What material to cover my bass traps / panels

[TEMAS]

Got the rockwool arriving tomorrow. Already got the timber. What material should I bye to cover them. I need to make sure I keep the fibers in.

[TEMAS]

Well, I think I'll go for Hessian.

Anyone got any other suggestions?

[Glenn Kuras]

Any fabric you can blow through should be fine. You can use 3m to help attach.

Hope that helps

Glenn

[TEMAS]

I ordered 50 meters of the stuff and its completely useless. Its like a string vest - except its more holes than string. It'll never keep the fibers of the rockwool from escaping, and when you try and stretch it over the frame, it tears. I can't believe people recommended this shit to me. .

Anyone care to advise me as what they used and where they got it from?

[6strings]

Originally Posted by TEMAS

What material should I bye to cover them. I need to make sure I keep the fibers in.

I used Muslin. It's cheap but works and looks a ton better than burlap. If you got the bucks, the Guilds of Maine (sp?) stuff is supposed to be good.

[Silvertone]

Most of the panels you see are covered in Guilford 701 fabric made by Guilford of Maine.
Some are Maharam Tek Wall 1000 and some are Hytex Bedford.

USG interiors, Inc. carries all these products. Call 1.800.874.9255 as does Acoustics First at 1.888.765.2900

For my room I went with the Guilford 701 fabric.

Good luck!

[Stormkloud]

I used felt to cover mine. It is very breathable and is very easily found and comes in about ever color you can think of.

[Acoustic Cloud]

http://www.atsacoustics.com/item--Ow...f-6--1004.html

Look at the bottom of this page, I was considering adding a few more traPs, and if I made them myself, the burlap looked good. Its a pretty organic breathable fiber i think, but I dont really know squat!!

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by 6strings

I used Muslin. It's cheap but works and looks a ton better than burlap. If you got the bucks, the Guilds of Maine (sp?) stuff is supposed to be good.

Totally agree. At one time we looked a burlap for our product and could not believe how bad it looked.

Glenn

[TEMAS]

Cheers for the replies.

I've calmed down a bit now!

[DeeDrive]

Originally Posted by 6strings

I used Muslin. It's cheap but works and looks a ton better than burlap. If you got the bucks, the Guilds of Maine (sp?) stuff is supposed to be good.

I got white Muslin at JoAnn fabrics for something like $.99 a yard, then just buy some Rit dye and dye it any color you like. Keep in mind that it does shrink if you dye it in the washing machine and then put it in the dryer.

I would also not recommend dying it black, cus it just doesn't get as black as it should. Not quite purple, but close. A beige or burgandy might turn out better. But it's great fabric and very cheap.

[Kiwiburger]

Do you want bass trapping, or broadband absorbtion? Totally different things - and if you have a bass imbalance, broadband absorbtion is probably only going to make it worse.

Fibre and foam absorbe highs much better than lows. To absorb the lows, you need massive depth (measure in feet, not inches) because the half wavelengths are so long.

If you want bass trapping, I would not use acoustically transparent material to cover the foam. I would use rigid panels. The reason being, the panel itself will absorb bass - like a kick drum head. Also - the highs and mids will bounce off back into the room, and only the bass will pass through, and then be absorbed.

Bass trapping is about addressing the imbalance, caused by too much absorbant which sucks out the highs and mids and leaves the bass to muddy up the room.

That's why it's called bass 'trapping'. You can't trap bass with thin material.

[Markd102]

These may help you.
http://www.readytraps.com/proddetail.php?prod=RT424B

Joel is very helpful. Tell him Mark sent you and he'll do you a good deal.

[TEMAS]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Do you want bass trapping, or broadband absorbtion? Totally different things - and if you have a bass imbalance, broadband absorbtion is probably only going to make it worse.

Fibre and foam absorbe highs much better than lows. To absorb the lows, you need massive depth (measure in feet, not inches) because the half wavelengths are so long.

If you want bass trapping, I would not use acoustically transparent material to cover the foam. I would use rigid panels. The reason being, the panel itself will absorb bass - like a kick drum head. Also - the highs and mids will bounce off back into the room, and only the bass will pass through, and then be absorbed.

Bass trapping is about addressing the imbalance, caused by too much absorbant which sucks out the highs and mids and leaves the bass to muddy up the room.

