room acoustics on a budget

[southpaw]

Interesting thread! You make some thought provoking points, jude. At some point when i get a new house, i might try adding some diffusion. Quote:The benefit is cost and ease. traps are expensive to buy and not as easy to build as going to home depot and buying a tube. Those little 2' x4' auralex things are $25 each! They wont work on as broad a range as diffusers will. They're not that expensive, i got 24 absorbers and 8 bass traps for 200 beans.. The Lnrd bass traps though, are not very effective. 6-8" of rigid fiberglass or mineral/rock wool will do the trick for bass trapping, and if you use some reflective kind of fabric you wont kill all the highs.What you are saying is for the beginner who just wants a simple solution... I cant knock it until i try it. You have raised some ideas in my mind that are worth a try at some point. Ive also heard that those superchunks are ideal for most effective bass trapping.Quote:anyone that knows about George Massenburg knows he would not do this if there the "standard" way was so good.Sure, but many people dont know how far back those diffusers go... Something like 30 ft....(might even be 50, dont recall the exact depth) HUGE difference between that and just putting some diffusers on the wall..That'll take care of all freqs... When experts design with state of the art equipment, you have a state of the art facility. All frequencies are considered and no expense is spared. Also, radio shack makes a measurement tool for room analysis for about $40.

[jude3]

Jun 30, 2009, 5:20pm, southpaw wrote:Interesting thread! You make some thought provoking points, jude. At some point when i get a new house, i might try adding some diffusion. Quote:The benefit is cost and ease. traps are expensive to buy and not as easy to build as going to home depot and buying a tube. Those little 2' x4' auralex things are $25 each! They wont work on as broad a range as diffusers will. They're not that expensive, i got 24 absorbers and 8 bass traps for 200 beans.. The Lnrd bass traps though, are not very effective. 6-8" of rigid fiberglass or mineral/rock wool will do the trick for bass trapping, and if you use some reflective kind of fabric you wont kill all the highs.What you are saying is for the beginner who just wants a simple solution... I cant knock it until i try it. You have raised some ideas in my mind that are worth a try at some point. Ive also heard that those superchunks are ideal for most effective bass trapping.Quote:anyone that knows about George Massenburg knows he would not do this if there the "standard" way was so good.Sure, but many people dont know how far back those diffusers go... Something like 30 ft....(might even be 50, dont recall the exact depth) HUGE difference between that and just putting some diffusers on the wall..That'll take care of all freqs... When experts design with state of the art equipment, you have a state of the art facility. All frequencies are considered and no expense is spared. Also, radio shack makes a measurement tool for room analysis for about $40. YeahThe leonard bass traps only work down to 160Hz effectively. It says so right on their website.Look at the graph. It hardly does anything blow 100Hz.:http://www.auralex.com/testdata/test/lenrd.pdf100Hz is a G one and a half octaves below middle C. That is not even half way into the bass range!So why do they call them bass traps?You know I did say that for beginners but you know, if I were to make a room in my house for recording and mixing I would not to the trap thing. I would do exactly what I am telling others.I do it in a room for my studio to record in. The sound is spectacular!

[mojobone]

Given that you've already set up a DAW, it's no more difficult to measure a room's frequency response characteristics than it is to set up a couple of full-range monitor speakers and a microphone; something many forum members have done already. The test tones (sinusoid sweeps or pink noise) can be downloaded from any number of websites, and Behringer and others make a suitable measurement mic for $40-$50 dollars. (Earthworks TC30 or equivalent is even better, if you can afford it-you mainly want an omni condenser with flat response) Here is some inexpensive software that allows you to shoot your room:http://www.etfacoustic.com/Of course you can pay more, if you prefer. (Bruel & Kjaer makes a pretty sweet analysis system, too) Another consideration, of course, is that measurements can be skewed somewhat if you haven't first measured the room's damping factor (RT30) and made some attempt to even out a rooms reflective properties, and reverb reflections will differ at various frequencies in different rooms.Know what, you're right, this is a can o' worms for the uninitiated. Here's a good place to start. http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.htmlMost of the above represents the conventional wisdom; if George Massenberg has a better idea, it wouldn't be his first.

[southpaw]

Quote:YeahThe leonard bass traps only work down to 160Hz effectively. It says so right on their website.Look at the graph. It hardly does anything blow 100Hz.:http://www.auralex.com/testdata/test/lenrd.pdf100Hz is a G one and a half octaves below middle C. That is not even half way into the bass range!You're not revealing any secret here... Ethan Winer has crazy eyebrows! Definitely is an authority on the subject, hes answers a lot of questions over on gearslutz too...

