Acoustic treatment - advice sought!

[Skol303]

I'm currently in the midst of converting our integral garage at home into a 'music room'. The builders are in. The place looks a mess. All is as it should be at this stage

Thinking ahead... I'm starting to explore options for acoustic treatment. I'm not expecting perfection from a room of this size and type - I'd just like to create a 'workable' environment for recording and mixing.

I'm also not too worried about sound-proofing. I live on a quiet street and I don't tend to practice or mix at loud volumes. So my focus is really on creating as 'neutral' a space as possible to work in, rather than building a bunker in which to emulate Motörhead rehearsals.

What I'm looking for is a helpful and patient company that can help me to:
[list=1]
[*]Work out what I need; and
[*]Sell me what I need at a good price!
[/list]

If any of you know of such a company - or have any advice to share on this topics, then please post below.

Cheers!

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1425941929' post='2712677']
I'm currently in the midst of converting our integral garage at home into a 'music room'...
[/quote]

Try a search for 'acoustic treatment' over in Gearslutz.com, there's quite a few threads there on the subject. For my part, I'd suggest sacrificing a bit of volume by creating non-parallel walls and ceiling (about 15-20° slant..?) This should reduce 'standing waves' and help control reflections. Bass traps in the corners are a good idea, but you'd need to analyse with a calibrated source and mic to see exactly what's required. They can be added after major work is done, though. No large glass surfaces (doors, windows..?); ventilation then becomes an issue. Several small openings are better than one 'bay' window from an acoustic point of view. Keep the aspirations (and the budget..!) fairly low and good results can be achieved. I wouldn't advise trying to get a 100% 'pro' environment; it's difficult and costly.
Hope this helps.

[pantherairsoft]

I've done a fair bit of this now, and I can't recommend this guide enough (though you can ignore the references to the band of product they sell). Ethan is a genius - http://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm

Firstly, don't spend a penny until you have a workstation set up, with your monitors and work out where you are going to sit. If your room is rectangular, try to place yourself along the long wall, dead centre, but try to adhere to the 33% rule as best you can (see the document I linked to above). In a thin room, it can often be very hard to sit along the long wall, without the depth of your monitors and desk placing your chain in the middle of the room, which you really need to avoid. If this happens, rotate and sit facing the short wall.

You will always benefit from some acoustic treatment, but where to spend your money depends on how the room sounds. Get in there, get the equilateral triangle set up between you and the monitors, and try (if you can) to avoid pushing the monitors right up against the room. When thats done, you can look to treat early/first reflection points, and then trap come corners for bass, but I firmly believe that getting the right workstation placement is twice as important as any treatment in a home studio.

[BigRedX]

I'd post this question in the relevant section of the Sound On Sound forums.

[brensabre79]

Theres a really good article on SoS here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb06/articles/studiosos.htm

Not sure if its mentioned, but if all the maths isn't your bag. You can use a mirror. Sit in your chair, at your desk and get someone to hold a mirror up to the wall and move around. Anywhere you can see the speaker from your chair is a good place to put a foam panel.

Once they are up, you can do the same again, anywhere you can see a foam panel in the mirror stick another one (don't forget to look behind, and up!)... If in doubt, deadened is better than lively. (My mate covered his floor, walls and ceiling in carpet after completely soundproofing his garage. not content with that, he carpeted the desk too.)

Then get yourself some bass traps in the corners - mine are made from an Ikea Kallax Shelves stuffed with Rockwool and covered in fabric, but you can build your own easily. Don't forget the corners at the ceiling and floor are most effective places to trap.

[BigRedX]

Too dead is just as bad as too lively though. In a very dead room everything sounds quieter than it really is, which means that you will find yourself monitoring at much louder levels.

[RockfordStone]

sound on sound would be a good place to start, think they even have a book on it

[brensabre79]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1425997116' post='2713207']
Too dead is just as bad as too lively though. In a very dead room everything sounds quieter than it really is, which means that you will find yourself monitoring at much louder levels.
[/quote]
Although what you say is true, and a very good point to add, I wouldn't say that it's [i]as[/i] bad as a lively room with resonances and reflections a plenty.
The OP says he doesn't crank it up loud either so I think they would be less effected by over-dead than over-live. Of course in an ideal world it wouldn't be either.

[Skol303]

Thanks guys! Really good advice above. I expected nothing less

I'm going to plunder that Real Traps guidance and Sound on Sound to get my head around the basics.

I've also emailed a couple of UK-based companies who are happy to offer free advice with no obligation. One is GIK Acoustics (recommended on forums all over the Web); the other is EQ Acoustics. Interestingly, for the sort of music I make - mostly EDM - they're suggesting that standard foam panels might not 'cut the mustard' as they tend to focus on attenuating mid and high frequencies, when in my case I'm going to have most challenge controlling the lows.

All good food for thought. And it's nice to be learning stuff

I'll keep you updated as it develops...

