newbie post, new room to work with.

[badassmak]

Im about to move all of our gear down to the basement, because the living room is getting way to crammed. Im wondering if there are any things to look out for or to do maybe, in preparation. I do have a fair amount of space to deal with (20x20x7 1/2) of pure unfinished basement. There is one piece of plumbing pipe Im worried may make the sound kinda shitty. I know thats really general, but here are some things I can do.

I can build stuff! (ie walls any shape or form...ive been working in construction a fair while now, not a biggy)
well really i can do anything.

One specific thing I guess I can ask is carpet or no carpet?...Im guessing this deadens the sound a bit, so maybe not?.
Another thing, along the lines of building stuff, Im only renting so I dont plan on doing any MAJOR construction, although the possibility exists down the road. Like I said also I am in construction, so i can get my hands on some materials too that I might not otherwise look out for. At a nice price too.
For soundproofing Im not worried byneighbors, as much as sound reinforcing?...per se (ie keeping the sound bouncing throughout the room or in the room, as opposed to osmosing through the walls and ceiling, this pertains specifically to and for recording purposes).
I am attaching (hopefully it works) a drawing of the area. It was a quick drawing so excuse the mess. I got tired of wanking around with photoshop. I should have mentioned as above, the room dimensions in TOTAL are more like 36x20x7 1/2. The 20x20 is looking more like the area in which to base everything, as the rest of the area consists of a hot water tank, furnace etc.
Oh yes, the gear thus far is consisting of a coupla amps, guitars, bass, drums, mics...
Thanks in advance for your time in replying.

 

[Eric Best]

What ever you do, don't set up a square room!!!!!! You need to learn about room modes.

A couple places to go.

My favorite resource, the master handbook of acoustics,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_1/103-5152147-8623047?v=glance&s=books
will tell you all room modes. Amazon is selling it for less than $25!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I might have to buy one for my mother for Christmas)

For immediate information check out John's site
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
Specifically go to the part on acoustics and shape and size.

There are also many other posts dealing with this.

The most important thing is BUY THE BOOK!!! It has details on how to build your own absorbers, tune your room. Whether or not you should use carped (not!). All of this information is available on the web, but it is not as easy to find as the book is.

Also read the whole SAE site. (thanks again John for all that work)

If knightfly comes by to suggest room dimensions for you, listen to him.

Hope this helps.

Eric

PS For everyone who reads this post, buy the F. Alton Everest's " Master Handbook of Acoustics." With Amazon offering it for $25 it is a steal. If I could afford it I would buy it for all of you!!!!!!!!!!!!! (no, I'm not related to him, and I don't work for Amazon or the publisher)

 

[badassmak]

Thanks a lot Eric.
The link to SAE is really, well, informative hehe. Lots of reading I have done there thus far, its really an excellent reference material kinda site. Im hoping to convince someone to buy me the book for xmas too. (I need a thingy on my computer that automatically displays currency in Canadian dollars, cause I always see these wicked deals, but then realize its american $ and its sorta depressing).
From just a wee bit of minimal poking around this forum, I now know stuff called rockwool, and some other stuff that comes in 2x4' sheets (someone had a whole herd of that stuff).

Is there any such thing as premanufactured sound barriers, that come in various sizes, thatd just clip together like legos, specially made for us people who rent, and arent technically supposed to alter the place we live in? (must be a pipe dream, but ya never know unless ye ask right?)

Once again thanks.

 

[kristian]

This stuff about room modes and parallel walls being the devil are beginning to bug me. If there was a way I could plot this out on a graph I would. But talking about budget level and quality of level you are trying to record versus the extra costs of not building a square room sometimes don't pan out for a home recorder. Costs being building cost for odd shaped rooms, building time (remember time = money), and lost area from trying to be clever with room shapes. I think the biggest worry is the short ceiling height. I’ve worked in a rectangle room with a 32 foot ceiling; I don't think I’ve known a single person to ever complain about the shape of that room.

We need to think about the home recording “axis of evil” as some people would put it; Parallel walls, short ceilings, and corners. Short ceilings, that is something you can’t deal with, making the breathing space shorter by adding hanging baffles or an angled ceiling will only make the playing environment smaller and less comfortable. Musicians are humans, not caged animals. People will thrive in a more open space instead of an acoustically perfect shoebox. It’s the performance more than the room that will kill a home recording.

