I recently began working in a studio as lead engineer. the main "live"
room (in my opinion) has horrible acoustics and gives me flutter echo
(most notable on cymbal's). its in a retangular room, with NO acoustic
treatment besides isolation. no bass traps, diffusers, or absorbers.
the engineering room also needs extensive acoustic treatment. so i
start shopping for acoustic treatment. i get sticker shock real quick.
$100 for a square foot of wedge foam? FOAM? for a $100??!!! i'm not
building a space shuttle. i could rack up a bill for 1000's of dollars
real quick to treat how i wanna treat. my question is, how crazy is
this planet? i still can't believe how someone can charge that much
for foam. anyone know what i can do to get acoustic treatment at
REASONABLE prices? i'm NOT buying generic egg crate material (nothing
screams amatuer studio like egg crate) tips/tricks? killer deals?
build the stuff my self?

if the studio business doesn't work out i'm going into the foam
business. i'll charge $50 a square foot, and still make $$$.

On 15 Feb 2005 03:55:03 -0800, wrote:

I recently began working in a studio as lead engineer. the main "live"
room (in my opinion) has horrible acoustics and gives me flutter echo
(most notable on cymbal's). its in a retangular room, with NO acoustic
treatment besides isolation. no bass traps, diffusers, or absorbers.
the engineering room also needs extensive acoustic treatment. so i
start shopping for acoustic treatment. i get sticker shock real quick.
$100 for a square foot of wedge foam? FOAM? for a $100??!!! i'm not
building a space shuttle. i could rack up a bill for 1000's of dollars
real quick to treat how i wanna treat. my question is, how crazy is
this planet? i still can't believe how someone can charge that much
for foam. anyone know what i can do to get acoustic treatment at
REASONABLE prices? i'm NOT buying generic egg crate material (nothing
screams amatuer studio like egg crate) tips/tricks? killer deals?
build the stuff my self?

if the studio business doesn't work out i'm going into the foam
business. i'll charge $50 a square foot, and still make $$$.

If you want to keep the room live, then don't kill it with absorber.
Get yourself some big plywood or MDF sheets and mount them vertically
on some kind of moveable brackets. Stand them around the walls at odd
angles to break up the flat facing surfaces - this will kill the
flutter echoes and modes without destroying the reverberation time.
If you have problems between ceiling and floor, you may need to hand
some heavy drapes in folds from the ceiling to mop them up. Do this
right and it can be a decorative feature.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

wrote in message
ups.com

I recently began working in a studio as lead engineer. the main
"live" room (in my opinion) has horrible acoustics and gives me
flutter echo (most notable on cymbal's). its in a retangular room,
with NO acoustic treatment besides isolation. no bass traps,
diffusers, or absorbers. the engineering room also needs extensive
acoustic treatment. so i start shopping for acoustic treatment. i
get sticker shock real quick. $100 for a square foot of wedge foam?
FOAM? for a $100??!!! i'm not building a space shuttle. i could
rack up a bill for 1000's of dollars real quick to treat how i wanna
treat. my question is, how crazy is this planet? i still can't
believe how someone can charge that much for foam. anyone know what
i can do to get acoustic treatment at REASONABLE prices? i'm NOT
buying generic egg crate material (nothing screams amatuer studio
like egg crate) tips/tricks? killer deals? build the stuff my self?

Here's one architecturally-oriented source to check out:

http://www.wengercorp.com/wenger/wre...256A8400752F58

http://forum.studiotips.com/index.php

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/in...7f16cb1417c80f

http://www.recording.org/forum-34.html

Enjoy

Don

wrote in message
ups.com...
I recently began working in a studio as lead engineer. the main "live"
room (in my opinion) has horrible acoustics and gives me flutter echo
(most notable on cymbal's). its in a retangular room, with NO acoustic
treatment besides isolation. no bass traps, diffusers, or absorbers.
the engineering room also needs extensive acoustic treatment. so i
start shopping for acoustic treatment. i get sticker shock real quick.
$100 for a square foot of wedge foam? FOAM? for a $100??!!! i'm not
building a space shuttle. i could rack up a bill for 1000's of dollars
real quick to treat how i wanna treat. my question is, how crazy is
this planet? i still can't believe how someone can charge that much
for foam. anyone know what i can do to get acoustic treatment at
REASONABLE prices? i'm NOT buying generic egg crate material (nothing
screams amatuer studio like egg crate) tips/tricks? killer deals?
build the stuff my self?

