MOTU or Auralex?

  • Thread starter Thread starter moelar2
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moelar2

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I just recently put together a computer based recording rig. I use Cubase VST32 5.0 in a stacked AMD Athlon w/audiophile 2496. I formerly used a Roland VS840EX to record. Here's what I have to decide on:

1. Should I sell my Roland (i can get $450 for it)?
2. If I do sell, should I focus on finishing the acoustic treatment for my 8X10 Iso Room? It needs a lot of work - I plan on just buying the bass traps for all four corners and then just getting as much 2x4 auralex foam as I can get for the rest of the room.
3. Or, should I just use that money and put it towards getting a MOTU interface, probably the MKII ($899 @ GC).

Basically, I'm considering the difference in quality between the current sound card and the MOTU vs. the difference between an auralexed room and my current room.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
 
Email the guy at AMFoam.com for 80.00 they sell two sheets of studio foam 100"x80". It is the same as the auralux. and is fire retardent.
 
Darrin,

I tried going to the site but it doesn't have anything on it? Do you have his email address or other pertinent info?

Thanks!
 
Darrin,

Yeah...that page has nothing on it. This is an excellent deal, though, and I wanna get in on it!

moelar2, if it really came down between getting foam or a better soundcard, I would definitly go with the card!

Darth
 
Darth - that does sound like the most logical thing to do.

I think that the parts that are suffering the most are drums and guitars. They both sound real good, but I really have to work at it. If I put the amp outside the iso room, this goes for the drums as well, my desired sound is much more easily achieved. Its clear to me that the iso room has sonic problems - I'm tempted to get the room sounding good first, then see how much that improves my sound. Chances are that might be the solution I'm looking for.

Now that I'm on the subject though, how should I approach the Auralex deal? I don't have any spectral analyzers or things of that sort, so its really only up to my ear to determine what frequencies need dampening. Should I just go balls-out and auralex the whole room, or should I put 4x6 rectangles on each wall?

T H A N K S ! ! !
 
i just bought primacoustic's london-12 package (i'm going to buy 2 more bass traps later) and the monitor isolators by auralex.

why do you want to dampen so much?

the only thing you'll have left in your iso-room is the BOOM of the lower frequencies that your foam can't absorb/diffuse.

what is the size of your iso-room (it should not be sqaure, nor should the height, width, length be multiples of each other)?
 
the email addresses are on the site. as there are plenty of bass trap plans on the web.

At that price you could have both.
 
Crosstudio

That's precisely my problem - my room is 8x8x8 - perfect nightmare. I have attached two pictures to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Basically, I'm planning on lining the four corners with bass traps, covering the top half with auralex boards, and the bottom half with Carpet.

What do you guys think?
 

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Here's another Pic.
 

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Hey Molar...Is that a garage door opener I see in the first pic?
 
You should probably get rid of that...It will probably make alot of noise when you old man is pulling in the driveway getting ready to park his car after a long day at work...Why dont you get a job Slacker!!!lol
 
The piece of s*&t doesn't work. So we're good in that department.

Job slacker?
 
adding padding to the walls, ceiling and floor to deaden the sound is a great idea, and the less bounce around you have the better it is going to be for you.

there is a formula in recording magazine's issue last month that shows you how to calculate your rooms natural standing wave frequencies.

you take the 1rst/2nd/etc. multiples of the standing wave in the X,Y and Z planes. Any frequencies between the X, Y and Z that are within 5hz of each other are a standing wave issue.

for an 8x8x8 room, the standing room in the X is the same as the standing wave in the Y, & Z.

for instance if your standing wave is at 40hz, then you are going to have a problem with 40, 80, 160, 320hz. according to Dave Moulton, after 500hz or so, you can't really notice the problem.

if i were you, i'd find a way to change the width and length of your room. my room is 14x10x8 and it sounds pretty OK, but the parallel walls are an issue.
 
Crosstudio

I really wish changing the room size was a feasable option - unfortunately its not though.

Building the resonators, however, sounds very do-able. I looked up the formula for building the resonators - looks easy. It does say, however, that it is multiple frequencies, not exponential, that will also be troubling. So, as in your example, if I have a problem at 40HZ, I would also have problems with: 80hz, 120hz, 160hz, etc... (as opposed to 80, 160, and 320). Does this sound correct?
 
naw, its all about octaves:

40hz, 80hz, 160hz are octave multiples, so it's not a matter of adding 40, it is about the length of the wave form.

1130 / (2 * 8) = 70.625hz

since your room is square, your standing waves will be at multiples of 70.625hz:

70.625
141.25
282.50
565.00

are we talking about the recording room that is adjacent to your mixing room or the mixing room itself?
 
Its the recording room; the one with the drums inside. The mixing "room" is really only whats left of my garage.

So you say I should do octaves? Sounds good - less work!

I think I understand how to make the resonators, but I'm not quite sure what is meant by "slat."

Also, say I make these resonators - what effect will this have on my auralexing project? I already have four of their bass traps - would I still need to buy more? My guess would be that I wouldn't need them anymore because we're actually going straight to the problem - standing waves...??
 
Actually, I will probably still need them since I have parallel walls...
 
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