Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

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Hades
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by Hades »

Adam wrote:Thanks for the tip!

I'm planing to test some bass traps from eBay: http://www.ebay.de/itm/6-St-BASS-TRAP-A ... 2326237ef0

They are smaller than the "basstrapberlin"-stuff, but maybe i can compensate the size when putting more of them in my corners.
I would never pay 99€ for a piece of foam.
I could be wrong, but afaik foam won't help you very much for bass frequencies.

try and find fibreglass/glasswool panels, those will always be much more effective than foam.
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by quest »

Hades is right, some Owens Corning 703 or similar will set you up. You can buy premade slabs and squares, even in kits. These will even out the standing waves and help with the bass somewhat, but unless you build proper bass traps in the corners you might still get some troublesome peaks in the lower octaves.

My studio can't fit bass traps at all, but then it happens to have a nice ratio similar to one of the three you can see here: http://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html#si ... d%20shapes

The 703 slabs and squares cut down the standing waves and the diffusers at the back of the room help prevent bounce-back.

I'm much more concerned with bleed from neighbouring studios (I rent in a studio commune) than sound treatment at this point.
http://studios.musiclink.info/studio-108/

These kits are overpriced compared to what you can make yourself, but these days time is money more than ever:
http://www.tomleemusic.ca/index.php/158995.html

Hope this helps.

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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by msl »

Adam wrote:They are smaller than the "basstrapberlin"-stuff, but maybe i can compensate the size when putting more of them in my corners.

Yeah these are crap, foam does nothing for bass really... and €99 is too much for them, maybe for like 20 or something you could add a few to mix. They won't cover the low end though just mid to hi I think.

If your not DIY inclined then go for the Berlin guys (10cm for €99), if you made them yourself your looking at €40ish per piece but you also have to cost the time... sourcing the rock wool, making the frames, sourcing the fabric and putting it all together...


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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by Lost to the Void »

Yeah really, you are throwing money away on foam bass traps, they don't do anything on low frequencies. You require loose fibres (such as fibre glass or earth wool) to take the energy out of the air. Foam traps are just air.
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by Adam »

Hey, thanks for advice! Saved my money... ;)

What do you think about the GIK Acoustics stuff?
http://www.gikacoustics.com

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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by Lost to the Void »

GIK are good, just stupidly overpriced.
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by ONE »

Can a room be too small to treat? Are there limits to what one can work w/?



I ask as I am changing home next month. On paper, it looks to be on: It's an end of terrace house; the music room/s will be in a cellar; and the neighbours - I'm hoping they will be as deaf as they are old - and they are extremely old.

The space is approx. 6m x 4m but is split by a brick wall w/ a doorway allowing access between the two halves of 3 x 4m. The wall is only one brick thick but it's load-bearing and knocking the wall down and installing a ceiling beam in steel is not an option at this time, so I'm stuck w/ halving my space and making do.

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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

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ONE wrote:Can a room be too small to treat? Are there limits to what one can work w/?



I ask as I am changing home next month. On paper, it looks to be on: It's an end of terrace house; the music room/s will be in a cellar; and the neighbours - I'm hoping they will be as deaf as they are old - and they are extremely old.

The space is approx. 6m x 4m but is split by a brick wall w/ a doorway allowing access between the two halves of 3 x 4m. The wall is only one brick thick but it's load-bearing and knocking the wall down and installing a ceiling beam in steel is not an option at this time, so I'm stuck w/ halving my space and making do.
if you're in a small space, don't get monitors that are too big.
and if acoustic treatment is hard or impossible, just use headphones.
a lot of people are producing on headphones.
I have an acoustically treated room and proper monitors, but it's still not perfect, and I always check my mixes with headphones.
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by ONE »

I don't produce; this will be a listening room.

I have 5" nearfields - audiophile they are not and were funds available could be readily upgraded - but I feel my family would be left w/ the same issue.

I always listen to music at low volume, but when I'm in the living room two rooms away the bass is factors louder (and this doesn't cut the mustard w/ the punk and Sesame Street fans in the household.


I think I'll get more bang for my buck w/ the treatment route. Thanks to whoever keeps posting those gorgeous commercial products. I look forward to copying/installing them down in the concrete box :D


Hades wrote:I would never pay 99€ for a piece of foam.
I would. If it was a fourteen foot high foam vagina.

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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by msl »

No you can definitely still treat a small room as best you can where ever it fits. Use 5in monitors and sit them close 2-3 feet away from you so the room doesn't effect whats arriving at your ears so much. Small rooms are trouble generally, esp if its a square!


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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

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ONE wrote:
Hades wrote:I would never pay 99€ for a piece of foam.
I would. If it was a fourteen foot high foam vagina.

that reminds me of Louis CK's cunt talk :
please, somebody shoot that giant vagina with a bazooka before it steps on the candy store !
:lol:
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by Críoch »

I'm hoping to be making some rockwool basstraps (finally) for my room over the next week or so.