That's why it's called bass 'trapping'. You can't trap bass with thin material.

Yes, I'm aware that a 35hz sinewave is about 16 foot long. But waves that size aren't gonna bounce around the room anyway; they'll just go straight out. The only waves I have to worry about are the ones that my new walls are capable of keeping in.

Yes, I need broadband absorbtion. Bass traps with rigid front panels are only suitable for studios that are more than about 15' x 10'. (My control room is 12' x 9', live room 9' x 9'). They both sound aweful at the moment and I need some serious absorbing of a wide range of frequencies.

[Flymax]

Go for the GUILFORD OF MAINE...
It's also fire resistant...

[Phunkeman]

I used speaker grill material from a local fabric store

[reid]

Temas,

to keep fibres from escaping, a lot of folks treat the rockwool before covering it in fabric.
As I remember, make a solution of 10 parts water to 2 parts PVA glue (the white stuff also known as 'wood glue') with just a dash of washing up liquid, and spray this onto your rockwool. Leave it to dry, and then cover in fabric.

The dry solution keeps any stray fibres in check and apparently has no effect on the absorbtion qualities of the rockwool. I got this tip last year when I made a bunch of traps, off the Acoustics forum at soundonsound.com - it's worth checking out for useful DIY acoustics advice.

Good luck with the build

[stevep]

Originally Posted by TEMAS

I ordered 50 meters of the stuff and its completely useless. Its like a string vest - except its more holes than string. It'll never keep the fibers of the rockwool from escaping, and when you try and stretch it over the frame, it tears. I can't believe people recommended this shit to me. .

Anyone care to advise me as what they used and where they got it from?

Go to Home depot , to the garden section and buy a roll of weed cloth , its black and vary tight weave , put this behind your cloth, or ditch your cloth and use the weed cloth , (dont get the plastic stuff get the cloth kind )

120' x 4' = 40 $



steve

[stevep]

Yes, I'm aware that a 35hz sinewave is about 16 foot long.

maybe closer to 60 ft .... 1/4 wave could be around 14 ft.........



how did you become aware that a 35jz sine wave was 16' ????





.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by TEMAS

Yes, I'm aware that a 35hz sinewave is about 16 foot long. But waves that size aren't gonna bounce around the room anyway; they'll just go straight out. The only waves I have to worry about are the ones that my new walls are capable of keeping in.

Yes, I need broadband absorbtion. Bass traps with rigid front panels are only suitable for studios that are more than about 15' x 10'. (My control room is 12' x 9', live room 9' x 9'). They both sound aweful at the moment and I need some serious absorbing of a wide range of frequencies.

Before you spend any more $$$$ you should be sure that your traps will be enough to control the LF problems in your room

you say 12x9 how high is the ceiling ?


you will need to trap every corner and the ceiling corners with 4" of 703 ,
set 24" away from the corner is a good place to start

any 703 put on your walls should be set at least 4" away from the wall and be 4" thick 703 or all you will absorb will be mid and high frequencies.


If the room modes are wrong there will be to amount of trapping that will help .

its the room modes that determine your resonant frequency and the peak or dip Freq.


this is way to involved to discuss here................


The John Sayers site and others have all the info you need to figure out your room modes and how to tame them


good luck ,

[natpub]

i'm sorry this happened to you, Temas..i know the pain of having limited budget and buying mistakenly...learn from this, and always check out everything yourself beforehand...50 meters is a very large buy before trying out 5 meters to make sure what you want! our main guideline was always test everything, and always go for thing we can return ahead of anything non-returnable. for things like fabric, we were insanely cautious.

the ready trap link someone gave above is good, best fabric we ever found in for both effectiveness and beauty--we required a very sharp professional appearance as well as the utility that all the other solutions we examined offered. ready was perfect for us.

for our gobos, we used basic low-cost felt and are very happy--measures pretty much the same as uncovered 703, etc., looks great, goes well with the fancier readytrap suede--classy results imo

[TEMAS]

Originally Posted by stevep

maybe closer to 60 ft .... 1/4 wave could be around 14 ft.........



how did you become aware that a 35jz sine wave was 16' ????





.

