Killing A Ceiling

[alvagoldbook]

working on my studio, and the ceiling is only 7 feet 5 inches high. Thinking about completely killing it with absorption. Any ideas on how to go about doing this? Ceiling tile perhaps?

[RedWallStudio]

Yeah, I've got a low ceiling in my drum room.... but not as bad as yours.

Ceiling tiles will do you almost no good, don't waste your time. You want to get rid of the ping-pong sound... so the best way is to treat it with fairly thick absorbers. Id go with 4" of owens corning 703 or 705 (do a search here or on google, you will find suppliers out there). I bought a bunch of 4 x 8 sheets and then cut them down to 4 x 4 for easier handling. Then I covered 1 side with black "speaker grill type" of cloth (I just attached it with spray adhesive... works great) and then I suspended the sheets by using those ceiling tile grid hooks and wire. It works really well.

[QUEEF BAG]

absorption ok, can you lower the floor? Is it a basement you can dig down?

a few inches of 703 will only affect down to a few hundred Hz.

other than that...geometry. can you do a few angles, break up the large flat area?

[zimv20]

i put this question to the realtraps guys once and was told this:

1. toe in drywall against the (underside of the ceiling's) floorboards
2. stuff the area between the joists with cotton baffle
3. finish with a breathable fabric (e.g. stapled to the exposed joists)

they say it makes the ceiling sound much higher.

i will try this technique once i get around to finishing my basement.

[alvagoldbook]

I've been looking at my ceiling, and it looks like I can get quite a lot of space out of it if I just remove the ceiling drywall. Looks like I'll get over a foot more in height! That could turn it into a near 9 foot high ceiling!

I think I'll probably take that down, and see how things sound from there. I'll probably stuff it with some rigid fiberglass and cover it with a fabric of some kind and staple it to the beams. I'll have to figure out lighting issues though.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by alvagoldbook

I've been looking at my ceiling, and it looks like I can get quite a lot of space out of it if I just remove the ceiling drywall. Looks like I'll get over a foot more in height! That could turn it into a near 9 foot high ceiling!

I think I'll probably take that down, and see how things sound from there. I'll probably stuff it with some rigid fiberglass and cover it with a fabric of some kind and staple it to the beams. I'll have to figure out lighting issues though.

That would be the best way. In fact you don't even need to use rigid fiberglass. Just stuff it with fluffy fiberglass and put BREATHABLE fabric over that.

[S.Filpansick]

I just killed the ceiling in my jam room...

I made 6 4x8 frames and 1 3x8 frame out of furring strips, and covered 'em with black landscape fabric. This covered pretty much the whole ceiling with about one foot between each panel, as well as between the panels and the walls.

I filled all of them with unfaced R19 fiberglass, except for the two above the drums, which I filled with R30.

I put hooks in the ceiling and eyebolts on the frames to hang them. I used cable ties to get them cinched up to the ceiling, which compressed the R19 to about 3", and the R30 to about 4". Once they were in place I used steel wire to tie the hooks to the eyes more securely.

It's super ghetto, but they actually don't look too bad at all, and I was amazed at the difference they made sonically.

By the time everything was said and done, I had around $15 into each 4x8, including mounting hardware.

[alvagoldbook]

so when I told the wife my plan to rip the dry wall off the ceiling to fill it with fiberglass and a cloth covering she looked at me like I had grown a third head.

So I'm going to have to bass trap it and hope for the best.

[drummerboy1533]

I'm running into the same dilemma under a drum area.I've decided upon a 1 inch 703 board, followed by a 3 inch Roxul safeNsound batt.The OC does the muscle work of holding the Roxul in place and the Roxul does the super-duper-discount thing.Drop it down with an airgap and all is good.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by drummerboy1533

I'm running into the same dilemma under a drum area.I've decided upon a 1 inch 703 board, followed by a 3 inch Roxul safeNsound batt.The OC does the muscle work of holding the Roxul in place and the Roxul does the super-duper-discount thing.Drop it down with an airgap and all is good.

That should work pretty darn well. thumbsup

[bitman]

I thought diffusion made walls/ceilings disappear. Am I wrong again?

