sound treating a square space

[deckerluke]

I'm wondering, i know there's a lot of issues that come with trying to record in a perfect square large concrete spacei'm moving into a 600 sq ft cement room and i'm wondering efforts I can take to try and get good sound. Is it just a matter of filling it up with furniture to absorb? Or lots of crazy baffling? or just tons of foam strangely placed all over the wall?would like to know what you would dowill post photos late

[avare]

Originally Posted by deckerluke

I'm wondering, i know there's a lot of issues that come with trying to record in a perfect square large concrete spacei'm moving into a 600 sq ft cement room and i'm wondering efforts I can take to try and get good sound. Is it just a matter of filling it up with furniture to absorb? Or lots of crazy baffling? or just tons of foam strangely placed all over the wall?would like to know what you would dowill post photos late

Square is bad. First thing, unsquare it.

[BlueSprocket]

What are your exact dimensions?

Also, what are you doing in this space? Mixing or Tracking? Or both? This can definitely be dealt with, just need more information. Pics would be helpful.

Last, and perhaps most important. What's the budget and how permanent will this setup be?

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by deckerluke

I'm wondering, i know there's a lot of issues that come with trying to record in a perfect square large concrete spacei'm moving into a 600 sq ft cement room and i'm wondering efforts I can take to try and get good sound. Is it just a matter of filling it up with furniture to absorb? Or lots of crazy baffling? or just tons of foam strangely placed all over the wall?would like to know what you would dowill post photos late

the best thing you can do is kill the room down as much as you can with bass traps and panels for the side walls.

Glenn

[jwl]

You will definitely need bass trapping.

If the room is square then you have at least 2 dimensions that are the same. This means (among other things) that 2 of the room modes will also be the same, so the frequency anomalies will double-up on one another. If the ceiling is also the same (or an even multiple) then it gets even worse.

The best solution, along with what avare says, is to add as much bass trapping to the room as possible. Start by putting bass traps in all available corners (including wall/ceiling and even wall/floor) as well as on the wall in various places (but space the traps out from the wall).

The above will need to be done no matter what the room is being used for. From there, you can fine-tune the room acoustics to suit your needs (ie, create a RFZ for a mix room, add modular gobos to a tracking room, etc).

[Glenn Kuras]

he best solution, along with what avare says

Just to be clear you don't want to make the room any smaller.

Glennn

[avare]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

Just to be clear you don't want to make the room any smaller.

Please expand on this. The walls are concrete. The only practical thing to do that I know of is to make room smaller by putting in gyprock walls to make the floor area rectangular.

With it being referred to as a 600 ft^2 square space, the room is about 24'x24'. Building an inner wall 2' in one side would still leave 24'x22' area (before sound treatment of course). With the walls being concrete there is minimal low absorption. The design of the wall could be such that its resonance coincides with the lowest modes. This would kill one bird with two stones so speak. Poor length to width ratio and low end absorption.

Unless I am missing something and it wouldn't be the first time.

Andre

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by avare

Please expand on this. The walls are concrete. The only practical thing to do that I know of is to make room smaller by putting in gyprock walls to make the floor area rectangular.

With it being referred to as a 600 ft^2 square space, the room is about 24'x24'. Building an inner wall 2' in one side would still leave 24'x22' area (before sound treatment of course). With the walls being concrete there is minimal low absorption. The design of the wall could be such that its resonance coincides with the lowest modes. This would kill one bird with two stones so speak. Poor length to width ratio and low end absorption.

Unless I am missing something and it wouldn't be the first time.

Andre

I guess if I was hiring YOU to do the room from start to end then YES, but keeping the room as large as possible with treatment would be a pretty save bet. Honestly though I read right over the size of the guys room.

Glenn

[jwl]

One room studios are cool for many applications, and for those I agree you want the room to be as large as possible. Large square rooms are easier to treat than small square rooms (proportionally).

But sometimes it really is useful to have isolation rooms. A vocal booth, a drum room, etc. Sometimes drums are just too loud and overwhelm everything else in the room.

To add isolation to such a studio, you'd want to split the room up into useful size, making the most of the space you have.

I've also thought it would be cool to have a one-room studio, but with booths off of 2 walls. Each booth will have double doors, that can be opened or closed as needed. This way, you can still get the band-in-a-room sound if you want, or close the doors for isolation.

In either case, modular acoustic treatment makes loads of sense....