Parallel walls, again are not something completely easy to remedy. Do you really want to sacrifice living environment for some minimal acoustic improvement. Small rooms will always be better tailored to close micing techniques, but who is to say that no one should record in the parallel walled/straight cornered rooms of this world? I’ve had recordings up in the mp3 clinic recorded in rooms like this and have received great reviews. I think the best way to placate the parallel wall Nazis is by making your room dead. On the walls create absorption that is even over the spectrum. Instead of some foam on the walls, which I think is hideous looking, you can get the same absorption by building some large (really big) frames and filling them with foam then placing a cool tapestry or painting on a cloth over the frames and hanging it one a wall. For more detailed low and mid fixes look at http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html and look at the “absorbers” section. Some of that is probably a little over the top, but tailor those designs to what you have for a better cost/usefulness ratio. There is a point of diminishing returns where moving from regular construction to using half of your space for crazy acoustic solutions is waste.

I would always like to engage people to think where $1000 is better spent. Buying a nice microphone and pre or having a room that will resist the bass frequencies and sit around recording with an SM57 and a $150 condenser from one of these new Chinese import companies.

Corners, this is my favorite part of helping people set up a room that will sound better. I ask them if they read a lot, if they say yes then I’m in luck. Why not kill two birds with one stone, install a giant bookcase. Keep a bunch of books down in your home within your home. Or magazines if that is what you like to read. These have a two fold purpose of diffusing early reflections and removing normal corners which exasperate bass buildup. It also gives good things for people to read while they are waiting for other people to play their parts rather than annoy you.

These minimalist ideas have worked in the past with me. I don’t want to spend money on a place I don’t own, and I know a lot of people who have practice spaces with foam covered cinderblock walls, foam on the ceiling and rug. While they think that they have a completely soundproof room, its just that there is no high frequencies in there. Listen for 10 seconds into the song and a dead sound comes out. When I record these people I warn them that unless they get rid of a lot of foam and put some diffusion on the walls that it will sound like a dead recording, lacking a lot of highs. They usually don’t believe me until we mix and they ask why heir recordings aren’t as shiny as others they have heard. And I reply that the other band listened to my advice about changing the way a room is setup.

This is by far the longest post I’ve ever written. You only have studying for exams to thank for it. I usually wouldn’t want write such a long reply, but I think people on this site often lose sight of limitations and cost effective measures for making a room useable.

 

[Eric Best]

Actually parallel walls are not quite the evil that they are sometimes reported to be. All (3) of the room that I have set up have been rectangular and have not had ideal dimensions. I would just use the whole area of the basememt and treat it.

The book I recommended, "Master Handbook of Acoustics" states that rectangular room are much more predictable and shows you how you can build treatments to deal with the problems of the room. If you have some bad modes you can make absorbers to target the problem frequencies. Room modes are a much bigger problem in a smaller room than in a large room, so leaving the room size larger would not be a bad idea, even though the low ceiling will cause some problems.

As for building, since it is a rental, you might just be able to build absorbers to lean up against the walls. Somewhere there is a Sabin (reverb) calculator. I think it is here. http://www.studiotips.com/ With the absorbtion figures for cement walls, you should to be able to figure out how many and what type of absorbers to build for your room.

I am in the process of building a much larger studio, but I still use the room that I set up on these same principles. All of the absorbers and bass traps that I built are removable and I will be using these in some of the rooms of my new studio.

Whatever happens you will make the room sound better and learn a lot along the way, and that is what its really all about.

Eric

I just re-read the post and realized that I am rambling a bit, I apologize,

 

[badassmak]

hehe no apology neccesary

I always tend to jump into things headfirst, and currently its the whole home recording thing. However the 'jumping in' stage thus far has really just consisted of me gathering information at this point to make better judgements down the road.
As far as the room space...alas, we seem to have run into a fairly major snag with the landlord, and the possibility of looking for another house has arisen .

Eric; I have had a chance to read a fair chunk of the SAE site actually, and so far I think Ive learned a ton in just reading, and thats great. If I havent made any practical use of the information, at least I have it in my head for a later date (now whos the one really rambling).

