Foam

[Alexi]

hi there,

i just recently bought a lot of foam to put into my basement.

how can i fix it i tried everything, nothing sticks to the wall,

any advice?

[Alexi]

this is what i am talkin bout'

[Alexi]

yo randall, fast one

thanks

[Benny]

Use liquid nails. You need glue thats gel like and dries super hard to get the best grip on the foam and rather quick so that your hand doesnt get tired. Using glue that is absorbed by the foam, starts to brittle up quickly thru time when dried and is easily peeled off from my experience. Contact adhesive in a tube or can is not bad, the real slimy style glue for rubbers and plastics. If its on a plasterboard wall that is vertical, then use small nails or staple gun that is adjusted not to staple all the way in. I find using glue is a real pain when you have to move places and have to restore the room to its original look. Small nails or staple holes are easy to putty up and you only need like 6 to a sheet to support it.

[brianroth]

Be aware that inexpensive foam is VERY flammable. Take a small piece of your foam out to the driveway and see how it behaves when you take a cig. lighter to it.

http://mixonline.com/design/applications/audio_ashes/

Bri

[captain54]

Originally Posted by Alexi

hi there,

i just recently bought a lot of foam to put into my basement.

how can i fix it i tried everything, nothing sticks to the wall,

any advice?

find out if you can take it back to where you bought it from and get a refund.....

I had a lot of foam that I used in a basement studio also....I used 3M adhesive from an art store....It mounted the foam squares to the wall just great....

The only problem is, it only addressed a part of how the room needed to be treated.....it never addressed the massive bass build up in the corners of the room...the only thing it helped with was the listening reflection points, above and to the sides of the listening area....

bass traps with fiberglass panels covered in acoustically transparent fabric placed in the corners and at the reflection points is money better spent....

[ProFool]

note to use a protection mask when glueing (you know the little white ones painters use ), I did my inside roof with this foam not using a mask and i was high for a week. O and dont buy the cheap ones, and for the glue I used Rectavit (verry stikky, smelly and difficult to spread out ) so make sure you put the foam on the right spot straight away, they dont come off easy without damaging them. good luck

[bram]

how about the foam and other acoustic treatment material they sell at Thomann.de ?? they seem pretty cheap. Im planning on buying some foam to diminish speaker reflections. Anyone used these with succes?
And could this foam be usefull for a 'vocal corner'??

Regards,
bram

[Ethan Winer]

Randall,

> www.foambymail.com/Products.html <

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's been proven beyond doubt that FBM sells cheap non-acoustic foam, and they faked the data on their site. I measured FBM corner foam in a lab and it was about 1/3 as effective as claimed.

--Ethan

[captain54]

Originally Posted by Randall

Your probably right Ethan.. I can say however that I have a pretty large control room and installing their Bass and corner traps in it knocked down a lot and I mean a lot of the reflections in it. I also have some of their 3" panels on the walls opposite and outside my monitors.. made a substantial improvement as well... I certainley don't claim to be an expert in the field like yourself.. I've head many people rave about your products... but the FBM stuff helped me quite a bit.. and the price was right

I had the FBM corner trap stuff and it didn't even begin to scratch the surface of what a corner bass trap is supposed to do....

I could see where FBM panels to control side reflections from the monitors would work, but I've tried bookcases, curtains, packing blankets, etc and it worked just as well....

[Alexi]

any other thought on how i can fix them to the wall?

[Phunkeman]

How much did you spend? Because I talked to Ethan a few months back and took a crash course on his site and a couple of other sites and made my own traps based on what I read and saw on different sites. Man listen up. You have no idea how much it really helps. My vocal booth was covered in foam and when I treated my control room with my absorbers I found out how crappy my vocals really sound. I made my panels for about $50.00 each and that's with them being framed (which some people say is not as effective as having the wood off the outside but hey)....The foam is not the way to go...trust me. The beauty about these is that you can take them down and move to another place and put them up with NO Problem. You can do what you want but at least you have information now. Good luck

[Alexi]

i spend 140 Euros for 32 panels, each beeing 2 square meters in size and 10 centimeters thick.

[DrDeltaM]

Originally Posted by Alexi

i spend 140 Euros for 32 panels, each beeing 2 square meters in size and 10 centimeters thick.

Where you bought those? What are the acoustical specs of those panels?

[Ethan Winer]

Randall,

> I've head many people rave about your products <

Also, just to be perfectly clear, my intent is not to bash a competitor. (Not that Foam by Mail even sells to the same market as my company.) But I think it's important to expose outright fraud, which is the case with these guys.

--Ethan

[Jonathan Starr]

I installed a bunch of Auralex stuff recently, and for the big heavy pieces I had good success with 3M 90 High Strength Spray Adhesive.

