Placement of Absorption Panels in Practice Room

[stevenmcguinness]

Hey,
I've recently finished constructing a practice room in my garage that is 10' x 10' with a 7.5' ceiling. I know that the size is not ideal for acoustics but I am limited to space and the room will primarily be used for practicing drums and sometimes band practices.
I have been busy making absorption panels that are 120cm x 40cm out of 100mm (10cm) rockwool placed on a wooden frame backing and covered with fabric and I am just wondering where would be the best place to put these panels.
I am already planning to straddle 4 in the top corners of the room but I will have another 7 or 8 which i can use as absorption panels elsewhere.
Does anyone have any advice on where I could place these extra panels to achieve optimum results? Where abouts on the walls or on the ceiling?


I have included a very very amateur roughly to scale microsoft paint drawing of my room on file.

The door is shown in brown
The air vent is shown in blue
Absorption panels are shown in red (as you can see 4 have already been drawn in the 4 corners of the room as bass traps.


I have not made all of the panels yet and I have 50mm (5cm) rockwool also. Would this serve any better or alternate purpose and if anyone has any ideas on how i could use this then please feel free to advise.


Copy the image and draw all over it if you like!


Thanks, Steven

[Ethan Winer]

A room that size and shape basically needs a lot of absorption. At least 4 inches thick in the corners, including ceiling corners, and at least 2 inches thick on the walls and ceiling. The general goal for a performing room is to spread the panels more or less evenly around the room. Versus putting them all on one wall etc. I'd aim for at least 30 percent coverage.

--Ethan

[Glenn Kuras]

I would though put 2" panels above any area you plan on recording.

Glenn

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

I would though put 2" panels above any area you plan on recording.

Glenn

I agree, especially if the main goal is reducing reverb in the room.

Frank

[andrebrito]

No, a room of those dimensions does NOT need much absorption... this is not a control room, it is a practise room...

Most musicians don't like performing on dead spaces

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by andrebrito

No, a room of those dimensions does NOT need much absorption... this is not a control room, it is a practise room...

Most musicians don't like performing on dead spaces

No body said to make it dead. But I can't imagine tracking, say 30 tracks of different instruments with a "10' x 10' with a 7.5' ceiling" room and want the room sound on all of them. I myself would aim to knock as much of the room "tone" out.

[Weasel9992]

Having worked in practice spaces playing guitar for years, I can vouch for the fact that I'd much rather have "dead" than "crazy reverberant". I don't know about other people, but we used to play pretty loud in those spaces...that's a lot of energy to put in a small space.

Frank

[andrebrito]

I'm not talking about a crazy reverberant room. I'm talking about controlled absorption and diffusion used in a space. It is totally different.

Try to achieve a RT of 0.5-1.0 s with good acoustics using only absorption.... and compare with the same solution using also diffusion and the rooms willl sound totally different.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by andrebrito

I'm not talking about a crazy reverberant room. I'm talking about controlled absorption and diffusion used in a space. It is totally different.

Try to achieve a RT of 0.5-1.0 s with good acoustics using only absorption.... and compare with the same solution using also diffusion and the rooms willl sound totally different.

I can agree with that.