreated room. I think I'd like to treat the ceiling a bunch more and see if I can get some more of the remaining boxiness out of the room.

Good luck!