Acoustic treatment for L shaped basement

[sunnyb]

I've built a small project studio in my basement, and it's time to start looking at acoustic treatment. I've read a lot of treating small boxy room and large echo-y rooms, but can't seem to find any info that pertains to my situation.

The room is l shaped with low (around 7 or 8 ft.) ceiling and thick heavy carpetting. There is furniture of some kind on pretty much every wall. Should I buy some 1/4 plywood and cover the carpet when recording? should i install absorbing materials on the ceiling? I'm sort of leaning towards deadening the room with carpets on the walls and added room sound later on. I figure that i can't make a small room sound like a big hall anyways, plus i like dead sounding drums (in a studio session i recorded some songs in a completely deadened drums and it sounded really cool. VERY joy division-y with some gating.)

Any tips/recommended reading?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by sunnyb

Should I buy some 1/4 plywood and cover the carpet when recording? should i install absorbing materials on the ceiling?

Maybe and Yes.

I'm sort of leaning towards deadening the room with carpets on the walls

If you read around here you'll learn that carpet on the walls is a terrible way to treat a room. That absorbs only high frequencies and leaves the lows boomy and uncontrolled. The best solution is always broadband absorption.

Any tips/recommended reading?

This new article gives a brief overview:

Acoustics Basics

This goes into much more detail:

Acoustics FAQ

Tons more here:

RealTraps Articles
RealTraps Videos

--Ethan

[Glenn Kuras]

This new article gives a brief overview:

Acoustics Basics

Nice article, but wish they had it in HTML or a pdf.

Also you can explore our education page. Be sure to check out the newsletter area as it has a ton of info there also.
GIK Acoustics presents Acoustics Primer: Some Basics on Acoustics.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

Nice article, but which they had it in HTML or a pdf.

Thanks, though there are links to both HTML and PDF at the bottom of the page.

Once the next issue comes out next month I'll put it on my own site and link to it there.

--Ethan