Home Studio sound treatment question

[ochaim]

I'm not sure I agree with your comments about foam, Len. Acoustic foam absorbs, much like rockwool. As it gets thicker, it absorbs more of the lower frequencies. I'm not sure if the ridges have any significant effect on how they work. And sine waves aren't quite circles either. They're waves, like in a synth.

Respectfully.

[andygabrys]

hey Paulie,

I think everybody here has variations on the same idea.

here are some resources:

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthread ... orums/24/1

http://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

keep in mind that a lot of what Ethan writes is spot on (IMHO), but he is also one of the principles of http://realtraps.com and all the stuff that they sell follows what he feels is the proper way to do acoustic treatment. Caveat Emptor.

Here is what I know summarized:

1) There is a big difference between Foam (like Aurelex including the LENERD ones) and OC 703 / 705 / Rock wool / Roxsul. "Experts" typically recommend the latter products because they absorb bass frequencies as well as high frequencies.
2) A conventional rectangular or square room has 4 vertical corners, and 8 horizontal corners. Putting bass traps across any of the corners will help to tame uneven bass frequencies - which is the #1 problem in small rooms. You can usually hear the bass change as you move from your listening position into the corners - in my room its major sub frequencies.
3) Most houses have rooms of 8' height. Most people's DAW setups have the monitors ~4' off the floor- which being 1/2 of the height is a disadvantage, as sound will bounce off the ceiling and floor back into your ears.
4) Most houses have drywall (gyp-roc) on the walls, which apart from being dense and good for stopping sound traveling through the walls if its in layers, actually isn't good at absorbing sound and tends to bounce it back into the center of the room. Although this seems like it should be a problem for mid-high frequencies, most "experts" recommend NOT putting thin panels (i.e. 1" or thinner panels - especially foam) because it usually tends to deaden the high end reflections / frequencies leaving the room sounding "dead", yet with all the problems that the room had before (again bass frequencies, and low mids). If the room sounds dead up high, then you are tempted to add a lot of reverb or high freq eq to try and make things sound exciting again.
5) placement of your monitors is key as is your listening position. in a 12' long room, its recommended to sit 38% of the long wall away from the back wall behind your monitors (or ~4' 6"). Putting your monitors 1" or even 18" off the wall and moving yourself a little closer than 4' 6" from them is likely going to be a better compromise than putting them right on the wall (with added bass problems) and going 4'6" away from them.
6) most recommendations including treating all the first reflection points with 4" thick panels - the back wall behind the monitors, the side walls forming a triangle with the monitors and your ears, the roof (using a "cloud" like Owen suggested) with the same relationships, and the back wall (if you typically are in a small room like most of us). Add a couple extra bass traps covering the corners. For Most rooms you are talking 9 to 10 panels.
7) The way to get around having to treat your room at all is to: a) monitor at really low levels where the room isn't activated, b) use reference tracks all the time, c) use headphones to check what you hear on your monitors - but generally some kind of treatment is going to make you happier.

This is one of the lesser expensive suppliers out there today: http://lasoundpanels.com

but there are also:

Primacoustic
Ready Traps
Real Traps

etc.

Good luck.

[andygabrys]

I'm not sure I agree with your comments about foam, Len. Acoustic foam absorbs, much like rockwool. As it gets thicker, it absorbs more of the lower frequencies. I'm not sure if the ridges have any significant effect on how they work. And sine waves aren't quite circles either. They're waves, like in a synth.

Respectfully.

agree.

the depth of the ridges in the Aurelex products apparently has little to do with absorbing low frequencies (if you read other studies than the Aurelex ones) and that style of foam has little effect on low frequencies period.

It is recommended that you place an air gap on the backside of the 4" thick fiberglas panels (which are not boat panels BTW - they are still soft but not as soft as Fiberglas Pink) because this will make them more effective at trapping the bass - but again if you don't have at least 4' of thickness on the panel, you aren't getting much help down low.

[joyfrost]

Another great option if you are handy and on a Budget is to build your own acoustic panels! I am a DIY girl to the bitter end!! I built my own vocal booth for 10 bucks and have DIY'd 100% of the decorations in my house... I Need to treat my room too and this is the route I think I'm gonna take. The producer from the recording studio I did my internship is a good friend of mine and he told me he built all his own panels and diffusers for his home Studio too and gets great results. At Home Depot he spent about just as much on the wood for all 5 acoustic panels combined as he would have for one premade Panel.

