My Untreated Room, My First Steps

[anthonyfossaluzz]

So I have been reading almost everything i can on this forum, in a couple of books, and similar websites. I was hoping that my first post wouldn't look like everyone elses other posts about their rooms but I'm thinking that it will. The people giving answers on this subforum are so knowledgeable, posting seems a little daunting, but it makes me want to learn everything I can.

I have a little space in the upstairs of a house I am renting. It is a bedroom with slanted ceilings. I had my stuff set up on one of the long sides and after reading a few things, decided to move it to the end of the room. It is symmetrical behind the monitors and to the sides of the monitors, but asymmetrical several feet behind the listener. Until 6 months or so, I had only been mixing to headphones, just recording stuff for myself or my bands. I borrowed some monitors to mix something and enjoyed it. I had avoided them for so long because buying monitors= room treatment, which seemed like something too big to jump into. After reading more about it, I bought my own monitors. A studio in town had just put up a bunch of 1" rigid fiberglass so i called to see if he had any scraps. He had enough for me to puzzle piece them onto 3 4'x4' thin wood boards. I covered them with fabric to keep the itching crap inside. Since those panels are quite thin, I've gotten a case of 3 owens corning 703 4'x2'x4" pieces and will cover them with fabric.

I know my room situation is not ideal, but it will be my home base for recording. I did the room analyzer that Glenn Kuras recommends to us newbies and attached the spl graph. It does not look too good. I have done slower freq sweeps in the room at the current position and there are some holes that you can hear easily. Also attached are a drawing of the layout, then with my ideas of possible first steps of treatment.

My questions are:

1. I made my 1" think panels before I had read up on it. They have 4mm thick wood as the backing, covering the whole thing. If I hang them from the ceiling/walls with a small gap, will that help or harm the absorbtion? I think I know now that if i had left the back open, then left a gap that would help, but I think I had read somewhere that if you had a rigid back, waves could get trapped and resonate the board. The solution to that would be packing insulation between the board and the wall. My ideal treatment for my "cloud" would be what I drew in Fig 2 so i wouldn't cover up the light. If I needed to attach the panels with no space between them and the wall, I could do Fig 1 and use lamps to light the area.

2. The more surface area exposed on an absorbtion panel the better? The bass traps with holes in the sides theoretically absorb more sound so if I just glue fabric to the OC703, it would be more efficient with no frame? I haven't handled the material to see how rigid it really is so if it falls apart when handled, obviously it would need a frame. Has anyone used or handled an absorber like this?

I am planning for all of the treatment to be movable since I take my stuff into the living room and the dining room for more space, and my piano and hammond are down there.

In a couple of days I will be able to build my little bass traps and hang my panels and I can post the results of the second analyzer test. Thanks!

[DanDan]

1 I would include the gap. Don't see how it could hurt, it may help.
2 Can't get 703 here. ReadyBags maybe but very varied reports on delivery etc.
Is there FRK on the back of the 703? If so leave it there. Glue the fabric back there. Spray or hot glue. This should be fine, even without the FRK for side wall panels. For the cloud You could include some thin laths or such to stiffen it. A pseudo frame.
Or just build the lightest frame you can.
Steven P. Helm: DIY Bass Traps

SuperChunks are great performers. Corner Traps finally finished! - Home Theater Forum and Systems - HomeTheaterShack.com

More details on them and Corner straddling absorbers at studiotips.com

DD