room treatment

[artapril]

I´d like to do a fast, cheap treatment of my recording space. I have to do this within the next 4 days due to a drum recording.

The room is about 13*8ft and 7ft high.
Currently floor is carpet, walls are foam and ceiling is concrete with some absorbers. As you would expect, right now it sounds pretty dead and a little boxy.

I thought about one short wall to revet with this "fake raw stone" often used for in house chimneys. This should give a nice reflective area.
On the other short wall I want to stack 8x8in scantling, to "smooth" the freq out a bit.
In the 9x8ft area where the drums/singer actually stands, is it a good idea to put fake stones on the ceiling for some diffusion, and parquet on the floor?

Any more suggestions?

Thanks
Marco

[Ethan Winer]

Marco,

> Any more suggestions? <

Have a look at the Acoustics FAQ, second in the list on my Articles page:

www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html

It's a long read, but it contains a wealth of information about acoustic treatment.

--Ethan

[NathanEldred]

I'd say without even hearing/seeing the room, the carpet is your biggest culprit for that boxy sound. Use plywood (if you can't afford something nice) or rip up the carpet and leave a cement floor (my main tracking room is cement flooring with a gorgeous epoxy paint and I couldn't ask for a better sound) just to get some reflectivity going, and use area rugs to minimize some floor to ceiling reflections, if necessary. You won't be able to have a 'live' room, but it doesn't have to be clinical and anechoic either. And as Ethan would probably point out, 4" minimum width of rigid fiberglass straddling the corners from floor to ceiling would be very beneficial. Other than that it's hard to say without experimentation....it's science, but it's also subjective.

[artapril]

Thank you both very much.

Ethan, I´m going to have a long night with coffee, my dictionary and your FAQ. (By the way: I´m really interested in your Mini Traps, but why is the european price so high? About 515$ list price at current exchange rate.)

Do you think these "fake stones" would do a good job as a diffusor? Maybe the surface is to even, so the sound is directly reflected back to the source.

[Ethan Winer]

Marco,

> why is the european price so high? <

The list price is just that, and you should be able to get a lower price when you buy an appropriate quantity.

> Do you think these "fake stones" would do a good job as a diffusor? <

Maybe, but probably not. In order to truly diffuse down to a reasonable frequency the depth variation would have to be at least six inches. I'm not much of a diffusion expert, but I'm pretty sure a real QRD diffusor will do a much better job than random stones.

--Ethan