if the studio business doesn't work out i'm going into the foam
business. i'll charge $50 a square foot, and still make $$$.

wrote:
I recently began working in a studio as lead engineer. the main "live"
room (in my opinion) has horrible acoustics and gives me flutter echo
(most notable on cymbal's). its in a retangular room, with NO acoustic
treatment besides isolation. no bass traps, diffusers, or absorbers.
the engineering room also needs extensive acoustic treatment. so i
start shopping for acoustic treatment. i get sticker shock real quick.
$100 for a square foot of wedge foam? FOAM? for a $100??!!! i'm not
building a space shuttle. i could rack up a bill for 1000's of dollars
real quick to treat how i wanna treat. my question is, how crazy is
this planet? i still can't believe how someone can charge that much
for foam. anyone know what i can do to get acoustic treatment at
REASONABLE prices? i'm NOT buying generic egg crate material (nothing
screams amatuer studio like egg crate) tips/tricks? killer deals?
build the stuff my self?

Is the ceiling arched at all? I'd start looking into diffusion more
than anything else. Toss some old racks in there, and some book cases
and stuff. You may also have other problems, though.

You may also try moving the kit around and see if you can find a place in
the room where the problems are lessened somewhat.

if the studio business doesn't work out i'm going into the foam
business. i'll charge $50 a square foot, and still make $$$.

You'll find that the thick, dense foam really _does_ cost a whole lot, and
the money is going into low-end absorption basically. But, you might not
need low end absorption. Some cheap fibreglass banners will probably
give you enough treble absorption, and you might just get away with using
diffusion to get rid of the flutter.

Of course, if you do this, you may then find out that you have other problems
as well. Given how expensive material is, a couple hundred bucks spent on
having an acoustician come out and give you some advice could save you a lot
in the long run.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

What If you just carpeted one or more of the walls??? That seems to
deaden sufficently. But the thick curtians seem like the best idea,
especially if you can open and close them to the corners of the room,
making the room more live but with the mass of the curtians in the
corners to act as bass traps.

But what do I know.

What If you just carpeted one or more of the walls??? That seems to
deaden sufficently. But the thick curtians seem like the best idea,
especially if you can open and close them to the corners of the room,
making the room more live but with the mass of the curtians in the
corners to act as bass traps.

But what do I know.

Carpja,

anyone know what i can do to get acoustic treatment at REASONABLE prices?


I won't address the cost of foam, but I will say that when buying
*professional quality* acoustic treatment you should expect to pay
professional prices. Just as with any other pro audio gear. If you want a
good preamp you have to expect it to cost more than a little Behringer
mixer. Same for excellent monitor speakers, which cost a lot more than $100
each.

If you're on a strict budget and are willing and able to build your own
treatment panels, you'll find plenty of great DIY advice in my Acoustics
FAQ:

www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

And if you're looking for pro quality treatment that's ready to go and known
to be excellent, check out my company's web site:

www.realtraps.com

--Ethan

In article . com,
ADSstudioManager wrote:
What If you just carpeted one or more of the walls??? That seems to
deaden sufficently. But the thick curtians seem like the best idea,
especially if you can open and close them to the corners of the room,
making the room more live but with the mass of the curtians in the
corners to act as bass traps.

Carpeting only kills the very high frequencies. All of the attempts at
carpeting studio walls in the seventies resulted in very tubby sounding
rooms that were way too live in the midrange and way too dead on the
top end. Thick curtains work well, but they require very deep pleats to
get good absorption at lower frequencies, which winds up costing more
than the fibreglass or foam solutions in the long run. It can look
nice, though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I can personally vouch for Ethan's DIY bass trap plans, they
transformed a small room that I had.

