That's Right! It's another "Help Me Build My Studio" thread.

[JRMoneybags]

I'd decided very early on today that I was going to be able to find all I need without posting. However - although I started today knowing very little about recording acoustics and although I must have read 500 of other people's threads, I'm starting to feel like I know even less. Sorry.

So where am I at? I am a student doing a single unit on Recording - but I live in the Australian bush so I can't just borrow someone else's setup. I also plan to record some of my own Clarinet music to make a few bucks from little old ladies (ala Acker Bilk).

Obviously, as both a student and a drought strickened farmer - this one is going to be cheap. So let's see what I have in my shed.
* About 80 square feet of 1.5" thick 2x2' acoustic tiles (they're quite light - plaster with a fibrous filling).
* 10 single bed egg carton mattresses (I sourced these early today but now not sure if they are any use at all - but they were free )
* Plenty of timber for frames etc.
* About 10,000 straw bales (if anyone ever got to the bottom of that one)
* Probably enough plasterboard to build the walls.
* Tons of recycled (ugly) plyboard.

Question 1 - Booth or Not?
My original - totally uneducated - idea was to build a booth and line it with as much egg carton foam as I possibly could and a bucket load of those . I can only afford to buy cheap Behringer mics so I thought a little extra effort building a booth would be worthwhile.

I have room for up to 6.5' x 6.5' booth.

But then perhaps I am better to build a few sound traps and record in the control room? Then I'll need to ask where to put what given my room dynamics - high 12' pressed tin ceilings and limestone walls.

Question 2 - Monitors - Headphones vs Speakers
I don't know how this impacts the decision - but...
I'll also probably have to run my monitors in mono (either headphones or speakers) since I have no hearing in one ear.

Question 3 - Which Treatment?
Building work and the likes are going to be basically $0.
Otherwise I'm going to need to get out of this for something under $150.
Is the egg carton foam useless? and What about those Tiles?

Finally,
Does anyone know for an "available in Australia" equivalent to the 703 rigid fibreglass?

Thanks very much in advance.
Kindly
JRMoneybags

 

[Dani Pace]

Scrap the eggcarton foam! It offers little or no help acousticly and it is a fire hazzard. If you have a heating/air conditioning company near you, you can get "furnace wrap" which is very similar to 703, it has foil on one side which is easily removed then can be used just like other condensed fiber glass. You shouldn't have any trouble finding a use for the acoustic tiles you already have. To use the plywood you will need to use multiple layers. Single layer plywood tends to resonate and cause boomy sounding recordings. My nose stops up just thinking about being surrounded by 10,000 bales of hay so use that for cattle food, not to mention all the dust and potential for mold problems or another fire hazzard.

 

[JRMoneybags]

After more research today - I'm leaning towards building a booth unless someone can give me a good reason why I don't want this.

The way I see it is that the room I'm in is less than ideal to set up to record clarinet, with a chimney jutting out 2 feet into the room on one side and a large window behind my desk to consider doing something with. High 12' ceiling means that my traps would have to be quite large.

Actually I think with the gear I have on hand I can do a freestanding booth in the existing room cheaper.

The plan is to make use of the acoustic tiles I already have by building 3 stud panels of equal length (looks like about 6 foot is as big as I can go) lined with Plasterboard, filled with regular R3.3 glass fiber insulation (which were also laying redundant in my shed) with the tiles pressed against that so as to end up with 3 (4" x 6' x 7') panels - I'll have to fit a door frame to one of these also and insulate the heck out of it. These will make 2 sides and the front of the booth.

For the back wall I will have a 12" wall (mostly air space) containing 4" Acoustic Insulation (similar to 703) and 2 drapes of felt carpet underlay, as in this website, only without the barrier mat for now (see 3w's.soundonsound.com/sos/mar06/articles/studiosos.htm?print=yes)
Since this wall will back onto a thick limestone wall please tell me if there is going to be anymore treatment absolutely necessary.

Finally I will put a ceiling panel on top, constructed similarly to the side panels depending on how many tiles I have left.
I will be placing down a particle board floor.

This all up leaves me with a booth 6'x4'8 by 7' high, and costs me time, scrap and about $100 for insulation. Given that I can't spend very much more money I dread to ask - is this going to be any use at all?


PS - Acoustic insulation in Australia
100 250 500 1000 2000 NRC
SonoBatts/SonoMatt 48 50mm 0.33 0.74 1.18 1.11 1.12 1.05
Best price I found was about $19/sqm at 100mm thickness.
Density is 48kg/m3.

Compares well with 703 actually (perhaps a little better, especially on the low end)

 

[Dani Pace]

The limestone wall may give some reflection problems, if it does, a good diffuser panel should solve it easily. One more thing to think about is you are going to need a fresh air source. Tightly closed rooms are great for sound but you will use up the oxygen supply pretty fast, especialy with a wind instrument.

 

[JRMoneybags]

Hmm.... Breathing for Clarinet. Yeah sounds logical I guess.

I'll start searching for good vent designs, but of course if someone has something please post it for me.

Given that I'll be tracking in a booth, and that my sensitivity to stereo and some of the subtleties of sound that this entails, is decreased significantly since I have a total deafness in one ear and have never fully experienced stereo, is it worth my time to muck around much with treating the control room, or can I get a descent mix with a good pair of headphones.

I'm gonna post something on this in a mixing forum somewhere, but I thought I'd bring up the design aspects here.

Cheers for your help so far.