mid-bass absorbtion using bottles on the wall -idea

  • Thread starter Thread starter smidgie
  • Start date Start date
good tips. thanks. now i'm starting turn away from the bottle idea i think. i almost want to build some slat resonators or something.

to reply to kelly's question... my room is 9' wide, 12'6" long and 7'8" high. i'll be mixing in it. also, i've got another room that i will be recording in. it's slightly larger and more square.
 
I think the bottles are a great idea.

Think of those amazing Baroque opera houses. They are chuck full of ornamentation which breaks up the sound and creates a beautiful ambience. Bottles will get you closer to that model than boring slat resonators. Lets face it, you’re not going to come up with a perfectly balanced sound field on a shoestring budget. I’m not sure there even is such a thing. It always comes down to taste. Glass, plastic, wood, cloth... it’s all good.

Don’t worry about theoretical perfection. If you want that, build an anechoic chamber and add all your ambience electronically. If you want the sound of a real place, experiment a lot and build a studio with warmth and character. Shoot for perfect mediocrity in your control room.
 
smidgie,
According to your room dimensions the frequencies of the lowest standing waves are approximately as follows:

44, 61, 71, 75, 84, 88, 94Hz...

The higher modes above 71Hz start to clump together. This is good. They smear into one another. The problems are those wide gaps between 44, 61 and 71Hz. This means that frequencies close to 44 and 61Hz will have distinct peaks or dips in response depending on where you place your mics. Also, these notes will tend to ring out and color other bass notes.

The square room will have even more distinct modes.
 
thanks alot for your help everyone. you guys really helped me.
 
I think the bottle thing is a helluva a good idea!. Great info too, you guys!
I wonder what material would be the best to absorb the sound waves, though. Fiberglass insulation? I wonder how that would work ... stuffing insulation in all these bottles and then blowing on them to see if the resonance is absorbed properly. Sounds like I'd be picking glass out of my lips for weeks. :)
I wonder if there's an alternative that's easier on the face and would stand up to being crammed into the bottle a little better. Foam maybe? any ideas?
I only have *one* 2L bottle of pepsi so far, so this is more thinking about it rather than planning it. I think you could build a pretty good frame to hang the bottles on and cover it with fabric so it doesn't look that weird.
It may not be the most accurate low/mid absorber, but it's gotta be better than sleeping bags. ;)
Really good idea, thanks.
 
BigKahuna,
Open cell foam is fine, but fiberglass is probably cheapest... unless you have a free source. Wool fill is acoustically the most efficient, but it’s expensive and you need to mothproof it. It doesn’t make sense for this application.

You only need to test one of each bottle type, then use the same amount of damping material in the rest. Also, don’t put the fabric cover too close the bottle openings. The air needs to move freely in the neck.

One other thing that just might improve the efficiency, but would be much more difficult to implement, is mounting the bottles with the openings facing the wall. You would need to leave about a one inch space between the bottle opening and the wall. The gaps between round bottles should be enough to let the bass through. This puts the absorbing end directly in the pressure zone, similar to a PZM (pressure zone microphone).
 
barefoot said:
BigKahuna,
Open cell foam is fine, but fiberglass is probably cheapest... unless you have a free source. Wool fill is acoustically the most efficient, but it’s expensive and you need to mothproof it. It doesn’t make sense for this application.

You only need to test one of each bottle type, then use the same amount of damping material in the rest. Also, don’t put the fabric cover too close the bottle openings. The air needs to move freely in the neck.

One other thing that just might improve the efficiency, but would be much more difficult to implement, is mounting the bottles with the openings facing the wall. You would need to leave about a one inch space between the bottle opening and the wall. The gaps between round bottles should be enough to let the bass through. This puts the absorbing end directly in the pressure zone, similar to a PZM (pressure zone microphone).
Click to expand...

Well, with a Hot Glue gun, you could glue the bastards together! Just make a hug wall of plastic....
You know, this thing could be made from PVC pipe!;P (Using PVC instead of Bottles) and you can get adapters to vary the size of the openings.

HMMMMMMMMM!!! I might have to play around with this some.

Tim
 
Here's how to determine whether or not you want to do the soda bottle thing.
If you're seriously just doing HOME RECORDING, then it's fine. The great thing about home recording is you get decent quality recordings, and no one has to see WHERE you recorded, it's a mystery.
If you're going to have clients come to your studio, I would definately not recommend the bottle idea, for the obvious reasons. It's the same reason you don't want to use cheap Wal-Mart bed foam on your walls.

Those are the two questions I ask myself when making decisions on what to use in my studio. I've made the choice to only use orthadox methods because I will, more than likely, be recording other bands, sooner or later. We have come up with a REALLY cool new idea for our floor, using John's coffee shop story about the concrete floor that looks like honey was poored on it, and some ideas of our own. I'm not going to give the idea away, you'll just have to wait for pictures when we're done, trust me though, it's going to be one of the coolest things you've seen. :) And I'm SURE it will impress clients.

Soda bottles?? John, you're weird. :)

Later,
-Brian
 
Where exactly is the link to this DIY? Or is there one? Just wondering what type of insulation, how to attach to wall, how many holes to poke and what size (if any), lid on or off, etc?
 
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