room treatment on extreme budget

[TheBones]

so i've decided to actually dedicate my second bedroom to a recording studio type set up. will hanging blankets and such help as far as cutting down on the empty sound. never tried to treat a room before. don't wanna spend alot of money installing foam and whatnot. just renting. any thoughts would be helpful. thanks alot!

 

[HannahKin]

Do you have any budget? If so how much? If you could get your hands on some Owens corings insolation($50 per 24X48 piece) , or old office diveders (cubicles, potentially free on classifieds)

 

[arcadeko]

I don't think blankets will do anything for you - but DIY acoustic panels made from acoustic insulation or rockwool are portable so if you make them you can take them with you when you leave. Gluing foam up, egg cartons, padding - all that stuff is BS and won't help. There are several threads in "Studio building and display" if you want to look into making some. Even a half dozen will cost you almost two hundred bucks in materials.

 

[Negoba]

What do you mean by "empty sound?" Most people actually want a room with no reflections so they can add in later. The simplest answer is close micing and then doing things onboard. Overheads, distance mics record the room. But when the modern sound is so compressed, why does it matter?

 

[clivus]

I think room treatment should be geared towards addressing the specific problems of the room in question.

 

[RAMI]

Forget about blankets, they don't do anything good. As mentioned above, you need rigid fibreglass panels. Start with one in each corner....for starters. That alone will make a nice difference.

 

[Capriccio]

There are those people whose budget is unrealistically small and in thee cases removal blankets folded up and hung from ceiling to floor in the four vertical corners of their rooms are better than nothing - and better than foam as a 'stab in the dark' guess at room treatment.

... DIY acoustic panels made from acoustic insulation or rockwool are portable so if you make them you can take them with you when you leave.

Indeed, think of them as an investment. Start with what you can afford now and add to them as you can afford more.

I think room treatment should be geared towards addressing the specific problems of the room in question.

Also true. All untreated rooms will have similar problems, eg. modal sounds related to the dimensions of the room causing peaks and nulls around the room, bass build up in the corners, reflected sounds causing lack of clarity at the listening position.

... rigid fibreglass panels. Start with one in each corner....for starters. That alone will make a nice difference.

Yet more helpful advice. Most simple room treatments will start with bass traps in the 4 vertical corners of the room and broadband traps on the walls and ceiling at what are called the first reflection points - in the picture below the red (walls) and yellow (ceiling) traps are placed to absorb the sound (green lines) that would reflect straight off a boundary straight to the listener.

 

[arcadeko]

Great Diagram Cap! Is that your studio floor plan?

 

[Capriccio]

No, it's not mine. I was helping someone yesterday over on Gearslutz and remembered drawing the traps and green lines to show the first reflection points onto the room owner's picture. Mine is a mess at the moment; I am still building traps. This is mine: