Building Bass Traps with Home Depot supplies!

  • Thread starter Thread starter arcadeko
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arcadeko

arcadeko

Illuminatius Overlordious
Ok, so I have a HD credit card, I am building a studio. I want to put Bass traps in the two open corners.

Obviously I can get all the framing wood for the structure. What would be the best filler? I have never built a Bass Trap and I have only skimmed the DIY and discussions on the design, so I have a general understanding of their structure.

HD has a lot of material like drywall, 3/4" Foam insulation, anyway - I am sure you know what is at Home Depot.

So can I build a decent Bass Trap with HD materials? And If so what would you recommend?
 
The bass traps need to be filled with either rockwool or owens corning 703 or 705. Home depot doesn't carry either one (at least the one I shop at). You can buy everything else there. I visited a number of local coffee shops and got a bunch of free burlap coffee bags to cover mine.

This is what you want inside: Acoustic Insulation - Order Online, Ships UPS
 
Thanks Zero - I will pick up some Mineral Wool insulation from there - Do the covers have to be out of something as coarse as Burlap? What about a thinner fabric? Does the Burlap help absorb the sound?
 
Burlap does not absorb sound, which is why they're good to allow the sound waves to pass through, and absorb into the insulation. If you use too dense a fabric, or not porous enough a fabric, then the sound bounces back instead of being absorbed.

Breathable fabric. Open weaved burlap works fine for this. You can get burlap from Michael's or JoAnn Fabrics.
 
arcadeko said:
Thanks Zero - I will pick up some Mineral Wool insulation from there - Do the covers have to be out of something as coarse as Burlap? What about a thinner fabric? Does the Burlap help absorb the sound?
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It does not need to be burlap. Pretty much any fabric will do. The thickness of the weave doesn't really change the effectiveness of the bass traps. I do remember reading this from a reliable source.
 
Hey Arc,
Check out the acoustic ceiling tiles, they are made of rigid fiberglass insulation.
You can peel off the vinyl that is on the ceiling side of them, stack them up and put them in a wood frame.
I put a little hot glue in between each tile, and I secured them in teh wooden frame by just shooting a bunch of 2" nails into the sides. I stacked them up to be 4 inches high.
Covered with muslin that had been sprayed with fireproofing spray.
From what I can tell the acoustic ceiling tiles have approximately teh same properties as OC703.
cheers
C>
 
chugheshc said:
Hey Arc,
Check out the acoustic ceiling tiles, they are made of rigid fiberglass insulation.
You can peel off the vinyl that is on the ceiling side of them, stack them up and put them in a wood frame.
I put a little hot glue in between each tile, and I secured them in teh wooden frame by just shooting a bunch of 2" nails into the sides. I stacked them up to be 4 inches high.
Covered with muslin that had been sprayed with fireproofing spray.
From what I can tell the acoustic ceiling tiles have approximately teh same properties as OC703.
cheers
C>
Click to expand...

Awesome Tip Man!!!! Can anyone verify this? This would be Home Depot material and if its pretty close it could work!
 
Very handy link:
http://www.bobgolds.com/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm

Spend some time looking around the internet for using fluffy fiberglass as bass trapping (filling corners with 16" or so of it, or just stacking rolls in the corners). The common thing to do is 4 inches thick of rigid fiberglass panels across corners with an airspace behind (a rectangular room has 12 corners). From what I have read, bass absorption can be covered in about anything, cloth, plastic, whatever, because bass frequencies travel through it (which is why you hear it thumping through the shell of a car). If you want your traps to work on higher frequencies, then a breathable fabric is the ticket.
 
Damn man - I need at least 2 cases (12 pieces) minimum and that's $110 shipped for Roxul Acoustical Fire Batts, Mineral Wool, 2-inch

Then I gots to buy the fabric and build the frames... I guess it's not that much money really - but it seems like a lot of money for something I can't make noise with :)
 
The thing I completely underestimated was staples; I used about 10 times what I expected to, adding an extra $15 to the project's costs.
 
???

Staples are the cheapest component of this construction! A pack of 1000 staples is only $5! You're not using the staples to make chain maile, are you?
 
Home depot will order the oc703 for you if you talk to a sales man or manager.
 
guitar zero said:
...Home depot doesn't carry either one (at least the one I shop at)...
Click to expand...

Most Home Depots in the US can special order Roxul products for you. Walk up to the contractors desk, (you don't have to be a contractor,) and ask them to look for the Roxul catalog. (At my local store in Pennsylvania, the sales staff never even knew the catalog was there. Duh!) We went through it, picked out some Safe-n-Sound panels, and then made a call to Roxul from the store. Presto! 3 large bundles of rockwool in roughly 3 business days.

Tip: First go to the Roxul website and learn about their products. It will help when ordering.
 
The Pro Desk or Contractor's Desk is going to have the various catalogs. They'll be able to order it in for you. But like stated above, go read up on Roxul's product brochures and descriptions on the website.
 
arcadeko said:
Went to HD they said they do not handle Roxul - sent me to Lowes - lowes has it on their website - One pack is enough to make a 9' tall superchunk corner trap.
It comes in 3" X 16" x 48" sheets
The dimensions would be 16" x 16" x 18" with 18 on the face of the triangle. $44 Shop Roxul 12-Pack 15.25"W x R-0 Fiberglass Insulation Batts at Lowes.com
Click to expand...
That's a different product than what I got at HD. Mine was rockwool, not fiberglass. Roxul Safe'n'Sound

Check out the video here. It's pretty good. http://www.roxul.com/residential/residential+videos
 
RawDepth said:
That's a different product than what I got at HD. Mine was rockwool, not fiberglass. Roxul Safe'n'Sound

Check out the video here. It's pretty good. Videos
Click to expand...

Lowes just labeled it wrong - there is no fiber glass in it - in the desccription: User friendly - no fiberglass in product - it's the same thing - safe and sound.
 
This Lowe's stuff doesn't seem to be the rigidized pieces, this is the compressible stuff, right?

To keep your tall stack from compressing and collapsing too much, you may want a few triangle shelves of simple plywood to divide up the space inside.
 
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