Al

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:14:37 -0500, "Ethan Winer" ethanw at
ethanwiner dot com wrote:

Carpja,

anyone know what i can do to get acoustic treatment at REASONABLE prices?


I won't address the cost of foam, but I will say that when buying
*professional quality* acoustic treatment you should expect to pay
professional prices. Just as with any other pro audio gear. If you want a
good preamp you have to expect it to cost more than a little Behringer
mixer. Same for excellent monitor speakers, which cost a lot more than $100
each.

If you're on a strict budget and are willing and able to build your own
treatment panels, you'll find plenty of great DIY advice in my Acoustics
FAQ:

www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

And if you're looking for pro quality treatment that's ready to go and known
to be excellent, check out my company's web site:

www.realtraps.com

--Ethan

wrote:
I recently began working in a studio as lead engineer. the main
"live"
room (in my opinion) has horrible acoustics and gives me flutter echo
(most notable on cymbal's). its in a retangular room, with NO
acoustic
treatment besides isolation. no bass traps, diffusers, or absorbers.
the engineering room also needs extensive acoustic treatment. so i
start shopping for acoustic treatment. i get sticker shock real
quick.
$100 for a square foot of wedge foam? FOAM? for a $100??!!! i'm
not
building a space shuttle. i could rack up a bill for 1000's of
dollars
real quick to treat how i wanna treat. my question is, how crazy is
this planet? i still can't believe how someone can charge that much
for foam. anyone know what i can do to get acoustic treatment at
REASONABLE prices? i'm NOT buying generic egg crate material
(nothing
screams amatuer studio like egg crate) tips/tricks? killer deals?
build the stuff my self?

if the studio business doesn't work out i'm going into the foam
business. i'll charge $50 a square foot, and still make $$$.

The "Realtraps" that Ethan Winer sells are made from compressed
fiberglass which is likely one of the most useful sound absorbtive
materials you can use. If you do a search on this newsgroup for
"owens-corning" and "703" you will find a lot of discussion on the
merits of compressed fiberglass, the 703 is IIRC 3 lbs a square inch
and the 705 is 5 lbs a square inch, and unlike the foam products most
compressed fiberglass (with no paper backing) has a decent fire rating.
The foam stuff burns quite happily.

But I do have a combination of foam and compressed fiberglass
products in my project studio, mainly as I recycled a bunch of
framed/fabric'ed achitectural compressed fiberglass from an Office
Design firm that went out of business, and I bought one of those
Auralex "Big Boxes" from Guitar Center when it was on sale to fill in
the rest as it was sufficient and convenient.

What is interesting practically is when you treat one problem in
a room the other problems seem almost to get worse! Treat the bounce
between parallel surfaces well and make a few room nodes disappear,
and then suddenly obvious "Boings" between the ceiling and the floor
may appear as if from nowhere. Now you can likely easily eliminate a
lot of your flutter echoes with rugs, bookcases, curtains or even with
packing blankets on "T'ed" mic stand booms, but eliminating the low end
phase cancellation and node problems that are in a difficult range to
hear and eat up your low end response, that takes something like the
"Realtraps" or building basstraps or helmholtz resonators. The
Realtraps are broadband absorbtion which you most likely do need
however, and somethinh like that is I think probably the easiest and
cheapest solution if you want to DIY and get a good result.

It is ironic that Speaker manufacturers are all coming out with new
product lines that hype the bass more and more, when the reason people
can't hear the bass is their room needs treating - and hyped low end on
speakers are only making the problem worse! Oh well...