Sorry, my bad. I'm a musician primarily. All this science stuff is giving me a headache. and all this building work I'm doing in this heatwave we're having is exhausting. Here's where I made the error, from mis-reading this article at RealTraps.com:

"Room modes are natural resonances that occur in every enclosed space, and the frequency of each resonance is directly related to the room's dimensions. For example, a room 16 feet long has a mode at 35 Hz because walls that far apart provide a natural resonance at 35 Hz. Additional modes occur at multiples of 35 Hz because those frequencies also resonate in the same space. Wall spacing that accommodates one cycle of a 35 Hz wave also fits two cycles of 70 Hz, three cycles of 105 Hz, and so forth."

[TEMAS]

Originally Posted by reid

Temas,

to keep fibres from escaping, a lot of folks treat the rockwool before covering it in fabric.
As I remember, make a solution of 10 parts water to 2 parts PVA glue (the white stuff also known as 'wood glue') with just a dash of washing up liquid, and spray this onto your rockwool. Leave it to dry, and then cover in fabric.

The dry solution keeps any stray fibres in check and apparently has no effect on the absorbtion qualities of the rockwool. I got this tip last year when I made a bunch of traps, off the Acoustics forum at soundonsound.com - it's worth checking out for useful DIY acoustics advice.

Good luck with the build

Thanks for the tip. Oh yeah, I got plenty of PVA left over.

[TEMAS]

Originally Posted by stevep

you say 12x9 how high is the ceiling ?

A little under 8 foot.

[stevep]

a room 16 feet long has a mode at 35 Hz because

I may be off a bit i didn't break out the calc,


Anyway... these Bass waves are HUGE and need to be addressed,


what is your wall / cieling / floor construction ?

[TEMAS]

Originally Posted by natpub

i'm sorry this happened to you, Temas..i know the pain of having limited budget and buying mistakenly...learn from this, and always check out everything yourself beforehand...

7 months without a studio has had me close to breaking point many times now and although I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, there always seems to be something else that gets in the way. I've run out of cash now, so every penny counts. (Got some royalties and some recent work still owed to me though). They say the best things come to those who wait. I just wanna get back to making music again, not mention properly testing out some of my new toys!

Thanks for all the support. thumbsup thumbsup thumbsup

[sardi]

Originally Posted by TEMAS

I ordered 50 meters of the stuff and its completely useless. Its like a string vest - except its more holes than string. It'll never keep the fibers of the rockwool from escaping, and when you try and stretch it over the frame, it tears. I can't believe people recommended this shit to me. .

Anyone care to advise me as what they used and where they got it from?

I dont know what kind of Hessian you got, but I sure as hell didnt have that experience.

Yes its rather open, but thats a bonus seeing as you want it to breathe.

It keeps all my rockwool fibers from escaping.

And god knows how you got it to tear..... mine is strecthed extremely tight and staple gunned onto the back of the frame.

Absolutely no problems at all.

Im sorry to hear you had so many problems. :(

[stevep]

They say the best things come to those who wait. I just wanna get back to making music again, not mention properly testing out some of my new toys!

Soon........




.

[TEMAS]

Originally Posted by sardi

I dont know what kind of Hessian you got, but I sure as hell didnt have that experience.

Yes its rather open, but thats a bonus seeing as you want it to breathe.

It keeps all my rockwool fibers from escaping.

And god knows how you got it to tear..... mine is strecthed extremely tight and staple gunned onto the back of the frame.

Absolutely no problems at all.

Im sorry to hear you had so many problems. :(

I guess there must be all sorts of different weave and grades.

I think what I'll do is use up 2 or 3 layers of the Hessian for the back, which people won't see. And get some muslin or linen to cover the front nicely.

[TEMAS]

Originally Posted by stevep

I may be off a bit i didn't break out the calc,


Anyway... these Bass waves are HUGE and need to be addressed,


what is your wall / cieling / floor construction ?

The original outer room is made of brick (over 100 years old). Theres a 4" insulated air gap, then the walls and ceiling of the new inner room which is made up of 3 x layers of soundblok plasterboard, (almost 2" total), with Green Glue between the sheets, and then a top layer of finish plaster (which has been painted). The floor of the control room is 4" concrete, covered with carpet. The live room floor is made of timber and plasterboard, again covered with carpet.