Ceiling Height Question

[The Gooch]

We've got a little recording space with 8 & 1/2 foot ceilings, which are made of that typical semi-hard, foam-core office board panelling, with around 5 inches of pink insulation sitting on top of the panels. I know the insulation is there, because you can see it when you push the edge of a panel upward.

Thing is, above all that, is an additional 3 & 1/2 feet of empty space. The walls up there are unfinished sheet rock and the actual ceiling, 12 feet up, is concrete (we're in an industrial building).

Can anyone tell me if our room would benefit acoustically from removing all that panelling and extending the ceiling to its full 12 feet? Or would that make what is right now a pretty controlled, dead-ish sounding room, out of control?

What would you guys do?

[Matt Hepworth]

There's a new Auralex product that is designed for exactly what you're talking about. I thinks it's called the Space Coupler. It's designed by a pretty well respected studio designer, IIRC.

[harvestmark]

If you are recording drums, I'd go for all the ceiling height I could. Why not? Can't hurt.
Mark Miller

[The Gooch]

Yes, we're recording drums.

I'm just wondering if higher is always better.

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by harvestmark

If you are recording drums, I'd go for all the ceiling height I could. Why not? Can't hurt.
Mark Miller

Not completely true but I agree with the idea that the extra height would probably help. If the length and width are already around 12 feet or multiples of 12 feet you could be asking for problems. On the other hand the insulation and drop ceiling is probably not helping much, if you have a room dimension problem with the real ceiling it is probably already an issue.

Anyway, before I would do anything I would ask over at John Sayers site. That could save you a bunch of money and time.

[The Gooch]

Originally Posted by not_so_new

Anyway, before I would do anything I would ask over at John Sayers site. That could save you a bunch of money and time.

Wow... Awesome site!

[RainbowStorm]

Originally Posted by The Gooch

Yes, we're recording drums.

I'm just wondering if higher is always better.

Yep, higher is always better. Place a mic in the ceiling over the drums, adjustable in height, then you can set the room as high as you want to...

[jajjguy]

It sounds like you have a ceiling grid. You could remove some of the panels and leave others in place for a hybrid effect.

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by RainbowStorm

Yep, higher is always better. Place a mic in the ceiling over the drums, adjustable in height, then you can set the room as high as you want to...

This is just not true and posts like this lead to misinformation on the Internet and to lost time and money for many people... read my post above about room dimensions.

If the length and width are already around 12 feet or multiples of 12 feet you could be asking for problems.

One can not make blanket statements like "higher is always better" when talking about room design and tuning.

[RainbowStorm]

Originally Posted by not_so_new

This is just not true and posts like this lead to misinformation on the Internet

One can not make blanket statements like "higher is always better" when talking
about room design and tuning.

In my books, the higher to the ceiling the better the drum sound will be. tutt

[Ethan Winer]

Gooch,

> Can anyone tell me if our room would benefit acoustically from removing all that panelling and extending the ceiling to its full 12 feet? Or would that make what is right now a pretty controlled, dead-ish sounding room, out of control? <

I'll offer an opposing opinion. Not that the others are wrong! But just to give you something else to consider and possibly experiment with.

The five inches of "pink insulation" are giving you some useful amount of bass trapping. Five inches is less than ideal, but it's location a few feet below the real ceiling above puts it in an ideal place. If this were my control room I'd leave the ceiling as it is, put another 12 inches of fluffy fiberglass above what's there now, then put better absorption at the first reflection points covering those ceiling tiles.

But you didn't say if this is also a control room. If it's a recording room only, I would consider removing the ceiling and putting absorption higher up at the real ceiling above as the others suggest. Since you have ceiling tiles, it shouldn't be too much work to remove them all just to see what happens. Don't even take them all the way down - just slide them around above the grid to stack them on top of each other 5 or 10 high or whatever. Then if the room becomes worse you can easily put them back.

--Ethan