Here is a good tutorial. http://acousticsfreq.com/blog/?p=62 This way you can make it as thick as you want (and you can even choose your favorite fabric from Joann's to make it look purdy)

[Len911]

I'm not sure I agree with your comments about foam, Len. Acoustic foam absorbs, much like rockwool. As it gets thicker, it absorbs more of the lower frequencies. I'm not sure if the ridges have any significant effect on how they work. And sine waves aren't quite circles either. They're waves, like in a synth.

Respectfully.

Thank you Ochaim! I wish more people would disagree, I would much rather have a discussion and blurt out my thoughts than try to fact check everything I say,lol! You are correct, sine waves aren't circles, I did a little checking and different source says they are actually 2 circles! I'm ignorant of the higher mathematics! Though I'm not a disbeliever in math, I don't think, rofl!

I'm not really sure I believe my comments about foam either, Ochaim, maybe the ruffles serve the same purpose they do on potato chips?? Whatever that is suppose to be. Made me hungry for Ruffles.

[Len911]

the depth of the ridges in the Aurelex products apparently has little to do with absorbing low frequencies (if you read other studies than the Aurelex ones) and that style of foam has little effect on low frequencies period.

It is recommended that you place an air gap on the backside of the 4" thick fiberglas panels (which are not boat panels BTW - they are still soft but not as soft as Fiberglas Pink) because this will make them more effective at trapping the bass - but again if you don't have at least 4' of thickness on the panel, you aren't getting much help down low.[/quote]

I agree, that's why I used "lower' as a relative term, I'm not sure what claims Aurelex makes. It's been many years ago that I purchased these that I have.

Andy, I did reference boat panels, but not to use as an acoustical tool,lol, but as an example.

[Len911]

Another great option if you are handy and on a Budget is to build your own acoustic panels! I am a DIY girl to the bitter end!! I built my own vocal booth for 10 bucks and have DIY'd 100% of the decorations in my house... I Need to treat my room too and this is the route I think I'm gonna take. The producer from the recording studio I did my internship is a good friend of mine and he told me he built all his own panels and diffusers for his home Studio too and gets great results. At Home Depot he spent about just as much on the wood for all 5 acoustic panels combined as he would have for one premade Panel.

Here is a good tutorial. http://acousticsfreq.com/blog/?p=62 This way you can make it as thick as you want (and you can even choose your favorite fabric from Joann's to make it look purdy)

Cool Joy! It's nice to have talent. Unfortunately for me if I need purdy and budget, I rely mostly on thrift stores,lol,

[Len911]

I bought the book. It's when you read a couple sentences like these that pretty much sums it up for me, the book goes back on the shelf, and I do whatever I want,lol

https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov98/ ... ustic5.htm

"Pragmatic Acoustics

While soundproofing follows fairly predictable physical rules, acoustic treatment is less easily pinned down. As we have seen, although there are well-documented physical laws governing the way sound is absorbed and reflected, there are so many variables in a typical room that precise calculation is virtually impossible. Perhaps this is why so many people consider acoustic design to be as much an art as a science. Even if you could be absolutely sure about the acoustic properties of all the materials making up your room, the acoustics would still change significantly once equipment and furniture was introduced into the studio."

I might add, that it seems most rooms are square or rectangle. It seems also that most acoustic advice assumes you will also line everything up square, maybe because most things are square, and centered within the square. If most people wish to watch the television in the living room, if they wish to watch it directly, sit on the opposite parallel wall.
A civilized person wouldn't think to angle the television and angle the recliner on the perpendicular wall.

[Paulie]

So, given the artistic nature of soundproofing, do tools like http://www.roomeqwizard.com actually help home studio peeps like many of us, or is that just overkill? It seems like this is a topic that one could easily become distracted by when mixing with headphones and utilizing reference mixes might be all that is necessary?

[andygabrys]

ha Len911

thanks for making me remember that I am being far too serious about all this.

Paulie - I shot my room with roomeqwizrd. and....... just left up the same treatment I had in anyways.