Kristian; I appreciate the reply muchly so. It is long and in depth, but I definately got the main gist of it (I think). And generally speaking thats how I end up doing most things, thinking how best I can spend the money really. Currently, lmao, Im looking at some more sm57's and a condensor mic (not from china, germany rather), as well as a decent soundcard so I can actually have a semblance of quality sound. The idea of bookshelves I think is damn good, and it fits really well considering how many guitar magazines and the like Ive got kicking around here. As well the old build your own diffusers, and absorbers, section of SAE really caught my eye, cause thats something i can do, very inexpensively...(if anything looks bad Ill just spraypaint it black hehe)

I guess overall the return posts here have greatly helped expand my knowledgebase on the subject, while keeping in mind to keep things practical. I have so much to work on its not funny, ranging from learning too mic instruments properly, learning too play some new instruments, learning my recording software better, the list is endless, but I will be having fun working on it.

Thanks guys...

 

[John Sayers]

Nice posts kristian and Eric - not a ramble but good sensible ideas.


cheers
john

 

[Eric Best]

Speaking of sm57s, I was using a sm57 as a room mic for drums last night, usually I use a condenser. It sounded GREAT. We were talking about using just this track instead of the other 9. Never underestimate the power of the 57!!!!! (use the 57 Luke)
Eric

 

[badassmak]

this is your fatherrrr...

hehe i bought a 58 today, that must mean i am on the dark side

 

[ebeam]

I like this thread.

Whenever anyone posts about building a room, someone always chimes in with "never have parallel walls." As you guys have mentioned, parallel walls have little to do with creating a good modal distribution as they are often purported to. All they do is make the math much more difficult in calculating the modes. IMO you are much better off using a rectangular room with good dimensions to get a nice modal distribution and using panel absorbers or something to kill the flutter echo (which is all the angled walls are really good for). I would really warn against making the room totally dead, especially if you are recording acoustic drums. You should really think about your room as an instrument in and of itself - you want it to resonate evenly across the frequency spectrum without any big peaks or dips in response. This is especially true on a limited budget, since its a lot easier/cheaper to move a panel than rebuild a wall. There are some ratios of length to width to height in that Everest book that should help you get started. But chances are 20x20x7.5 probably isn't ideal. I can't find the link to that excel room mode calculating spreadsheet, but maybe someone else will post it....

 

[badassmak]

yea ive basically come to the conclusion that building walls in a house i dont own isnt any kind of answer really. I'll just stick to putting up bookcases and stuff to help sort out any problems i encounter. I did also find several calculators on room dimensions thus far, but my own computer is down right now, ill post the links when i find em again...

 

[knightfly]

Eric, Kristian, e-beam - all good points - all of which I tend to agree with, probably because we've all read the same book(s) -

I do think, however, that in the case of a more dedicated (somewhere between advanced home and serious project studio) space, that building a RFZ shell inside a rectangular room might make sense. The splayed walls would let you keep the room more live, while still being able to (sort of) predict the modes with a real-world spreadsheet.

Speaking of which, here's the one I wrote (roomtune)

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/downloads.nsf/category

and the other one I use a lot is ModesV2, available under Calculation Tools here -

http://www.studiotips.com/

For portability, bookshelves, hangings, and DIY (but un-attached) absorbers make the most sense. I think if you're stuck with a square room, the best you can do is NOT put the mix position on a wall, but rather in a (bass trapped) corner, then diffuse the rear(s) with bookshelves, use couches and (overstuffed) chairs near walls for bass traps, and use the mirror trick for minimal placement of absorption. Placement of the mix area in a corner will lessen the need for wall treatment, leaving throw rugs for floors and maybe a hanging "cloud" for ceiling over the mix desk.

I too have made some decent sounding recordings in less than ideal rooms, so unless I were planning on a dedicated space (I am, just not for a couple of years) I would try and keep it simple.

Badass, there are two main areas of sound treatment, almost TOTALLY separate: Sound PROOFING, and sound CONDITIONING.

Sound PROOFING requires mostly MASS and tight construction, with a few tricks to help out.

Sound CONDITIONING is taking care of the acoustics of the music space so recordings sound right. This can happen in a TENT, if you're far enough away from distracting noise. With walls, you need to control what/where/how the sound bounces around, so that it doesn't smear definition during recording and mixing. This entails more knowledge of materials, characteristics, angles, resonant frequencies, etc, and can get pretty deep pretty fast.

I hope you get your location settled soon, it's a bummer not being able to play or record... Steve