We first tried some other brand stuff and the lighter duty 3M from the local hardware store, and the foam would come back down in a day or two.

The 90 is expensive, and gets used up rapidly, but it works.

I couldn't figure our how to successfully use the stuff in tubes that Auralex sent us.

[warhead]

Nail Power Paneling & Mold from Lowes does the trick nicely for mounting foam.

War

[Scott@RealTraps]

Originally Posted by captain54

I had the FBM corner trap stuff and it didn't even begin to scratch the surface of what a corner bass trap is supposed to do....

I could see where FBM panels to control side reflections from the monitors would work, but I've tried bookcases, curtains, packing blankets, etc and it worked just as well....

This is my experience with cheap, so-called acoustic foam. I re-treated a vocal booth a while back that was treated with FBM foam panels. When we pulled the cheap foam panels out, there was almost no difference between the sound in the booth with and without the foam panels, except maybe in the very highest frequencies. Didn't even touch the mids. There was literally almost no difference between singing into the foam and singing into the bare wall. This guy would have got more benefit by throwing some heavy blankets/duvets on his walls than he was getting from the cheap foam. Just to give you an idea, when I first walked into that studio, they were doing an overdub session with a rapper. The first thing I noticed was all the mid and lower frequency ringing in that booth coming through the monitors -- and I'm not talking about listening to the mic in isolation -- I'm saying that I could hear it quite clearly with the full track playing!

And, as you mention, their LENRD knockoffs also didn't scratch the surface of what a bass trap is supposed to do.

Alexi . . . I really hate to say it (since you've already dropped the cash on this), but, for a number of reasons, you may want to consider seeing if you can return this if it is not proper foam, instead of permanently gluing it to your walls.

For starters, even if this foam is somewhat effective at some frequencies, if you are absorbing lots of highs and mids, and don't have any low frequency absorption, you may end up with an unbalanced, and even muddy sound . . . especially since you are in a room that has concrete walls and floors.

Concrete doesn't offer any transmission loss (or natural absorption) like walls made of sheet rock and/or other less dense materials -- at least not until you get into the frequency range below 10 Hz. So it's going to be throwing EVERYTHING back at you full force.

You really need broadband/bass traps in there -- not just high and mid frequency absorption. And I'd say the same thing even if you bought proper foam panels from a reputable manufacturer.

You would really be SO much better off getting some OC 703 or the Rockwool equivalent and throwing together some simple broadband absorption panels. For the same amount of money you spent on the cheap foam, you could have an exponentially better and more balanced sounding room.

There are ways to get decent acoustic treatment without it having to cost you the earth . . . cheap foam (i.e., that is not properly designed and tested acoustic foam) is not one of those ways.

This is not to say that ALL inexpensive foam is not proper acoustic foam. But I would not buy foam from any manufacturer who cannot supply you with proper ASTM-certified C423 lab reports to verify that the foam has been properly tested, and that the test results they are giving are ACTUAL, and not just copied from the Auralex site, or pulled out of somebody's . . . errm . . . you get the idea.

As Ethan said, this isn't about bashing a competitor or trying to convince you to buy products that we manufacture. I'd just rather see you get a BALANCED acoustic treatment in your room the first time, rather than wasting money and learning the hard way (not to mention trying to get that glue off the walls later!). Believe me -- it will make more difference to your sound (both for monitoring and for your recorded sound) than upgrading your monitors and other shiny boxes.

[Eatin Weenies]

HOWEVER, Foam, even the cheapest foam makes A FANTASTIC FIBER BARRIER, for rigid fiberglass board and or mineral wool, which is what you need for acceptable broadband absorption,.... and as a barrier, it has that "Studio Eye Candy" appeal to boot.

Here is the FREE RECIPE folks for a typical 48"x24" WEENIE TRAP:

3 sheets of 48"x24"x1" thick Rigid Fiberglass (i.e. OC 703 or Rolux 60)
COST = $25 ave.
3 sheets of 48" x 24" x 1" the foam of your choice ( I like the wedge style)
COST = $18
4 little 1" x 1" wood blocks
COST = seriously?
4 screws
COST = .25 cents,.. if that.
1 tube adhesive
COST = Free from most foam houses with order
1 pair of scissors
COST = You already own them

Sandwich the rigid boards together.
Face with the foam of your choice (Front and Back)
Cover all exposed edges with "foam strips" cut from sheet #3
Attach 1" wood spacers
Attach to wall with screws leaving 1" air gap

Total Cost is under $45.00,.... keep $150.00, plus shipping in your pocket each and every time you build a "WEENIE TRAP"

Enjoy!,

Eatin Weenies