[jude3]

Jun 30, 2009, 7:10pm, mojobone wrote:Given that you've already set up a DAW, it's no more difficult to measure a room's frequency response characteristics than it is to set up a couple of full-range monitor speakers and a microphone; something many forum members have done already. The test tones (sinusoid sweeps or pink noise) can be downloaded from any number of websites, and Behringer and others make a suitable measurement mic for $40-$50 dollars. (Earthworks TC30 or equivalent is even better, if you can afford it-you mainly want an omni condenser with flat response) Here is some inexpensive software that allows you to shoot your room:http://www.etfacoustic.com/Of course you can pay more, if you prefer. (Bruel & Kjaer makes a pretty sweet analysis system, too) Another consideration, of course, is that measurements can be skewed somewhat if you haven't first measured the room's damping factor (RT30) and made some attempt to even out a rooms reflective properties, and reverb reflections will differ at various frequencies in different rooms.Know what, you're right, this is a can o' worms for the uninitiated. Here's a good place to start. http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.htmlMost of the above represents the conventional wisdom; if George Massenberg has a better idea, it wouldn't be his first. Ok. Thanks for that.but, the first link you gave is not for calculating acoustic measurement of a room in terms of building a room for recording and so forth. There is a whole other calculator for that. And you really don't even need one. That is along story. Don't make me explain.The second link you gave me is, as you know, not for the beginner who needs something quick and cheap. The design in the picture in that link is how I built my studio. did you see my pics i posted?I hope there is someone reading this thread who is sitting back and not saying anything. Someone who has a sound blaster card and garage band and a pair of radio shack monitors.That is the person who will go out and do what I say and make better mixes with ease than most of the people here who go through all the trouble of buying the auralex stuff and gluing it to their walls. People don't know that it causes as many problems as it fixes. That person who spends $80 bucks on those stupid cardboard tubes will be smiling!

[jude3]

Jun 30, 2009, 7:51pm, southpaw wrote:Quote:YeahThe leonard bass traps only work down to 160Hz effectively. It says so right on their website.Look at the graph. It hardly does anything blow 100Hz.:http://www.auralex.com/testdata/test/lenrd.pdf100Hz is a G one and a half octaves below middle C. That is not even half way into the bass range!You're not revealing any secret here... Ethan Winer has crazy eyebrows! Definitely is an authority on the subject, hes answers a lot of questions over on gearslutz too... Yes I know him.A corner is a corner is a corner!His famous statement is why I built my super chunks in my ceilig corners and not in all the corner corners.

[southpaw]

again, you've brought up some interesting points jude, it does contradict conventional wisdom. You can understand that people have to classify new ideas, especially ones that go against what we've learned... right.. One suggestion, since you've staked your claimsas-basically being the unconditional truth. It would probly be easier for you to explain your reasoning from get go; rather than having to keep replying with short-hand retorts in disagreement with any comment out of sync with yours. Thanks for sharing your tips, i look forward to hearing more!~Jamie

[jude3]

Jun 30, 2009, 8:41pm, southpaw wrote:again, you've brought up some interesting points jude, it does contradict conventional wisdom. You can understand that people have to classify new ideas, especially ones that go against what we've learned... right.. One suggestion, since you've staked your claimsas-basically being the unconditional truth. It would probly be easier for you to explain your reasoning from get go; rather than having to keep replying with short-hand retorts in disagreement with any comment out of sync with yours. Thanks for sharing your tips, i look forward to hearing more!~Jamiehahahaha.I did not expect to have to do that but, hahaha it is ok.I wish I could find that studio I knew about a while ago that built the entire studio with barrel diffusers. that would really help because there is a whole explanation on that site about it.also, Bruce Sweden uses them. He used them to record MJ. He surrounds the source with them.You have to dig but there is information on it. I promise I did not make this up on my own.Thanks for all you input. Please don't be offended by any of my comments. I get to writing real fast and don't always think about what I say sometimes.

[southpaw]

None taken Jude, i hope we see you around the forums more often! Seriously, it'd be great to get your production tips and critiques over on the p2p when you have a few ticks to spare.

[jude3]

Jun 30, 2009, 9:54pm, southpaw wrote:None taken Jude, i hope we see you around the forums more often! Seriously, it'd be great to get your production tips and critiques over on the p2p when you have a few ticks to spare. Flattery will get you everywhere. They might now be worth anything but I will do it.Thanks