[DanDan]

Absorption will stop or diminish sound waves from bouncing back. In this case it would make the ceiling 'disappear'. Hopefully that won't cause a problem with people from above crashing down....:-)
DD

[Milliken]

I had a drop ceiling in my finished basement/studio when I moved in. Taking out all of the ceiling tiles did wonders for the acoustics. I tried putting traps into the drop ceiling grid.....and then removed them. It sounds better with the extra 1 ft of height and exposed subfloor with pink insulation between the joists. I think there is just no substitute for height and space......except a great convolution reverb perhaps.

If I were you, I would take down the drywall if I didn't care about the house or what my wife would think. Drywall really sucks.

Old plaster is kinda cool....wonder if any acoustic guys have any opinions that?

[Milliken]

Originally Posted by DanDan

Absorption will stop or diminish sound waves from bouncing back. In this case it would make the ceiling 'disappear'. Hopefully that won't cause a problem with people from above crashing down....:-)
DD

I don't think it makes a ceiling disappear as much as just makes things sound completely muffled and dead. Thus, it just doesn't sound natural anymore. Humans are used to hearing some sense of a room and reflection. It just needs to be manipulated some for recording....not completely killed.

[666666]

Originally Posted by Tom Orrow

I don't think it makes a ceiling disappear as much as just makes things sound completely muffled and dead. Thus, it just doesn't sound natural anymore. Humans are used to hearing some sense of a room and reflection. It just needs to be manipulated some for recording....not completely killed.

I see this sentiment come up again and again in these types of threads.

Indeed some natural ambiance is a good thing (if dialed in correctly), but I think what a lot of folks fail to understand is that you pretty much cannot have ANY type of "good" ambiance, reflections, diffusion etc in a very SMALL room or in a room with a very LOW ceiling. It's just not physically possible.

So while the concept of "some reflection is better than totally dead" may apply to a mid-sized room and/or room with a fairly high ceiling, it does NOT apply to a very small room or a room with a very low ceiling. In small rooms / low ceilings, totally dead IS better than the natural ambiance those rooms would yield.

Not only do small rooms sound BAD, but they can make for serious phase / cancellation problems, serous standing waves, etc, etc, etc. Can be quite nightmarish unless heavily trapped.

So, my vote, if the room is small and has a very low ceiling, put the thickest traps you can on the ceiling, cover as much of the ceiling as possible. This will ultimately yield the best / most accurate sonics in such a room. And if that sounds too dead and is not acceptable, the only fix is to move into a larger room with higher ceiling, a room where you can get away with a bit less trapping and be able to use effective diffusion.

Sadly, many of us are forced to make small rooms "work" because small rooms are all we have. Unless you want all your albums to sound like they were recorded inside of a refrigerator, with all sorts of wacky sonic issues and zero fidelity, then you need to do your best to make the walls and ceiling "disappear".

In sum, "total dead" is not ideal, but it's better than "small room / low ceiling ambiance". If you do not agree with this statement, please post some completed songs that have been fully recorded inside small untreated rooms, let's take a listen. The mark of a small untreated room will ALWAYS be permanently stamped on any recording done inside it... and when you listen with "open ears" and compare to truly good recordings, you'll be horrified. One of the most important things a DIY recordist can do is heavily trap their small recording room.

[alvagoldbook]

If I do a lot of bass trapping elsewhere in the room, can I get away with just using foam to kill the ceiling? I'm a little worried about a bass trap falling from the ceiling and killing someone.

[takman]

Originally Posted by alvagoldbook

If I do a lot of bass trapping elsewhere in the room, can I get away with just using foam to kill the ceiling? I'm a little worried about a bass trap falling from the ceiling and killing someone.

It can be done safely. You just have to be sensible about it...

if you are worried, them make the mounting system heavy duty...

and, bass traps...even at 4" thick arent very heavy...were talking 10-15 pound range...

my 4" bass traps came out to 12 pounds....if it did indeed fall on someones head, it probably would just injure them ( wouldnt want to find out though)..plus with a ceiling height of only 7.5ft it doesnt have a lot of distance to fall.

If you want to see the way i mounted mine, check out the link in my sig.

[avare]

Originally Posted by alvagoldbook

If I do a lot of bass trapping elsewhere in the room, can I get away with just using foam to kill the ceiling? I'm a little worried about a bass trap falling from the ceiling and killing someone.

No. You will still have a standing wave developing between the two surfaces (ceiling and floor).

Andre