deadening a room

[david7287]

Im Doing my first real recording that hopefully is goin to sound good and i was just wonderin if these materials would be ok for deadening and room that has some problems( concrete and kinda big ).



ive heard a lot about the 1 in. fiberglass board things and i was just wonderin if that material is that much different than thick balnkets, furinture foam, actual furniture (couch cushions), and the eggcrate foam you put on your bed.

 

[treymonfauntre]

why are questions about acoustics being asked at an excelerated rate recently?

 

[pdadda]

Browse through the studio buiding forum for a lot of answers to your questions.

 

[bennychico11]

if what you're going to do is a one time thing, you might consider just going to a recording studio and record there. not only will you get a better result, but you won't go through the hassle of trying to treat a room.

truth is, the materials you listed are a half ass way of taming sound. acoustical treatment is science and there is a lot that goes into it...both time, research, and money.
http://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html
this might give you an idea at how much work you're looking at to get a decent sounding room.

that being said, 703 fiberglass IS considered some of the best overall absorbtion material. Unlike blankets and egg crate foam, they will absorb sound almost evenly at all frequencies especially low frequencies which cause most problems in studios. Research more in the studio building/display section on this forum.

 

[Massive Master]

Don't concentrate on "dead" - Concentrate on absorbing LOW END and just "touch up" the reflections.

Ethan's site and www.modularacoustics.com will help.

Oh, and the DIY corner units at www.johnlsayers.com are hard to beat.

 

[Adam P]

This seems like as good a place as any to ask a question I've wondered for a long time... Is there any comparable rigid fiberglass to OC703 that isn't an OC product? I kind of have a thing against Owens Corning...

Edit: Never mind. It occurred to me that maybe I should search the site for my answer, and the name "Knauff" showed up numerous times. Thanks though.

 

[david7287]

welll ive definitely decided against recording in a studio in our price range because i know a band who's recording sucked at the same studio we were looking at, but anyway I was more asking about deadening maybe a small area just big enough for an amp or drumset. Since im one of the members of the band, i can assure you we dont care about the comfort of a big room.

 

[tubesrawsom]

First of all, why do you need to deaden your room? What are you using the room for?

 

[RhythmRmixd]

Don't concentrate on "dead" - Concentrate on absorbing LOW END and just "touch up" the reflections.

Advice well taken!

 

[ecktronic]

First of all, why do you need to deaden your room? What are you using the room for?

Could it be for recording?? "Amp and drum set"

 

[acorec]

why are questions about acoustics being asked at an excelerated rate recently?

Because these people have run out of money replacing their mics, pre-amps, cables and monitors looking for "the problem" with their recordings.

 

[HapiCmpur]

Is there any comparable rigid fiberglass to OC703 that isn't an OC product?

This might help you: http://www.bobgolds.com/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm

 

[alevy]

I was wondering the same thing for a long time. So to deaden my room I bought about three boxes of auralex foam squares from guitar center. I took a corner in my room and used it as half of a cube shape booth l_ and then I bought some wood from home depot (some cheap press board for like $30 I think) and did the other half _l of my booth.

When some body came to my studio they told me I did it wrong. Is there a such thing as too dead? I pretty much covered up everything inside of the booth with the foam. The guy told me I could have skipped spots and did the foam similar to a checker board. I don't know. Every home studio I've ever been to doesn't even have a full booth and a lot aren't sound proof anyway. So I just left my booth until I got a second opinion. Lol. Is auralex even that good anyway?

 

[lpdeluxe]

The problem with "dead" is that it sounds unnatural. An electric guitar player in a dead room will be constantly turning up his amp to make it sound "right" and it won't work. We are used to there being a little reflection everywhere, and the key is not to get rid of it, but to control it. My room (20' X 13' X 8") is "live" rather than "dead. It has a reflective ceiling, one wall of varnished wood, three walls of sheetrock, indoor/outdoor carpet, a large bass trap in one corner, and it sounds great. I don't add reverb to my mixes because the room sound is better.

Auralex is good stuff, just use it for its intended purpose, which is to tame nasty corner reflections and diffuse sound in areas where standing waves lurk. There's a tremendous amount of information on the web, and a couple of good sites have had links posted. Check them out. Otherwise you're driving down a dark road at night with no lights.

 

[david7287]

Ah i see... so if I have two concrete walls, A popcorn type ceiling, two sheetrock walls and indoor\outdoor carpeting, I would need to cover the concrete and let the sheet rock do the rest of the reflecting, and finally get some bass traps in at least two of the corners ( i have quite a bit of stuff down there in the corners ). So after all that i guess i could test the guitar sound and drum sound with the room i described above and then ill try it again with surrounding the amp or drumset with blankets or somethin if i think its too live.

 

[david7287]

oh yeah by the way i guess the cheapest way to make a bass trap would be to get a peice of thick fiberglass board an put it in the corner. And yes i did read http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html#bass traps.
Speaking of that websitehow much do the "bales of fluffy rolled up fiberglass" cost?

 

[fraserhutch]

Ah i see... so if I have two concrete walls, A popcorn type ceiling, two sheetrock walls and indoor\outdoor carpeting, I would need to cover the concrete and let the sheet rock do the rest of the reflecting, and finally get some bass traps in at least two of the corners ( i have quite a bit of stuff down there in the corners ). So after all that i guess i could test the guitar sound and drum sound with the room i described above and then ill try it again with surrounding the amp or drumset with blankets or somethin if i think its too live.

Man, get thee over to the Studio Building forums, where these questions have been answered many times. Look up Ethan Winer and Rick Fitzgerald, just to name two.

 

[daav]

Ah i see... so if I have two concrete walls, A popcorn type ceiling, two sheetrock walls and indoor\outdoor carpeting, I would need to cover the concrete and let the sheet rock do the rest of the reflecting, and finally get some bass traps in at least two of the corners ( i have quite a bit of stuff down there in the corners ). So after all that i guess i could test the guitar sound and drum sound with the room i described above and then ill try it again with surrounding the amp or drumset with blankets or somethin if i think its too live.

Speaking with no actual experience but having read through the studio building forums, i would imagine that it would also be suggested to use some quater-inch plywood (or something similar), mounted on the wall with a slight curve to spread the reflections a bit more, which apparently avoids spots were the waves reinforce too much or dead space where the reflections are out of phase enough to cancel each other out.

Daav