Acoustically treating my recording area...

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HCMarkus
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by HCMarkus »

SixStringGeek wrote:FWIW, I'm about to embark on similar project.

I have a pile of 703 48x24x2 panels I picked up at a building supply outlet awhile ago and just need to dress em up and hang em. This is the part that has me stuck though. A weekend experiment with some fabric I picked up locally and 3m spray adhesive leaves me thinking a different approach is called for. I made kind of a mess of my one test panel.

I found http://www.acoustimac.com/ and have ordered the fabric sample sets. They also have wood frames for less than I can build them for at the local Home Depot. 48x24x2 (size of a 703 panel) frames are $13.46 or $134.60 for ten. Just about a wash if I were to build my own.

The have some really pretty pre-built panels sets with murals on them too if you like that kind of thing and have money to burn.
Call me about this. I have built a lot of panels!
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SixStringGeek
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by SixStringGeek »

HCMarkus wrote:Call me about this. I have built a lot of panels!
I'll give you a buzz before I order any materials - next week is family vacation time with my kid so it will be week after next before I get serious. Just ordered some fabric samples so far and I have a pile of 703 panels.
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donreynolds
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by donreynolds »

I used burlap fabric in blues and purples in my studio. Used 703 and 705 placed on plywood panels They looked real good.
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HCMarkus
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by HCMarkus »

Scroll down a little in this thread and you can see how I build panels:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... =3&t=21099
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by daniel.sneed »

Just my two cents :
Treating room acoustic is looking first at mechanical facts:
- If walls, ceiling and floor are *hard and heavy*, say concrete, you may need much bass absorbers.
- But if they are *light and somewhat free*, say wood, plaster panels and the like, you may need very few bass absorbers, for they may dampen most of bass reflections.
- If they are in between, hum... you see the point.
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Prime Mover
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by Prime Mover »

Come to think of it, I may not need much at all:

My walls are completely plywood, no drywall, no concrete, just plywood with 2' space studs. But since it's Alaska, all the walls contain a 6" air space filled with insulation (not sure what type, but it's probably pretty heavy-duty). I'm not sure about this, but would that suggest that my house is, to some degree, already acting as one big bass trap?

If this is anywhere near the case, my thought was just to hang a huge long 16' bass trap up in the rafters which would double as both a cloud, as well as cover the most prominant corner: the "A" peak. Everything I've read suggests that this would be the best place to trap, since all sound gets focused up there. Then, simply do as SixStringGeek suggested, and build some 2" 703 panels with a 2" airspace, directly behind the console, and maybe filling the diagonal to the side wall just beside it. I know that 4" would be ideal, but I can't afford to loose much wall space at sitting level, and it sounds like 2" 703 and 2" air will at least do quite a bit of good.

This all sound reasonable?
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daniel.sneed
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by daniel.sneed »

Prime Mover wrote:[...] I may not need much at all:
My walls are completely plywood, no drywall, no concrete, just plywood with 2' space studs. But since it's Alaska, all the walls contain a 6" air space filled with insulation (not sure what type, but it's probably pretty heavy-duty). I'm not sure about this, but would that suggest that my house is, to some degree, already acting as one big bass trap?
[...] This all sound reasonable?
Yes, Prime, reasonable to me. Of course, medium and high frequencies absorbers will still be needed. My fist guess: All side and rear walls around speakers and *some* areas of walls facing speakers.
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davedempsey
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by davedempsey »

daniel.sneed wrote: Yes, Prime, reasonable to me. Of course, medium and high frequencies absorbers will still be needed. My fist guess: All side and rear walls around speakers and *some* areas of walls facing speakers.
In my opinion if you leave the mix position as is, you need to treat all corners and apex of the roof, the wall behind the monitors, use portable walls left and right of mix position and some treatment on wall behind mix position. The corners on the left, both in front and behind mix position, will be in stark contrast to the more open space on the right - to that extent the space is "lopsided" - how this translates into frequency and spatial inaccuracies I don't know - slanted wall front and back with straight wall left and no wall right is a difficult proposition - much better to place the mix position centre of left wall for spatial symmetry - maybe second best option is to screw it left 45 degrees, treat the corner and use it as the centre point for the mix position and wrap a wall like the Auralex one all the way around from left to right.

Here's the Auralex one I mean:

Image

You should be able to make something like that with the corner as centre spot - obviously you'd have to move further out into the room to compensate for the slant wall on the right.

If you leave it where it is you'll still need to wrap around the mix position with something like the Auralex wall, treat corners and roof and some of wall behind - here's a picture of the wall behind my mix position:

Image
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Prime Mover
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by Prime Mover »

You keep saying "if you leave the mix position as it is". That is, unfortunately, not a choice. I've done hours of thinking, and there's nothing I can do about it. It's because of the damn Toyo stove bolted to the floor, it can't be helped. Mix position is going to be where it is, within a foot or so.

Auralex is not an ideal option for me. First, shipping is ungodly, so I'd rather build, even if the materials are more expensive. Secondly, my walls aren't parallel, and space is REALLY tight, so having a free-standing foam shell around the mixing console isn't just impractical, it's impossible. Whatever treatment I do, it needs to be attached to the walls in some way, and take up as little depth as possible. That's why I'd like to go with 703 panels behind the speakers, if at all possible. Now, curving the 703 around the corner wall is a perfectly doable option, and I plan on doing that, and as you said, it will be necessary because of the mix placement.

What should I use for mid and hi freq absorbers, and where should I locate them?
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by Frodo »

One important thing to do is to take acoustical measurements before treating the space to get a realistic/numerical take on what's going on in that space and to understand what specific parts of that space reveal certain frequencies which may need to be tamed before investing too much in materials.

If frequencies in the area of 1k upwards are not too much of a problem, then 2" of panels may prove to be enough. If there are areas that reveal standing waves in the 100-120Hz area, then panels of 4" or thicker might be required.

Now, many have considered software such are IK Multimedia's ARC as snake oil. Granted, ARC has features that will attempt to automatically compensate for overwhelming frequencies, but more importantly, it will take a number of sine sweeps from a variety of points within the listening position and average what's going on in the room. That alone (without the automatic snake oil compensation function) will tell you what kinds of acoustical treatments are needed and how thick they should be.

Further to the point of sine sweep software without the snake oil stigma is FuzzMeasurePro.
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Prime Mover
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Re: Acoustically treating my recording area...

Post by Prime Mover »

Absolutely. I downloaded REW the other day, which has a newish version out that seems to play well with OS X. I tried to get it to work with just a omni condenser and a speaker, but it seems to really need an SPL meter for calibration, which I have as well, but it was in storage at the time I tried the other day, so my readings were not to the program's liking (I turned the amp up to 100db, and the program read 20db). I'll try again, and use the SPL meter mic instead, should be decent enough for a ballpark reading.
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