Room Treatment

[soupking]

If you had a room with carpeted walls and a concrete ceiling with hanging baffles, what would you do to help further absorb the sound with $500?

I know that sounds kind of like attacking an ocean with a canoe, but it's what I've got in terms of an acoustic budget.

Anything come to mind?

[love_tempo]

I would suggest you rip off the carpet if you can. That and positioning your listening spot properly won't cost you anything. See if you can pull in a cheap couch or futon and perhaps a mattress or two for the back wall.

Then you should be able to get enough 4" acoustic foam panels for $100 to treat the 1st reflection points on the side walls and ceiling. I'd spend the rest on maybe a dozen 4" owens corning 703 or rockwool slabs ($250) and build cheap wooden frames ($100) and cover with some loose weave material ($50).

That's pretty much exactly what I did in this room and it made a big difference. Although my walls and ceiling are plastered and the floor is hardwood.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by love_tempo

I would suggest you rip off the carpet if you can. That and positioning your listening spot properly won't cost you anything. See if you can pull in a cheap couch or futon and perhaps a mattress or two for the back wall.

Then you should be able to get enough 4" acoustic foam panels for $100 to treat the 1st reflection points on the side walls and ceiling. I'd spend the rest on maybe a dozen 4" owens corning 703 or rockwool slabs ($250) and build cheap wooden frames ($100) and cover with some loose weave material ($50).

That's pretty much exactly what I did in this room and it made a big difference. Although my walls and ceiling are plastered and the floor is hardwood.

Just make sure you straddle corners with those 4" OC 703 or rockwool panels. I also agree that using carpet on the walls is a big tutt

glenn

[soupking]

Why is carpeted walls a big tutt ?

Wouldn't help absorb as opposed to just normal wall?

4" OC 703 or rockwool panels. cool, thanks!

[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by soupking

Why is carpeted walls a big tutt ?

Wouldn't help absorb as opposed to just normal wall?

You'd think so (and it does to a degree,) but most of the problems you're having in the room are most likely in the low end, and carpeting won't do much for that (at best, it will absorb a tiny bit of high end sparkle, which you'd most likely want back anyways.) Plus, recordings made in spaces with carpeted walls just sound like...recordings made in spaces with carpeted walls...

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by soupking

Why is carpeted walls a big tutt ?

Wouldn't help absorb as opposed to just normal wall?

4" OC 703 or rockwool panels. cool, thanks!

Carpet will only help with the high end and leave the bass bouncing and ringing throughout the room. Basically you will end up with a dead sounding room with zero bass clarity.

Glenn

[soupking]

Wooooooow. That's so strange. I never would've guessed that carpeted walls are bad for acoustics.

I guess that's why only vocal booths are padded.

Also, I guess that principle would count for drums too. That's why you always see the drum kit in a very 'hard' looking room.

Hey, what if I cut squares/pattens in the carpet on the walls and stapled foam cubes etc. to the remaing sections around them?

Or am I getting too artistic with the proofing?

[soupking]

Or wood panneling? Would wood panneling be up for grabs or am I exiting the stratosphere on this one?

[tINY]

You can use wood panneling to your advantage, but you want to make sealed cavities of various widths (filled with insulation) to really do much to help you.

For 500 bucks, I'd be looking at 4" 703 or 705 and a way to make it look a little better (and keep the fiberglass from getting all over.....

I've used cotton insulation too, but it doesn't stand across the corners as well. It works well flat agains the wall for controlling flutter and first reflection problems.



-tINY

[Acoustic Cloud]

There isnt really any sparkle in a small room that is worthy......because sparkle in a small room, well, sounds like a small room. I have a totally dead small room, no one has ever said its "too dead"..... they only say it sounds very clear and clean, and also very faithful to what is recorded.

Get a few well made traps from Glenn or Ethan, install them where needed first.

Then make a bunch of home-made things. Or buy a few more traps....

Your room will be a better place, and your recordings will thank you!

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by soupking

Wooooooow. That's so strange. I never would've guessed that carpeted walls are bad for acoustics.