Edited March 10, 2015 by Skol303

[RockfordStone]

may be worth contacting studio spares too, they may have an expert?

[51m0n]

The gearslutz threads mentioned above are the place to start mate. Masses and masses and masses of really good advice.

However if you need to build partition walls you can't do better than spending an afternoon looking through the BBC whitepapers on the subject, all freely available on line.

[Skol303]

^ Cheers guys

I've since trawled GearSlutz and made plenty of notes. I'm also reading Rod Gervais' book' Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros', which is proving useful, albeit some of it [i]way[/i] too technical for my head.

So far the room is nearly finished, in so far as the insulation (rock wool) and acoustic plasterboard is all up and skimmed, ready for decorating.

I'm currently in touch with two companies: GIK Acoustics and Blue Frog Audio, about the acoustic treatment. Both of which are being very helpful with room diagrams, suggested treatments, information on likely room modes, etc. They're very similarly priced so far... Blue Frog are being especially helpful - I've had a few pages worth of 'free' advice already, so they might just be edging it.

I've been advised against standard foam panels. The word is that they work fine for mid and high frequencies, but they're next to useless when it comes to low and subs (I'm aiming to treat the room down to 30Hz if possible). The simple rule for taming lows is that you need BIG units, so I'm looking at quite large, fabric-covered panels comprising a material similar to rock wool, only more dense.

Ultimately, it's going to be dictated by budget... so I might opt for doing what I can, as best I can, for the time being - and then improving the treatment over time as my wallet refills.

I'll y'all updated in case anyone is planning a similar project for themselves.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Skol303

[funkgod]

About time you got that garage sorted, it was just gaggin for a studio
My friend is a drum teacher, he went through what you are going through now.
long story short, when he had finished he had told me to put my ear to the outside of the stud wall and tapped on the inside with a ruler side on, i was very surprised to hear hardly anything thinking i would hear the tap vibrate through the boards.
what he had done was put 2 x 4 stud up ( as he wanted to save space in the width of his garage as it was already narrow) when he screwed the stud to the wall he screwed through the wood then a little square rubber pad, so all the rubber pads at the screw points kept the stud away from the walls by only a mil or two.
then after insulating and putting the boards on to the stud he did the same thing with the rubber pads, keeping as much area as poss off the stud, same with the floor not sure what he did to the ceiling, then at the front to get into his box he had a double door. seemd to work very well

Edited March 29, 2015 by funkgod

[51m0n]

Foam panels are a waste of money, you are far far better off building your own absorbers out of 2" rockwool (doubled up to 4" deep) r45 is good or r30 if you can get it). Mount them 2" off the wall to maximise their effectiveness. Whatever framing you make needs to have holes all around the side to let sound into the edges too. If it takes out too much high end then some brown packing paper over the top of the rockwool (behind the nice acoustically neutral material covering) will add some zing, failing that perforated hardboard as a covering can do it - plenty of info avaialbe on hole patterns and densities out there.

Placement is pretty easy to, front wall behind the speakers, back wall, side walls and ceiling at reflection points (use a mirror and a friend to figure these out), and along side walls.

For lows you need to build Superchunks into the corners or you can do it slightly differently by using a couple of different density panals across the corner one in front of the other with an air gap between them.

For really low lows you need to pinpoint the frequency and build a Helmholtz absorber.

Don't worry about diffusion at this stage at all, get the reflections tamed first!

Place yourself at 33% down the length of the room, dead centre, if possible (ie its a mix room). Work everything else off that. Speaker placement can have a massive effect on room node issues. Use Room EQ Wizard to plot your room, do it when the room is empty first of all, you need to find out what you are dealing with before you kick off any build at all. Find the place that your speakers can go that minimises issues, then start adding treatment. Bass traps first, and foremost and absolutely THE most important place to start, anywhere two walls meet (or a ceiling and a wall, or the floor and a wall) is a great candidate for bass trapping. Where three planes meet (ie a corner at the ceiling or floor) you get a bonus. Superchunks pulled out an inch or two from the corner are even more effective, crossing boundaries uses up energy.

Once they are built remeasure, adjust your speaker position if necessary (dont forget the veritcal axis here! Ceiling and floors have nodes too, its a 3d world). Then add absorption at all the reflection points from speakers to listening position.

Remeasure - it should be getting really good now, check waterfall plots they are the really important info, you are aiming to get even decay across frequencies over time is the goal

Edited March 30, 2015 by 51m0n

[Skol303]

^ Cheers Si, pearls of wisdom as always from you mate.

What you're recommending chimes exactly with the advice I've been getting from the guys at both GIK and Blue Frog.

I'm currently undecided as to whether I'll adopt the DIY approach and make own bass traps, or splash some cash on ready-made ones. What's left in my budget once the room is finished will largely decide the route I take.

Again, cheers for the info

Edited April 1, 2015 by Skol303