I had previously put some hard foam, spaceboard (??) stuff that I'd put on the tops of the walls to kill the slapback. I have a perfectly square room unfortunately. They really helped. I've recently covered them in red fabric from Ikea. Really good value & makes the place look so much better. They do a good job of reducing the 'pinging', but they really drained the room as they were orange & the walls are stock magnolia. It wasnt the main point to make them look good.. but the room is a much nicer place to be in now.

Have to say though.. doing these 8 panels, it really reminded me of wrapping xmas presents. I'd say if you are good & neat at wrapping gifts then y'd be well suited to a project like this :mrgreen:
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by surface »

Mentioned it before but if you need access to a tablesaw, can sort you out. Think these are simple enough frames to make with hand/powertools but there's one here if it helps ..

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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by Críoch »

Hey Colm,

Cheers Mate! I'm actually thinking of making these: http://www.readyacoustics.com/DIY-BASS- ... E-EASY.pdf

I've already got the wood. Should be a 5sec job to cut with my trusty saw so the Joker Vs. Batman table saw would probably be overkill :D

haha
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

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ICN wrote: Cheers Mate! I'm actually thinking of making these: http://www.readyacoustics.com/DIY-BASS- ... E-EASY.pdf
i just made 4 panels following exactly the same design (though they are 6" deep and i used metal corner brackets). they were really easy to make and i'm not handy at all. the wood planks were warped, i was off with my measuring and cutting and screwing the corner brackets straight...and it didn't fucking matter one bit. as long as the frame resembles a rectangle, that's all that's needed, since its only function is so you have something to staple the fabric to and for hanging. i saw people building these nice sturdy frames with wood on both sides on gearslutz and it's just a total overkill (i guess unless you are going to be moving these around 20 times a day, which shouldn't be the case for most people). i also built square "soffit" bass traps that will go floor-to-ceiling in my front corners (they are about 16"). these were a bit more time-consuming to do, but still pretty difficult to fuck up royally. can't wait to re-arrange my room this weekend and measure the results.

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Excellent! haha - Like minds think alike, fools seldom differ ;) :D

Yep.. they look straightforward. What I like about them is that they have more surface area because they dont have the wooden sides. It seems preferable to me but then again there are probably other arguments against omitting them.

Did you bother to measure the nodes in your room before after? What are the dimensions of your room? Do you think they made a difference?

Where did you position them in the end? (SO many questions lol - just intrigued as a comparision - sorry! :D )
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

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Saw this article online earlier..

http://www.recordingreview.com/blog/rec ... dont-work/

Lovely fucking demotivational thing to read just before you go sawing & the rest!
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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by surface »

There's always something to the sow the see of doubt! Good luck with the "boxiness traps" :D

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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by Lost to the Void »

Resonator panels is what you need, good luck with all the calculations

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Re: Acoustic treatment, where to start?, what to do?

Post by Dead End Dance »

ICN wrote: Yep.. they look straightforward. What I like about them is that they have more surface area because they dont have the wooden sides. It seems preferable to me but then again there are probably other arguments against omitting them.
as far as i know, the only argument for having them is for purely cosmetic reasons, since the front side (the one without a frame) will look a bit soggy. other than that, having the front frame does take away more surface area from the absorbing material, involves more wood and screws and cutting and screwing. so, yeah, fuck that shit.
ICN wrote: Did you bother to measure the nodes in your room before after? What are the dimensions of your room? Do you think they made a difference?

Where did you position them in the end? (SO many questions lol - just intrigued as a comparision - sorry! :D )
i bought an omnidirectional mic and captured snapshots of my room using REW (Room EQ Wizard) by recording a sine sweep from 20 to 20K Hz. my room is really small, 13w x10l x 7h (in feet), and it has a bunch of annoying irregularities that makes it harder to treat. the low end is fucked - lots of pretty substantial spikes and nulls. i can post a graph later tonight.

unfortunately, i won't be able to make a true A/B comparison because i'm also changing the location of the monitors/listening position (i'm along the longer wall right now). and i can only install the corner traps when everything is moved away and i'm too lazy to set everything up just so i could do measurements and then tear everything apart again to do the install. obviously, can't tell you if they made any difference, since i haven't installed anything yet. will do it this weekend. but i will basically have these square soffits in the corners behind the monitors going from floor to ceiling. then i will have 2 2'x4' panels in the first reflection points on each side wall. and i still have a bunch of rockwool left over, so i'm going to make a bunch of smaller panels that will serve as a ceiling cloud. so i'll see how that goes. but i might try to do something to the back wall later (since i now know how easy it is to make these stupid things), though that might be pretty hard since the back "wall" is really a built in closet and the door out. not sure what i can really do about those.

i actually documented the whole process with a camera and maybe i'll finally use that as a motivation to start my blog and do my first post on this. but i snapped a few pictures with my phone that you see here. one of the smaller soffit frames (the other is almost twice as big - two per corner). and 3 of the 2x4s, where you can see that the front doesn't look as nice since there's no frame. and i fucked up some of the folds (which is the most annoying part of the whole process). but, whatever, doesn't really bother me.
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