The poor man accoustic treatements

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Hi,

I thought I post the recent room acoustic treatment I did to my mixing room so those who, like me, don't have unlimited funding and might find some trick I used useful to them. The recent discussion I had with Valley brought this on, but I can't find this post anymore.

The most obvious problem that plagued my room was a total lack of stereo imaging, a problem I assumed to be related to the reverberance of the smallish room.

I chose to tackle the problem three ways: first, to cut down on the floor to ceiling reverberation I was to add carpeting; next, for the parallel wall I was to use sound absorption material of some kind and thirdly I needed to tackle the room corners problem.

So, for the carpeting I chose one of them commercial carpet available in big renovation center as I wanted something that was cheap, durable and not too thick with a discreet design. I paid less than a dollar a foot for carpeting, which is extremely durable and which I installed myself BUT, you need to add an underlining to those. For underlining I used the lining which is used in new condo for sound deadening, http://www.dura-son.com/, not exactly cheap but easy to install and extremely efficient and available everywhere.

Next came the wall-to-wall reverberation problem. I first looked at product specifically made for this task like Auralex product, but those product were extremely expensive and I couldn't find them anywhere but online; I would never buy product of this type online so... Then, while browsing the isles of my favorite renovation center I found theses 1 foot square tiles by about 5/8" thick made of cork; at only about $1.00 a square foot I quickly bought a few pack and made some test. Wow, those are extremely efficient to the point of completely deadening the room if you use too much of them. After some testing I decided on a pattern and glued them on. this is what it looks like (sorry for the bad photo):

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Lastly came the corners problem. I just used some crown molding that I installed in all the ceiling corners; the one I used, because I'm a cheap bastard, were the MDF kind and looks good once painted.


Total cost for a 140 square foot room: around $400.00 CDN (about $300.00 US).

Result:

The first thing really, and I do mean REALLY, obvious is the stereo image that hit me full face; Wow! I then listened to some classical recording; again WOW! I could hear some instruments, in recording I knew, that I've never even heard before, it was a totally new listening experience. Is it perfect? Probably not, but the improvement is a thousandfold, even considering the small cash outlay. I do plan to take some measurements later this year and probably tweak it some more, but for the time behing it's certainly something I can live with.

If you have a studio that's worth a quarter of a million dollars, just disregard this post, but others might find something useful somewhere in there.
Quote of the day: "If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names."--Elbert Hubbard 1856-1915

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Ezy Ryder wrote:If you have a studio that's worth a quarter of a million dollars, just disregard this post, but others might find something useful somewhere in there.
Well that counts me a someone who has to disregard this post. :hihi:

JK...

Very useful, thanks for the post!

Greg
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yes...very useful. I'm doing my recording in a basement, and I have lots of absorption (from clothes containers and such), but I need to address the acoustics soon. Wait a minute, I'm likley moving in a couple months...so I'll address it then!

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The advantage of product like Realtrap and, to some extent, Auralex foam is that, while the initial cost is far greater than my approach to treat a room as bad as mine was, if you ever move you can take it with you. Since I own this home and don't plan to move anytime soon it doesn't matter to me, but if you're renting this should be taken into consideration of course.
Quote of the day: "If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names."--Elbert Hubbard 1856-1915

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I'm realy interested in this topic, thanks for your information, I've got a problem room now with major eaves: will look into Dura-Son.

Would add that the material that has helped the most for me was the 2 x 4 sheets of compressed fiberglass. Yes, evil but it doesn't shed and it just sits there; I've had no problems. This is what's in RealTraps and you can get it at any lumber yard. The RealTraps site has lots of info about this, it's like getting a much nicer pair of monitors once you've installed it. In my old room I treated each corner high up with a sheet cut in half so it ws 4 inches thick, 1 x 4 feet across the corner. These were put behind burlap in a plywood frame. Worked pretty well...
Pythagorean perennialist.

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If you really want cheap - egg crates work pretty good at deadening a room. (The weird cardboard kind you see everywhere - restaurants throw them away by the hundreds)
Anyway, glue them together in panels of your choosing (they fit together really well - little grooves and sockets etc - I just rip off any pieces that get in the way) and nail / stick them to the walls. Any glue works really well because they're paper.
Looks wierd but works great. When you have to move, throw them away.

Just my two cents worth

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To me this is the nitty gritty. I mean, anybody can talk theory or philosophy or synthbabble but room treatment is where things get real. :oops:
Pythagorean perennialist.

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Very good topic, thanks for the tips guys. I just realized that my room is a disaster.

I've got mirror closets behind the speakers (!), two open doorways on the other and bare concrete wall on the other side... behind the setup things are ok, medium-size room with fat carpet, sofa & heavy bookshelves.

I'll post some photos later, I hope people can help me out :( I've got rather nice 2-way hifi speakers, but they don't image nearly as well in their current location as they did in the shop. I should invent something movable behind the speakers to cover the mirrors. Movable as it's also our living room and our clothes are in the closet. And this on a budget... :?

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I thought egg boxes were a bit of a myth? They may be the same shape as proper tiles but have no density?

But if you've used them and they work then obviously not. :)

.g

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GaryG wrote:I thought egg boxes were a bit of a myth?
They are. They have no effect. You may as well use newspaper.

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GaryG wrote:I thought egg boxes were a bit of a myth? They may be the same shape as proper tiles but have no density?

But if you've used them and they work then obviously not. :)

.g
They will soak up some high frequencies, but the problems are usually in the bass region. :shrug: They're certainly no use for soundproofing!

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I found some good, practical info from The Project Studio Handbook and Bill's Audio Cave.

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Those thick moving/packing blankets are supposed to work really well, also. Just buy some dowels and hang 'em folded on the wall in strategic places. This is especially nice if you're renting - easily transportable.

On another note, you all might want to check out a free subscription to TapeOp magazine. There are always good articles in there on this very subject, and the majority of stuff is geared towards us cats on a budget.

http://www.tapeop.com/

I'm in no way connected, just been a faithful reader for years. You can thank me later :)

- Billy
* Reaper * Sonar PE * Reason * Audition * Gearbox * Delta 1010LT *

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There is a lot to learn about acousticly treating a room, but it really comes down to what works.

Here is an article from EQ mag.:

http://www.eqmag.com/story.asp?sectionc ... ycode=4715

and here is a forum dedicated to acustic treatments for recording:

http://www.musicplayer.com//ultimatebb. ... /f/26.html

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platinumears wrote:
GaryG wrote:I thought egg boxes were a bit of a myth? They may be the same shape as proper tiles but have no density?

But if you've used them and they work then obviously not. :)

.g
They will soak up some high frequencies, but the problems are usually in the bass region. :shrug: They're certainly no use for soundproofing!
I guess I used the wrong words. The higher frequencies are what I find them useful for. I don't record any low frquencies in the room - just vocals and acoustic guitar. For me anyway, they get rid of some of the high pitched fan noise from the computer and a lot of the sibilance reverb (if that's what you call it) that the room has without them.

There is a definate difference in the sound but not in the low frequencies.

And then my hearing could be shot.....

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