Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
small room acoustics
Hi,
ive just moved into this small place with the intention of making it into as much of a workable project room as possible. There are two rooms. One 10*10 and another 14*10 (yet to measure the ceiling. The 14*10 is where i have the DAW and i got the other room carpeted, this is where i record. I need to get some acoustic work done here.... the smaller (record) room has a lotta flutter to it. soon i wud putting up thick drapes on the rear (and one side) wall.. that i think wud help till some extent. But mainly i want the monitoring room to sound good. (i have as of yet to pik up monitors, hard as i might try i cant seem to kook up a budget beyong the Behringers). This room is ver boomy.. and there are section where ther is this sudden boom at bout 60-120. I can pik up a measurement microphone and the software (?) and then insert an EQ. I need a solution that does not cost much, is not permanent (cause i might need to get out, my lease expires in 9 months.) Something that i can throw on the walls and remove it when needed. could some of you help me out with some links on DIY acoustics.... ??? i was thinking on perhaps to get a few 3feet by 6feet frames made... bout two inches deep. stuff it with glasswool and cover it with perforated gipsum of fibreboard. suspend em bout and inch and a half off the wall. But will it work. Basstraps... ??? We do not get Auralex in India. thanks a ton. Sidhu |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Check out realtraps.com. Ethan has some really good, budget sensitive ideas
and products. EQing the monitors will merely make the audio as wrong as the room. Basstrapping, broadband absorption and diffusion are the ways to make a room sound good. Joe Egan EMP Colchester, VT www.eganmedia.com |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Sidhu wrote:
I need to get some acoustic work done here.... the smaller (record) room has a lotta flutter to it. soon i wud putting up thick drapes on the rear (and one side) wall.. that i think wud help till some extent. Flutter echoes are caused by the reverberation time along one axis of the room being significantly higher then along the other axes. This is easily fixed by doing as you suggest, and applying absorption to one, or both faces of the axis in question. But mainly i want the monitoring room to sound good. (i have as of yet to pik up monitors, hard as i might try i cant seem to kook up a budget beyong the Behringers). This room is ver boomy.. and there are section where ther is this sudden boom at bout 60-120. I can pik up a measurement microphone and the software (?) and then insert an EQ. Fix the room! Don't EQ your music to compensate for a bad listening environment. If you notch out frequencies created by the resonance of your room, anyone listening to that music in another room will hear holes in the EQ, because their room will have a different set of resonant frequencies. I need a solution that does not cost much, is not permanent (cause i might need to get out, my lease expires in 9 months.) Something that i can throw on the walls and remove it when needed. A good (and reasonably cheap) solution is to copy the BBC's modular treatment approach. They produce standard 2' by 4' units that have a 2" absorbent layer (rockwool usually) over top of a 6" air space. The air space is subdivided into 4" square box sections using strips of hardboard. The front face of each unit is covered with an open weave cloth. These units can then be screwed to the walls. This approach will probably cost you more in construction time than money. could some of you help me out with some links on DIY acoustics.... ??? I have written a couple of spreadsheets that will calculate the basic acoustic properties of a rectilinear room, and also the absorption curves of slotted and perforated panel (Helmholtz) absorbers. You can download these free from he http://www.rmmpnet.org/members/ChrisW/ All the instructions on how to use these spreadsheets are on the download pages. You will probably find the control room calculator of most interest. Here, you enter the ratios of your room dimensions and then the height. After this, you can fiddle around with different wall, floor and ceiling surfaces, and it will calculate the reverberation time of the room using a variety of formulae. You should look at the values produced by the Fitzroy equations. i was thinking on perhaps to get a few 3feet by 6feet frames made... bout two inches deep. stuff it with glasswool and cover it with perforated gipsum of fibreboard. suspend em bout and inch and a half off the wall. But will it work. One thing that you must always be aware of is that for a porous absorber to have the maximum benefit, it must be placed at a location where the air particle velocity is greatest. In other words, not flat against the wall! If you're talking about having a porous absorber 2" deep positioned 1.5" from