What room treatment would I need?

[kasim]

I want to create a home studio that is suitable to record my vocals and mix/master them. Currently, I have to use my front room and it has quite a lot of furniture, would this be a problem? What would I need to do to make it a suitable place to do these tasks, I'm also going to be using studio monitors and I heard you need specific room treatment for these as well. Can someone please tell me what I would need to create a decent home studio. my parents are going to get the loft done so when it's done I can move there to record. It has a lot of space so I think it will be more suitable, would it not? Thanks.

 

[RAMI]

Hey Kasim,

Well, there's a couple of ways to look at this.

Generally, every room needs room treatment if you're going to be mixing in it, and you want your mixes to translate "honestly". A pretty universal starting point is to put proper bass traps in the 4 corners. When I say "proper", I mean using the right materials like rigid fibreglass, certain mineral wools, etc.....But NOT foam of any kind, even if they slapped the word "acoustic" in front of it.

Having siad that, not all rooms need treatment for recording. Without being in the room with you, it would be impossible to tell you if your room needs treatment to record vocals in or not. It might just happen to be a good sounding room that captures great vocal tracks, you never know.

What I would suggest is to record with what you got and listen for flutter echos, or any frequencies that seem to resonate in the room.

 

[kasim]

Thank you for the detailed response. Right now, I'm still in the stage of getting all my gear together and will probably be done in a few weeks. Sure I'll see how my vocals will sound, but if they don't sound good, i'll be buying some bass traps. Is there a specific name for the proper material type, as all I can find right now are foam material ones.

 

[Dags]

Just a quick question for RAMI, why don't you think using acoustic foam to prevent flutter echo a good idea?
Doesn't it have a place in treating acoustic spaces for this very purpose?
It soaks up high frequencies and does kill flutter echo in a room.
Granted it won't work for low frequencies, but there are specific bass trap products available for med & low frequency absorption.
Interested to hear what other inexpensive options are available for treating the walls of an average house to kill this type of interference.

Dags

 

[o0sonic0o]

Dags - I think he meant acoustic foam being used for bass traps. Have had no experience with buying acoustic foam but Auralex sell room kits which include corner traps for bass and maybe he's saying this isn't the best product for the job.

 

[RAMI]

Just a quick question for RAMI, why don't you think using acoustic foam to prevent flutter echo a good idea?
Doesn't it have a place in treating acoustic spaces for this very purpose?
It soaks up high frequencies and does kill flutter echo in a room.

Well, yeah, that was sort of my point. Maybe I went too far in saying "stay away from anything that has to do with foam", but that's not really far from the truth either.

Sure, it will help with high frequencies and some flutter, and I guess it can be used in spots. But 99% of the problem in 99% of rooms is the low end. If all you do is put up foam, you kill your high's and now low end is probably 100% of your problem, as well as having a "bad" dead room from the killed high's. So, if you properly treat a room with bass traps and broadband absorption, then you might want to throw up a few spots of foam where you might think it will help. But, then again, a properly treated room will have probably taken care of whatever flutter echo you might have.

I'm no Ethan Winer, I just play one in real life. No, seriously, I'm basically just repeating what I've read from much more knowledgeable people than myself, as well as talking from experience since I went through all the "short cuts" to try to deaden a few rooms until I realized the difference once I properly treated mine.

 

[Dags]

>.
If all you do is put up foam, you kill your high's and now low end is probably 100% of your problem, as well as having a "bad" dead room from the killed high's.
>.

Agreed 150%!
The whole range of frequencies needs to be addressed.
Thin acoustic foam will never treat low frequency issues. I was just surprised with the comment that acoustic foam would not be suitable for treating flutter echoes - thanks also to sonic for clearing this up.

Oh, a note to the OP: furniture in a room isn't always a bad thing as it helps scatter sound waves around a bit, and soft furnishings are useful for absorbing high frequences as well.
Full book cases also work well as diffusers.

Dags

 

[RAMI]

I was just surprised with the comment that acoustic foam would not be suitable for treating flutter echoes

Ah, I see. But I never said that. I only mentioned not using foam when I was talking about starting with 4 bass traps in the corners.

A pretty universal starting point is to put proper bass traps in the 4 corners. When I say "proper", I mean using the right materials like rigid fibreglass, certain mineral wools, etc.....But NOT foam of any kind, even if they slapped the word "acoustic" in front of it.

 

[rayc]

What RAMI said. Foam is for fiddling around the edges of the problem once the nulls, voids and so forth have been dealt with.
Furniture can be very useful in breaking up parrallel surfaces and reducing standing waves. Book shelves can act like diffusion panels etc etc. Bass traps are the beginning followed by placement of your mixing station & then treating as needed (sometimes with foam for 1st reflections).
Go to and read around in the studio building section of the site. There's a lot of info there and lots of helpful folk like RAMI - I've bought Rami's albums - recorded in his space and he's been treating his room over time and the sound has improved (started off as terriffic and is now excellent) with the greatest leap forward coming when he installed bass traps.

 

[kasim]

How would I know if Low/ High frequency is the problem?

 

[JimmyS1969]

By testing. REW is typically used, but it is kind of complicated.

You can be assured that you have Low end issues. Every room does. A simple 'clap' will tell you if you have flutter echoes. You can hear it bounce around the room.

 

[kasim]

here are some photos from all corners of the room. I will be using this room for my recordings. I haven't tested anything yet, but by the looks of it, do you think the room is an environment that you can record in, obviously with room treatment as well. Im going to be getting studio monitors, would I need certain treatment for this too?

 

[JimmyS1969]

Is this room square? Hard to tell the dimensions from the pix. My approach would be to setup your desk centered in front of the window (must get out of that corner!), a couple feet out from it. Those little niches to each side may be a double f**k as far as needing more bass traps. The door in the corner will be a bit of an issue, but there are ways to work with that too.

Are you handy with a few tools? You would be best/cheapest building your own bass traps and absorbers if you are. If you are planning to move to the attic, build corner bass traps that can be portable, at height that will fit upstairs. Just lean them in the room corners for now.

Where do you live? Rockwool is the most efficient/cost effective material to use in the states, as long as there is a supplier nearby. Shipping can kill a budget if not found local. I believe I only spent $600 for 13 4" thick 2'x4' absorbers, and 2 4" thick 2'X8' corner traps. And a 25'X13' ceiling full of the 4" rockwool in my drum room. I found the material for quite cheap, and the frames are made of 1"x2" pine.

 

[kasim]

Is this room square? Hard to tell the dimensions from the pix. My approach would be to setup your desk centered in front of the window (must get out of that corner!), a couple feet out from it. Those little niches to each side may be a double f**k as far as needing more bass traps. The door in the corner will be a bit of an issue, but there are ways to work with that too.

Are you handy with a few tools? You would be best/cheapest building your own bass traps and absorbers if you are. If you are planning to move to the attic, build corner bass traps that can be portable, at height that will fit upstairs. Just lean them in the room corners for now.

Where do you live? Rockwool is the most efficient/cost effective material to use in the states, as long as there is a supplier nearby. Shipping can kill a budget if not found local. I believe I only spent $600 for 13 4" thick 2'x4' absorbers, and 2 4" thick 2'X8' corner traps. And a 25'X13' ceiling full of the 4" rockwool in my drum room. I found the material for quite cheap, and the frames are made of 1"x2" pine.

Sorry for the late reply... I've done research so I have an idea on what it is I need.