Is this a good idea or not?

[tomyco]

I am looking to use a potion of my basement for recording full bands. I have a Pro Tools LE setup. Here's the situationThe space dimensions are 10' wide x 18' long, ceiling is drywall, 7' 4" high. The floor has a rug on it. 3 sides of the area have walls already, bottom half is paneled, the upper half is drywall with wallpaper on it.I need to somehow close off the 4th side of the area, right now it is open. I do not want to build a wall, I want something temporary, we are moving in a couple of years and want something I can take down with ease. I was thinking of Acoustic Curtains. They come in 4' x 8' panels, 1" to 2" thickness.I can run them on thick metal rods suspended from the ceiling. I do not need 100% soundproofing, I'm just looking for an economical and somewhat easy way to close off the area and soundproof it a little at the same time.The wall of acoustic curtains will be 18' long. How will different instruments sound in a room like this. Is this a good idea or not?

[mazz]

Of course you'll never soundproof much at all with anything temporary you do, I think you may be looking to do a little acoustic treatment because anything short of a solid, very thick wall will not do any significant soundproofing.I'm not sure what you mean by the 4th wall being open, open to what? A larger space? A garage? To the outside (just kidding)?One thing you might consider is building some gobos that stand up and are reflective on one side and absorbtive on the other. If they stand 6' tall and are placed a couple of feet apart, they would make a little bit of a barrier but would allow you to "tune" the acoustics of your room a bit by rotating them. You could also use them as gobos between the guitar amp and the drummer, etc. The curtains would accomplish a similar thing but depending on how much you opened them up, it would take you back to what you have now.Since 3 walls are already reflective, the curtains would absorb reflections somewhat from the other walls. Since your ceiling is so low, though, it might end up making the room sound a bit too boxy.Without knowing what's on the other side of the proposed 4th wall, it's harder to say what might and might not work. Leaving it open might be the best solution.mazz

[billg]

Well, you know it's gonna be tough if not impossible to control leakage in this situation when tracking a live band. It might not matter so much depending on the style of music but you'll certainly have to use some "gobos" or some type of deflection or isolation. You'll need to treat the part of the wall that's paneled also. When I was treating a studio space a few years ago I found a lot of good (cheap!) materials at Markertek (www.markertek.com I think). They have a lot of soundproofing material as well as some pretty cheap sound treatment blankets. That could be something else to consider.

[tomyco]

Maxx,To clarify, I want to us the curtains to divide the basement, outside of the playing area would be the rest of the basement which is finished.

[tomyco]

Billg,I just checked out Markertek and found the blankets you are talking about, they are 68" x 76" and are cheap, $18.00 each. Are you saying to use the blankets across the room (18' long) instead of the acoustic blankets which are a lot thicker. Or are you saying to use the blankets on the other walls (half panel half wallpaper)?I am really new to recording and don't quite understand the reflection, bass traps etc.I just want to put up a third temporary wall to close off the room and add some soundproofing as a bonus. I'm trying to keep my cost down as well. I would hate to spend money and do this wrong, I mean the acoustic thing.All suggestions are welcomed but please keep it simple, again I don't quite understand the terminology. Thanks!

[mazz]

Basically you're not going to achieve much soundproofing whatever you decide to do. With the blankets you'll cut down the amount of high frequencies that go in to the other space and that will help knock down the volume a bit but the bass frequencies will not be attenuated much at all. You actually have a pretty good situation here given that you have another space behind whatever type of "wall" you put up. With acoustics, one of many things that need to be dealt with are reflections, or, in other words, sound bouncing back and forth between parallel surfaces. Your open space is probably helping to minimize the reflections because of distance the sound needs to travel back from that open space. Sound loses energy over distance. High frequencies lose energy faster than low frequencies (think neighbors partying next door at 2AM, all you hear is bass, right?).You could put some absorbtion (foam, etc.) on a certain percentage of the 3 solid walls (don't make them completely absorbent, that causes other problems) and hang even thin blankets across the 18 foot length of your 4th "wall" and the rest of the room (your finished basement) might just help you out by being a big bass trap!!Just some more ideas.Mazz

[arkjack]

If your basement studio is like mine, and has heating and plumbing under the drywall ceiling, the soundproofing is very difficult to achieve. It depends on how quiet the rest of your house is, versus the sensitivity of the microphones used. I put up all kinds of acoustic tiles and auralux foam and insulated damper boxes over the ventilation ducts to try to eliminate the sounds. It worked well with an SM58 dynamic mic, but when I upgraded to the Rode condensers I started hearing the ants crawling and mice farting in the noise floor, along with anything else that made a sound. Even low flying jet planes at just under 10,000 feet going over the house. So my advice is not to get too worried or crazy about it, a basement studio is a studio. Its just a question of how quiet is quiet enough.ArkJack

[billg]

Hey tomyco, Mazz & Ark are both right here . . . you're going to have a tough time controlling the bass AND it's going to be impossible to be completely soundproof form the outside. I wanted to mention markertek because I know how costly this stuff can be and wanted to let you know that you can save a lot of dough through them. They also have other treatments . . . their "foam" (markerfoam i think they call it") is a fraction of the costs of other options & their sound blankets work fine (but aren't very attractive). I was lucky that when I was fixing up a studio a friend of mine had a ton of these "cubicle dividers" his workplace was getting rid of. I used those for gobos & they worked great, providied a decent amount of isolation. If you have a 2nd hand office equipment place near you you may be able to pick up some of those on the cheap. I hate to say this but you're probably in for a fair bit of experimentation.

[arkjack]

The second hand office cubicle dividers is also something I did. I got them from a warehouse that specialized in recyling them. They're a good alternative since they are already acoustically treated, and you can glue foam and bass traps or reflectors to them to customize the room. They were a real pain in the A** to assemble though as I recall. and not easily moved around, especially with a 7'4" ceiling.ArkJack

[weapon]

You could also try large sheets of pexiglass, they're a little pricey but you can take them with you when you move.