the wall, then you should expect maximum absorption to occur between approximately 700Hz and 2.8KHz. As you move the absorber farther away from the wall, the frequency at which maximal absorption occurs drops. E.G. If you increase the air gap to 4", then the frequency range drops to between 200Hz and 1.4KHz If you hear stories that all you need to do is place absorptive panels in the corners of rooms, then please be careful - the information is often presented in a way that would make you think the performance is better than can actually be acheived. A porous absorber placed flat against, or close to, a wall will have significantly reduced bass absorption capability. It is true that these panels will have a damping effect on the resonance of the room, but you must remember that porous absorbers work best where air particle velocity is highest. This in turn will occur at a quarter wavelength from a reflective surface. Therefore, in order to absorb the frequencies at the bass end (200Hz), you will have to move the porous absorber farther and farther away from the wall. To absorb maximally at 200Hz, you would need a 17" air gap between the absorber and the wall. There is obviously a practical limit to how much of your room space you can afford to loose... Basstraps... ??? Glad you mentioned them. If you have the vertical height in your room, you can construct a bass trap in the ceiling space above you. I have done this in the past by attaching rockwool to 4' by 2' sheets of hardboard, then hanging these from the ceiling at 8" intervals. A wooden frame was then constructed on the underside and cloth streched over it. Alternatively, bass traps can be made by using panel resonators. These are resonant panels over a layer of porous absorber, but unfortunately, their performance as bass traps is very difficult to predict due to the thousands of different ways the panels can be mounted to the walls. We do not get Auralex in India. Nonetheless, try contacting Jeff Szymanski ) at Auralex in the US. He is their chief acoustic engineer, and he should be able to point you in the direction of practical advice on the construction and effective placement of acoustic panels. Hope that helps Chris W -- The voice of ignorance speaks loud and long, but the words of the wise are quiet and few. -- |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Joe,
EQing the monitors will merely make the audio as wrong as the room. That's a great one-sentence summary! I hope it's okay to quote you. :-) --Ethan |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Sidhu,
This room is ver boomy That's very typical, especially in such small rooms. Thanks to Joe for mentioning my company's products, but I assume you're too far away for that to be practical. The next best thing is to read the Acoustics FAQ, second in the list on my Articles page: www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html It explains all of these issue clearly, and tells what works and what doesn't. --Ethan |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Hi-
"Michael Lauengco" wrote in message m... (Sidhu) wrote in message . com... Hi, ive just moved into this small place with the intention of making it into as much of a workable project room as possible. There are two rooms. One 10*10 and another 14*10 (yet to measure the ceiling. The 14*10 is where i have the DAW and i got the other room carpeted, this is where i record. The 10x10 dimensions (assuming they are in feet) are going to make the room quite difficult to treat. Not only is the room very small, the same dimension is repeated, thus intensifying the modes in that dimension. I would suggest building a closet, say 1.5' deep, to reduce one of the dimensions to 8.5' so they won't be the same. You didn't mention the height. That's an important consideration, too. Then you will need lots of absorption in this room especially on the corners. Hop over to the following site, click on Acoustic Forums, then Treatment, then Studio Tips Super Chunk, and check out this very effective DIY broadband absorber: http://www.studiotips.com Take the time to read the introductory articles, too. There's so much you need to know to be able to treat a room properly, especially a room that small! As for availability of materials, I hope you have rock wool or any rigid fiberglass with a density of around 2.8 lbs/cu-ft in India. Good luck! --Michael I second Michael's post. I think you'll find the Studiotips forum to be a great source of DIY acoustics knowledge and suggestions, without a commercial agenda. Spend some time there reading and you'll learn a lot about what you can (and cannot) do. Regards, Myles |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Small room acoustics | Pro Audio | |||
acoustics: graph measurement & 6 questions | Pro Audio | |||
Simulating a small room using reverb on an entire mix? | Pro Audio | |||
In DALLAS - Small production room available | Pro Audio | |||
room acoustics | General |