Finishing up home studio ... mounting carpet on walls?

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SurfMonster

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I am a recording hobbyist and a guitar player. I am currently working on finishing off a home studio in the 3rd garage of a 3 car garage. I have taken all the steps I feel necessary in terms of sound isolation, but am looking at finishing off the interior walls with a two-tone indoor / outdoor carpet. By two-tone, I mean the lower half of the wall being dark grey / black (Matching the floor), the upper half being a lighter tone. I have seen this done in home theaters and while it's acoustical attributes will be minimal, asthetically, it looks awesome.

My questions:

1. Has anyone done this in their studio? Any downsides?

2. What is the best way to adhere the carpet to the drywall ?

Thanks in advance for the advice !
 
Haven't heard of anyone doing it because, as you say, the acoustic benefit is negligible. No idea how to get it onto a wall and have it look acceptable; maybe talk to a carpet installer.

Alex
 
Carpeting mostly only absorbs high frequencies. No matter how awesome it may LOOK, it certainly won't SOUND that way. I REALLY would NOT recommend it. What you need is more even absorption of ALL frequencies. If you just use the carpet, you'll think somebody put pillows over your speakers... Steve
 
Carpet sucks donkey balls bad bad.
go to foambymail.com or someplace like that and get some bass traps, and some foam panels and read about acoustics and do it up right. You can get 12 metrofusors for like $120 at fullcompass.com Diffusion is almost always better than absorption, in my opinion. Get a little of both and some bass traps and do it up. Spend a few bucks, be happy.
Carpet sucks ass.
 
Yeah, but other than that, do you like it? :=)
 
Oh, by the way SurfMonster - if you would like to know more about acoustics and haven't just decided to do the carpet thing against all advice, we can point you to some good primer info on acoustics - or, you could read some of the threads on that subject here, there are several... Steve
 
Thanks ... I will do more research.

I was planning to do the carpet thing on only 2 of the walls (internal walls), the other two have tall built in cabinets on them and they would remain uncarpeted. I would used very thin indoor / outdoor carpet on the 2 walls ... then compliment the acoustics with other foam / traps. The carpet idea was is mostly for aesthetics but with a benefit of some damping of the drywall to cut down on the sympathetic vibration that would transmit through the studs to the extenal world (i.e. would not get absorbed by the fiberglass in the walls). Knock on a big piece of drywall with your knuckles and then do the same with a piece of thin carpet mounted on it ... big difference !

I guess my thinking that with thin carpet and not doing all walls, it would be a net sum benefit ... but this is new stuff to me.

I guess with a thin carpet, you could look at it like a thicker wallpaper. BUT, you guys have got me thinking more before doing ... thanks!
 
Here's a couple of places to get a good start on acoustics ed - This one's a UK commercial site, but lotta help -

http://www.customaudio.freeserve.co.uk/techfrmset.htm

this one's available as an email subscription or just browsing (click on EVERYTHING)

http://www.studiotips.com/

And, of course, this one (if you haven't already been there)

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

Both the SAE site and the Studiotips site have absorption charts, check out carpet in those tables, you'll see what we're talking about...

I hope this helps your decision process - at first it'll probably make you wish you'd not seen it, but in the long run knowledge is power... Steve
 
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