Can bamboo wall treatment help dead room?

[beau_mckee]

I'm looking into using these bamboo panels in a room that is completely carpeted on the walls. It is also doubling as a rehearsal space. The room dimensions are 6 metre squared room, with a Roof 2.4 metre low point too 3.2 metre high point. My plan is to liven this dead room for drum applications in the most affordable way that looks nice, unobtrusive to the rehearsal space and most of all, sounds good. Unfortunately I cannot pull down the carpet, so I thought I'd put it out into the universe - how does bamboo do in a recording environment? These Panels are $60 each, you can even find them for $40 on eBay.

I've uploaded two different pictures here. One is the half cut bamboo, and the other is the full circumference of bamboo fencing. I'm going to presume the full circumference would be the better choice. If anyone can contribute some insightful information on this, it would be great. I hope I have found my new solution to an expensive problem!

Thankyou wonderful gearslutz friends

[beau_mckee]

Here are some more pictures

[hsal]

It will give some diffuse reflections at high frequensies, but for mid frequensies you will get alot of specular reflections (reflection like from a normal wall) due to the small width/debth of the bamboo.

Hard to say excactly what it would sound like without trying it out.

[boggy]

Yes, it will add some life in an dead room, but, try to keep 30-50% absorptive surfaces as is... or do some experiments... too many reflections may not be always a very good thing too, from my experience.

BTW, we use wooden slats positioned following MLS (Maximum Length Sequence), for that purpose (roughly, 50% surface is reflective, 50% isn't)... and this is a second step (first and second attached picture)...

Third step may be air-transparent diffusers (third attached picture)... but that is not cheap.

In both cases we use serious bass traps behind... and we try to keep low frequency absorption, and to add reflections only from about 1kHz and up in rooms with volume smaller than 100m3 (3530ft3)...

Hope this helps

Boggy

[DanDan]

Carpet, particularly on the walls, with presumably no backing, is thin. It will absorb only high frequencies. This leaves all the booms and honks in place.
Probably best to measure this and get a read on what is really happening in there.
Drums sound awful on carpet, probably the same with the walls.
Such a low ceiling needs a decent cloud over the drums. If the floor is carpeted, lay plywood sheets under the drums. I often lean plywood sheets at an angle against the wall. This prevents flutter but generates a woody liveness.
I have no idea what the Bamboo will do. Surely there will be some HF reflection and scattering. There may also be a sort of panel movement with all the sticks moving together as one, in terms of bass. Maybe. In any case I can't imagine anything bad happening if you just try some around the drums.
DD

[hsal]

Missed that part about carpets, I would tear it down, adding some broadband absorbers with wooden slats as boggy suggested, is a pretty easy straight forward sollution.

you could use the bamboo for some of the slats (with a spacing between each one)

Another more modular sollution would be to make broadband absorbers on stands (gobos), and mount the bamboo on the outside (also here with space between them).

[beau_mckee]

Thanks for the great advice so far. I'm going to go over all these suggestions. Unfortunately the studio owner does not want the carpet to come down - underneath the carpet is supposedly some vinyl/rubber material to help stop the music escaping the room. These rooms were designed for rehearsals, and living in Australia, it appears to be super expensive to get panels that can go on the carpeted walls that will liven up my dead room in a good way. Do you guys recommend another affordable solution?

I like the idea of the plywood, but I feel this isn't a long term solution. I was hoping to fix the bamboo to the walls permanently to give some natural room verb in my drum tracks, bringing back some top end. The top end is quite dead so far.

[beau_mckee]

I'm surprised more people haven't thought of this idea! If it helps add some more top end in my room, it will for sure be an improvement on my room now. I will give this a try and report back in a little while