My acoustic treatment project! Room pics and building elements, other stuff to come

[esaias]

Time has come for me to start taming my room's acoustics.

I haven't done any measurements yet in the room, but I can tell you that the bass in my room is totally really bad. I really like to hear advices, comments, suggestions etc. from you GS guys!

Walls and ceiling are concrete (we're underground here) covered with 50mm woodframe and wall itself is Gyproc (gypsum?) (sorry I don't exact english terminology, I hope you understand). Gyproc is the softer version so it doesnt give sharp echoes.
Floor is concrete and is covered with quite soft thingie of which I have no idea what it is called in english :D Plastic kind of stuff, sold in huge rolls, cheap stuff.
As you can see fron the pictures, the ceiling is quite wild, those housing have pipes which go to upstairs.

All walls are straight.

The room measures:



A lot is wrong in this place, so please don't laugh

At the moment, there is loads of junk in there and it looks like this:
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2683.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2690.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2691.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2689.jpg
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~takku323/studio.jpg
HUGE window to the "CR", ('ll cover some of it or something...)
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2699.jpg

Current situation is that there is nasty boxy feeling and very uneven bass response, bass varies alot when you walk around. Top end is quite dead, maybe because of all the stuff that is in the room. There seems to be no bad fluttering or sharp ER's, most noticeble thing is that forementioned boxyness. My goal is to improve the situation, no idea how much is possible though. Since the room is so small, I guess it would best to just try to deaden the room. I have tried to think of some ways to bring some top end liveliness, but I have no idea would anything work in there.

I have quite a lot of these acoustic panels (similar to Echophon Classic A) and I am planning to build 4-8 inch thick framed panels out of these (60cm x 120cm).

Yesterday I suddenly felt that I need to do something, I had spent some days having flu so I was eager to get something done. I made a mistake here, I just started building stuff without better knowledge and without asking, well, you guys

Here is what I did, it is supposed to be a basstrap, absorber-thigie and is going to be placed on a corner of a room:

http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2680.jpg
(still missing the last few parts)

and it is going replace that table in the corner:
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2681.jpg

building:
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2609.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2611.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2614.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2615.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2617.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2627.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2637.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2639.jpg

1 side's panels in place, thickness 6"
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2660.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2649.jpg
I put 6" of those panels on 2 sides, forming a corner as I was putting this thing in the corner of a room I thought that there is no need for much material on the sides which face the room's walls.

too bad i forgot to take pics when both sides were full, I ended up putting quite a lot of stuff in there, I'll explain why in the end.

I have no idea what this idea was, at first I was supposed to frame all sides but then ended up having plywood panels on top and bottom and at some point I wanted have more wool surace exposed and the result was this ( and I really wanted to use powertools!!!!!)
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2643.jpg
http://voyager.pp.fi/esaias/room/IMG_2664.jpg
That part was used as a bottom part since its questionable appearance and "function" :P

at the finishing stages I realised that the thinner walls were resonating, as I tapped tem they kept this very low frequency sound, yet short but still suspicious. I added extra layers to the thinner sides and improvised with all these scrap parts I had. The thinner sides still keep that low sound and I'm thinking did I build a bass trap or a bass resonator...

What would be good acoustics measurement software for OS X?
I tried ETF on a PC earlier but I got nothing out of it :(
I would like to make some measurements in the room just to have some numeric proof that does my effort have any effect and if yesm what kind.

...project continues...

-Tomi

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by esaias

What would be good acoustics measurement software for OS X?

FuzzMeasure is just what you want, and affordable too:

SuperMegaUltraGroovy - FuzzMeasure Pro 2 - Features

--Ethan

[esaias]

I just found software called Room EQ Wizard and apparenly its free! It ca be found from Home Theater Shack forums Home Theater Systems and Design, Electronics Retailer and Forum: HomeTheaterShack

That FuzzMeasure Pro 2 software looks good indeed, need try it out! Price is good too! Thanks Ethan.

-Tomi

[Mgr]

Wonderfull, just what i was looking for.

Thank you Ethan & Tomi

Btw, did you had any improvement with the bass trap you built ?

[jordanh]

fuzz measure looks really nice... i think im going to get that

[DowntownScience]

Could someone please mention similar software for PC?

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by DowntownScience

Could someone please mention similar software for PC?

Room EQ Wizard Home Page

I am pretty sure it will work on mac also. The best part is it is FREEEEEE



Glenn

[esaias]

Room EQ works on a mac, it is Java

the thing i would need is a good tutorial how make measurements so that they are realiable. :/

-Tomi