room too dead!

  • Thread starter Thread starter giraffe
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giraffe

giraffe

i love negative rep
so, i have this way-small, nearly square room (12*11.5*8tall) so i did the only thing i could, put up a metric ass-ton of broad band absorption.

actually, the room makes drums sound awesome. but.....

when i try to track acu gits in it they sound a bit on the dull side. soooo, i was figuring i could put something reflective on the existing floor to ceiling corner traps (in 3 corners) and not put back any parallel surfaces and maybe get back a little life.

so, what you'd you recommend to get back some hi-mids/hi end?
a friend said posters, and actually it doesn't seem absurd, but what's the real answer?

thanks
 
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if you have a ton of absorbtion id say put woold slats on top of it, that way you can still take down the bass and keep the highs, i really dont understand the whole slat idea, but it sounds liek thats what you need.
 
the slats are spaced at precision lengths to abosorb only a certain frequency(s)
 
well to gain a few high frequenicies back, would just placing a few slats randomly in the room help with this problem here, not an all out floor to ceiling slat absorber...
 
in retrospect, the title doesn't require an exclamation point.
 
notbradsohner said:
the slats are spaced at precision lengths to abosorb only a certain frequency(s)
Click to expand...

You can apparently make broadband slot (slat) resonators by varying the widths of the slats and such, as well as varying the airspace behind the boards.

www.saecollege.de/referencematerial/index.html said:
If we vary the depth from the wall, slat width, slot width (and the slat depth) we can create a wall that is a broadband low-mid frequency absorber. The beautiful thing about these absorbers is that they still reflect high frequencies, in fact they will diffuse them which is even better.
Click to expand...
 
eraos said:
You can apparently make broadband slot (slat) resonators by varying the widths of the slats and such, as well as varying the airspace behind the boards.
Click to expand...

yes but those widths and airspaces need to be CALCULATED to your room, not just random. I dont think slats is what you are after. Can you remove the gobos or panels?
 
notbradsohner said:
yes but those widths and airspaces need to be CALCULATED to your room, not just random. I dont think slats is what you are after. Can you remove the gobos or panels?
Click to expand...


You're right, that is true; they're not random.
But you don't need to do anythign too precise, either, I wouldn't think since it'd be broadband.

That calculator I linked makes things easy anyway.
 
if you try to put back natural reverb into your small square room you will be back to square one...small square room reverb. Instead try dialing in some biger room reverb in your mix.
 
Innovations has a good point. Do you really want any of that life back?
 
if you really want to go the natural reverb route I would go with some sort of a convex curved surface to act as a diffusor and bounce the sound around in more paths to that it won't seem so small-roomish.
 
notbradsohner said:
yes but those widths and airspaces need to be CALCULATED to your room, not just random. I dont think slats is what you are after. Can you remove the gobos or panels?
Click to expand...

square room, i really need all the low mid, low absorption i can get.
 
Innovations said:
if you try to put back natural reverb into your small square room you will be back to square one...small square room reverb. Instead try dialing in some biger room reverb in your mix.
Click to expand...

it's not that i want natural reverb, it's just that i wantthe room to be brighter.
it seems like that wouldn't make sense, but an over dead room like this makes some things sound dark.
 
Innovations said:
if you really want to go the natural reverb route I would go with some sort of a convex curved surface to act as a diffusor and bounce the sound around in more paths to that it won't seem so small-roomish.
Click to expand...

diffusion would deffinately help here.
but if i cover the three corner traps it won't add any parallel surfaces.
so what's good to reflect the hi-end?
maybe i should just try posters and see :)
 
Just an idea here -

What about 1/4" Luan Plywood cut to fit over some of the absorbers - that way you could get reflections when you want, then just take them down when you want it dead. It's like $10 for a 4x8 sheet at Lowes.
 
giraffe said:
diffusion would deffinately help here.
but if i cover the three corner traps it won't add any parallel surfaces.
so what's good to reflect the hi-end?
maybe i should just try posters and see :)
Click to expand...


Yeah, the plywood over the corner traps would probably be good.
That's how a lot of bass traps are made anyway. http://www.ethanwiner.com/BTPlans.gif
 
heck you can use cardboard partially over the BB absorbers. And to 1/4 luan in convex would be a poly. I added one about 4X4' to bring back some HF life. Its bent to about 12" depth and is right next to a cloud and the other side is the ceiling wall corner-which is the opposing corner of instruments . It helped. Some high end detail opened up, and the low end is still nice and tight.
It you want to put a reflective surface over the corner BBabsorbers, just do it on 2 of them.
I think the only way is to add some reflective material, do some tests, and put some more reflective material. until you're happy. At some point you need to decide when its good for recording, and what you need to take down (make it modular?) for mixing.
Thats exaclty what I'm fighting with myself.

T
 
oh BTW a poly is not a diffusor, its a deflector. Instead of scattering sound all directions like a diffusor, it reflects/deflects? in multiple directions dependant on the source wave. Thats my understanding, but if I could make a drawing it would make more sense.
T
 
since a room that small is not worth a square root diffuser/ prime root diffusion, etc, I would say some hard surfaces are your best bet. Membrane traps, (the bass traps with plywood on the front) take up a fair ammount of room, and with a room that size, some of the frequency waves wont even have time to develop :eek: :eek: So I say your best bet is to experiment with some plywood covers for your panels.
 
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