I guess that's why only vocal booths are padded.

Also, I guess that principle would count for drums too. That's why you always see the drum kit in a very 'hard' looking room.

Hey, what if I cut squares/pattens in the carpet on the walls and stapled foam cubes etc. to the remaing sections around them?

Or am I getting too artistic with the proofing?

Foam cubes are not going to give you help on the low end either.
Just to give you a little insight on how all this works take a read at:

http://www.gikacoustics.com/faq.htm
http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

Glen

[soupking]

I would suggest you rip off the carpet if you can.

Wish I could if it would help. The thing is it's a rental, and they probably wouldn't apprecaite it very much if I did. The thing is too, that only 2 of the walls are carpeted and two aren't. I don't know how that plays out acoustically, but the room for starters doesn't sound too bad. It basically sounds like a small room with a bit of echo from the ceiling because it's concrete.

I think I'm going to go for the dead room approach since that's where it seems to be headed. Like make the thing sound like a tomb of some kind. It kind of feels that way at least. The Owens Corning sounds like a good idea too.

I wonder if whether I recorded amplification towards a clean wall versus a carpeted if it would affect the nature of the sound. like soft vs. hard. ??

hmmm

Thanks everybody!

[Glenn Kuras]

>I wonder if whether I recorded amplification towards a clean wall versus a carpeted if it would affect the nature of the sound. like soft vs. hard. ??<

Sure it is going to sound different. The question is will it sound better and that can only be answered by trying it. One thing I would not do is aim it right at the wall really close. You run risk of comp filtering going on.

Glenn

[soupking]

You run risk of comp filtering going on.

What's comp filtering?

Note to self, not too close to the wall.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by soupking

What's comp filtering?

Note to self, not too close to the wall.

I think Glenn means comb filtering...

At least I hope that's what he meant!

[soupking]

Right on. What's comb filtering?

[pbell]

Comb Filtering is basically when the direct and reflected signals combine resulting in a series of peaks and nulls in the audio spectrum. So essentially it just messes with frequency response.

As for treating your room, there are a lot of home made things that you can do to help your room. If its echoey as you mentioned it was due to the ceiling, slap some homemeade panels up there. Just make a frame out of some wood, get some fabric at a bulk fabric place (they usually have a discount bin and staple it on the front (you can get fancy and tuck it on the inside of the frame), stuff some fibre glass in there and close up the back. Voila, instant absorption. I don't claim for this to be perfect, and it only helps get rid of reflections and will do nothing for low end (as everyone else has stated). I made these for a room in my house that was basically just drywall and it helped a lot with the reflections. The great thing is if you move you can take them off the walls and take them to wherever you go.

For Low end Frequencies, you might want to look into finding out what frequencies are causing problems in your room (i'm assuming we are talking about a control room here). To do this you probably should have some room analysis software. ETF Acoustic Analysis is good and really cheap, like 130 bucks. Its easy to use and you can use it on any computer (except macs unfortuneately). My Acoustics Instructor set it up on the worst computer he could find and it worked great. http://www.etfacoustic.com . If you don't know what frequencies are particularily bad in your room you might be getting rid of frequencies that aren't causing any problems at all, and that in turn will mess with your mixes. Just some thoughts.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

I think Glenn means comb filtering...

At least I hope that's what he meant!

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by soupking

Right on. What's comb filtering?

The graph below shows the response you get with and without absorption at the first reflection points in a listening room. You can see the severe comb filtering (the response looks sort of like a hair comb) without the absorption, and how greatly it's improved with absorption. If you want to learn more, there's a video that describes comb filtering - acoustical and electrical - in detail on the Videos page of my company's web site:

www.realtraps.com/videos.htm

--Ethan

(Sorry, the Gearslutz image viewer is apparently broken again. Click the link to see the image.)

[soupking]

Cool guys,

The combing sounds like some form of cancellation but instead of cancelling it layers and muddies the original sound meshing, or combing it with the original.

Awesome, thanks everybody, I never would've learned that without you.

Sounds like I'm going to put traps in the corners next!

Peace,
-soupking