Living room/studio - acoustic advice please?

[sheggs]

Originally Posted by Neurodriver

I've recently moved into a flat - due to limits on space I need to adapt my living room so that it is usable as a studio for my music production, whilst still being usable as a living space...

Unfortunately it currently sounds awful, and I really need to install some acoustic treatment which is going to improve matters, whilst not reducing my living space too much.

The room is 16' by 11.5' - the "front" of my studio setup is a 16' long solid wall with my computer desk and speakers roughly midway along. The rear is the other 16' length which has an open doorway at either end and a sofa in the middle. The left wall is a large exterior window and the right also has a doorway.

The main problem is the 11.5' depth, with the speakers backing onto a hard wall and firing against the hard rear wall behind the sofa. This results in a massivly long boomy reverb tail at 50Hz, with strong modes at 100 and 150Hz. Bass frequencies are almost non-existent at the listening position due to cancellation. There's also some ringing at higher frequencies caused by the hard walls.

Ideally, I guess one would install lots of big bass trapping on the rear wall to try to tame the low modes, however I don't want to lose too much depth off the room. 10-15cm would be a sensible maximum. I could put some larger traps to either side of the monitors...

Can anyone suggest a good DIY trap design to tame that 50Hz boom, which doesn't involve putting something huge/thick on the rear wall?

What have you got in the corner of the room?

[Neurodriver]

Originally Posted by sheggs

What have you got in the corner of the room?

Front left - bordered by window on side wall
Front right - doorway on side wall, but possibly room for a small trap
Rear left - nothing, could potentially have a bass trap
Rear right - open doorway on rear wall

[Neurodriver]

Oh yes....and to make things even more tricky...I should have mentioned this is a rented apartment and I can't go screwing things into the wall/ceiling.

At the moment I am thinking to build a couple of flat bass traps from two 30mm layers heavy density insulation slab and put these on the rear wall resting on the back of the sofa

Wickes - Heavy Density Insulation customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings

And a couple of larger traps in the space to either side of the monitors...this is the part I am undecided about. I could build thick (e.g. 12") box traps filled with normal density insulation...but am curious to know if there are any other designs which will make better use of the space or be better at absorbing the 50Hz problem frequency...

I am also getting some pyramid foam which I will attach to boards and use to treat exposed flat walls which are causing mid/high problems.

Any advice or pointers much appreciated!

[sheggs]

Originally Posted by Neurodriver

Front left - bordered by window on side wall
Front right - doorway on side wall, but possibly room for a small trap
Rear left - nothing, could potentially have a bass trap
Rear right - open doorway on rear wall

In the corners where you can fit them I would definately go for a superchunk style trap out of rock wool or rigid fibre glass. The more you can put in the better.
With panels as well you can design them picture style so that you can hang them on the wall also

[sheggs]

Originally Posted by Neurodriver

Oh yes....and to make things even more tricky...I should have mentioned this is a rented apartment and I can't go screwing things into the wall/ceiling.

At the moment I am thinking to build a couple of flat bass traps from two 30mm layers heavy density insulation slab and put these on the rear wall resting on the back of the sofa

Wickes - Heavy Density Insulation customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings

And a couple of larger traps in the space to either side of the monitors...this is the part I am undecided about. I could build thick (e.g. 12") box traps filled with normal density insulation...but am curious to know if there are any other designs which will make better use of the space or be better at absorbing the 50Hz problem frequency...

I am also getting some pyramid foam which I will attach to boards and use to treat exposed flat walls which are causing mid/high problems.

Any advice or pointers much appreciated!

You will notice a difference with resting those against your sofa but if you could get some panels onto the wall it would be good also. you could do with something for the first reflection points to the side and back ofy uor montitors too. We just treated a studio and they had very similar problems to what you are quoting and panels centre of the wall behind the montirots, forst refelction points and some bass trapping in the corners cleared this up very easily

[Neurodriver]

Originally Posted by sheggs

You will notice a difference with resting those against your sofa but if you could get some panels onto the wall it would be good also. you could do with something for the first reflection points to the side and back ofy uor montitors too. We just treated a studio and they had very similar problems to what you are quoting and panels centre of the wall behind the montirots, forst refelction points and some bass trapping in the corners cleared this up very easily

Thanks, I'll do that. What kind of thickness of panel would you recommend for behind the monitors and on the back wall?

[Neurodriver]

Thanks for the replies...

I spoke to a mate who does studio builds, who recommended RW5 Rockwool over the Wikes stuff. I'm going to put a few 100mm slabs of that on the rear wall and behind the speakers to tame the first reflections, and then build some large corner traps by sticking several slams together...hopefully that'll help...I'll report back with the results...