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Staff Audio / Fox News / M-AES
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

"WillStG" wrote in message
ups.com

What is interesting practically is when you treat one problem in
a room the other problems seem almost to get worse! Treat the bounce
between parallel surfaces well and make a few room nodes disappear,
and then suddenly obvious "Boings" between the ceiling and the floor
may appear as if from nowhere. Now you can likely easily eliminate a
lot of your flutter echoes with rugs, bookcases, curtains or even with
packing blankets on "T'ed" mic stand booms, but eliminating the low
end phase cancellation and node problems that are in a difficult
range to hear and eat up your low end response, that takes something
like the "Realtraps" or building basstraps or helmholtz resonators.
The Realtraps are broadband absorbtion which you most likely do need
however, and somethinh like that is I think probably the easiest and
cheapest solution if you want to DIY and get a good result.

FWIW I've seen this happen in other acoustical contexts, so I've got no
doubt that it has happened in this one.

It is definitely possible to make a room sound worse by fixing a serious
acoustical problem.

On 2/15/05 6:55 AM, in article
, "
wrote:

I recently began working in a studio as lead engineer. the main "live"
room (in my opinion) has horrible acoustics and gives me flutter echo
(most notable on cymbal's).
(SNIP)
i'm NOT buying generic egg crate material (nothing
screams amatuer studio like egg crate) tips/tricks? killer deals?
build the stuff my self?


http://www.realtraps.com/art_secret.htm

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:14:37 -0500, "Ethan Winer" ethanw at
ethanwiner dot com wrote:

I won't address the cost of foam, but I will say that when buying
*professional quality* acoustic treatment you should expect to pay
professional prices. Just as with any other pro audio gear. If you want a
good preamp you have to expect it to cost more than a little Behringer
mixer. Same for excellent monitor speakers, which cost a lot more than $100
each.

And then you look inside it, and maybe build your next one for a tenth
the price :-) Transformers possibly aside, I see few custom
components in high-end analogue gear.

Where does this foam come from? I somehow doubt it's a customised
short production run specifically for one company.

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

In article writes:

Where does this foam come from? I somehow doubt it's a customised
short production run specifically for one company.

Foam isn't foam isn't foam - there are lots of different types,
different chemical composition, different density, different surface
reflectivity, different fire ratings, and so on. Part of what you pay
for when you buy "professional" acoustic foam is that someone has
taken the time to research these things, find foam with the best set
of characteristics for the problem they're intending for it to solve,
and buying it for you.

If you want to buy upholstery foam from your local fabric shop, yeah,
that's a lot cheaper, and it may solve some problems for you - but how
will you know until you try it?



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

On 24 Feb 2005 11:11:48 -0500, (Mike Rivers)
wrote:

Where does this foam come from? I somehow doubt it's a customised
short production run specifically for one company.

Foam isn't foam isn't foam - there are lots of different types,
different chemical composition, different density, different surface
reflectivity, different fire ratings, and so on. Part of what you pay
for when you buy "professional" acoustic foam is that someone has
taken the time to research these things, find foam with the best set
of characteristics for the problem they're intending for it to solve,
and buying it for you.

If you want to buy upholstery foam from your local fabric shop, yeah,
that's a lot cheaper, and it may solve some problems for you - but how
will you know until you try it?

So where does OUR foam come from?

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

Laurence Payne wrote:

On 24 Feb 2005 11:11:48 -0500, (Mike Rivers)
wrote:


Where does this foam come from? I somehow doubt it's a customised
short production run specifically for one company.

Foam isn't foam isn't foam - there are lots of different types,
different chemical composition, different density, different surface
reflectivity, different fire ratings, and so on. Part of what you pay
for when you buy "professional" acoustic foam is that someone has
taken the time to research these things, find foam with the best set
of characteristics for the problem they're intending for it to solve,
and buying it for you.

If you want to buy upholstery foam from your local fabric shop, yeah,
that's a lot cheaper, and it may solve some problems for you - but how
will you know until you try it?


So where does OUR foam come from?

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

From foam palm trees, 'course!

--
Les Cargill

In article writes:

If you want to buy upholstery foam from your local fabric shop, yeah,
that's a lot cheaper, and it may solve some problems for you - but how
will you know until you try it?

So where does OUR foam come from?

Sorry, you gotta pay in order to find that out.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo