RealTraps Announces New Diffusor

[Ethan Winer]

RealTraps is pleased to announce their latest diffusor product. This unique design marries a high performance bass trap with a genuine QRD diffusor deep enough to work well down to the low midrange. Read all about it here:

www.realtraps.com/diffusor.htm

The new diffusor will be on display in the RealTraps booth #121 at the San Francisco AES show October 5-8. A preliminary photo is shown below.

Ethan Winer
RealTraps

[Musiclab]

looks purty!

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Originally Posted by Musiclab

looks purty!

Yes it does! It also looks just like what I'm need'en! Shucks!

[tomdarude]

great ethan!! they look pretty cool and are reasonably priced

[Cojo]

Looks really nice!

[Ethan Winer]

Thanks guys. With luck they'll start shipping in early November rather than later!

--Ethan

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Thanks guys. With luck they'll start shipping in early November rather than later!

--Ethan

You should have never said that Ethan. Now it will be late Nov or early Dec.

Glenn

[Ethan Winer]

> You should have never said that Ethan. <

ROF,L.

Nah, we're really close.

(Famous last words...)

--Ethan

[orange]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

> You should have never said that Ethan. <

ROF,L.

Nah, we're really close.

(Famous last words...)

--Ethan

that's a double jinx - you've no chance now

[musictech]

Looks great Ethan!

I may have to get a couple of those to try behind my mix position.

For anyone new to Realtraps, I've got quite a few of Ethan's products in my studio, and they not only made a BIG difference in the sound, but they also are built well and look very nice. MUCH better designed and built than I could ever hope to do on my own!

Steve

[vocomotion]

Funny, I was recently thinking of what to do with my rear wall. I've got RealTraps all over my control room, but my rear wall is still empty. I wasn't sure what to put up there...this will work perfectly!

If the rear wall is exactly 6ft behind the mix position, would you recommend the larger or smaller diffusor?

Thanks Ethan!
--> freddie

[Ethan Winer]

Steve,

> For anyone new to Realtraps, I've got quite a few of Ethan's products in my studio, and they not only made a BIG difference in the sound, but they also are built well and look very nice. MUCH better designed and built than I could ever hope to do on my own! <

Thanks very much! For years it was an uphill battle just getting people to understand they need bass traps and other acoustic treatment more than they need yet another outboard mic pre or tube compressor. Fortunately, most folks these days understand how important it is to have good acoustics in their mix rooms. So now the goal for us it to get the word out that all acoustic treatment is not equally effective, nor are all acoustic products built to the same high standards. We take great pride in the quality of our manufacturing, and especially in the quality of acoustics advice offered. Acoustic treatment may not be rocket science, but it's not "just stick 'em all in corners" either.

--Ethan

[Ethan Winer]

Freddie,

> If the rear wall is exactly 6ft behind the mix position, would you recommend the larger or smaller diffusor? <

Both models are the same size and depth, but the "far" type has deeper wells. At six feet I'd still use the deeper "far" model. It's not like there's a hard cutoff at exactly six feet. What we had in mind with the near model was more for folks who are listening right at the wall behind them. This is not typical in even small home studios, but it's common in living rooms and home theaters for the couch to be pushed right up against the rear wall.

--Ethan

[vocomotion]

I'm assuming they'll come in black? In the photos, are we seeing a cutaway version, without cloth on the front, or is the diffusor normally exposed?

Thanks!
--> freddie

[djui5]

Looks nice Ethan!

[Ethan Winer]

Freddie,

> I'm assuming they'll come in black? <

Yes, all of our frame colors will be available. I'm not sure yet how many colors we'll have for the well surfaces and dividing vanes though.

> In the photos, are we seeing a cutaway version, without cloth on the front, or is the diffusor normally exposed? <

That's how it looks. There's little reason to cover the front with fabric. I think it looks really cool as it is now!

--Ethan

[musictech]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Steve,

> For anyone new to Realtraps, I've got quite a few of Ethan's products in my studio, and they not only made a BIG difference in the sound, but they also are built well and look very nice. MUCH better designed and built than I could ever hope to do on my own! <

Thanks very much! For years it was an uphill battle just getting people to understand they need bass traps and other acoustic treatment more than they need yet another outboard mic pre or tube compressor. Fortunately, most folks these days understand how important it is to have good acoustics in their mix rooms. So now the goal for us it to get the word out that all acoustic treatment is not equally effective, nor are all acoustic products built to the same high standards. We take great pride in the quality of our manufacturing, and especially in the quality of acoustics advice offered. Acoustic treatment may not be rocket science, but it's not "just stick 'em all in corners" either.

--Ethan

I'll also add that Ethan was extremely helpful and patient with answering my questions about acoustics and treatment.

To be fair, though, I'll tell people not to expect miracles with any acoustic treatment product. If your room has some very serious issues, adding a few panel traps isn't going to miraculously cure everything. It will help, but you really need to find the best placement/arrangement of your studio first to get the best response possible within the room, and then treat the room with panel traps and absorption as necessary to smooth things out.

I found this out the hard way... Our new house (almost 2 years now actually) has a much bigger room than the old room I was in, and I set my studio up the long way into the room, since that's the most recommended way to do things. I was getting a MAJOR hole in my frequency response at the monitoring position right in the 60 to 80 Hz range... a critical range for low end! My BM15A monitors never needed a sub to produce deep low end in the previous room, but I couldn't get any low end at all out of them in the new room. Adding a bunch of panel traps smoothed things out a hair, but didn't get rid of that huge hole.

I played around with moving the monitors as much as I could -- raising, lowering, moving forward and back, but just couldn't get that bass back without using a sub that I could move around more freely to find the right position.

Finally, this year I was able to do a remodel of my space and brought in an acoustic consultant to help out with layout and such in the limitations of my space. After running some numbers through his software and such, he determined that I would get a much more even response facing the short way of the room... which actually made the ergonomics and traffic flow better as well. I was a little learly of this because it puts the rear wall only about 6 feet behind me, which I feel is too close, but I went ahead and moved things into that position before we even started the remodel just to test it out, and that made a HUGE difference! Suddenly I got my low end back and didn't need the sub anymore (when working with the BM15A... I still use it for surround with the BM6As).

After the remodel, things were even better, and I had a chance to compare the response with and without some of the panel trap products since I decided to put many of them on stands so I could move them and use them in the studio for tracking as needed as well as for mixing in the control room. The RealTraps, and other panel traps products I have, definitely make quite a big difference in smoothing out the overall low end frequency response and just making things sound better and "right". I wouldn't work without them!!

Sorry for the long winded side story... just wanted to share my experience.

Steve