Possibilities?

[gaz7224]

Hi All,

I've recently bought my first house, and have been wondering about the possibility of doing simple recordings in there (vocal, guitar, electric drums, etc).  My family are being quite negative about my ideas, so I thought I would try and get some objective input from you guys as to whether I'm being realistic or not.

This is a floor plan (It's a bungalow/one story)...........



I thought I could get portable/put-up sound booths and use the hall for people to play in.  It's not ideal, but would that work?

The study/music room is actually a garage that I'm having converted.  It would obviously be logical to acoustically treat the room while they're doing the conversion.  So, any advice on this would be great too.

Thanks,
Gaz

[stainless]

How understanding is your wife? LOL

it all will depend on how the room sounds-  most booths I've heard still sound like "little" rooms.

 I've got the garage and what would (by normal people) be called a family room. Family room has a window and a door added looking into what used to be a garage. Both rooms are acoustically treated (traps, diffusers, baffles, resonators, etc)

whatever you do, plan carefully and save yourself a bunch of money, time and headaches... the planning being the hard part

[RawDepth]

If the Dining Area is the largest room then yes, that should work well.

You may want to consider building some large free standing sound panels that are portable. Bring them into the Dining Area surrounding the musician while recording and store them away when not recording. That way the room is unchanged when mum wants to entertain guests.

[gaz7224]

How understanding is your wife? LOL

Lol I haven't even got one of them yet...

It's my mum and brother.  Nothing to do with them anyway as they won't be living there.  Families, I guess, trying to be helpful...

You may want to consider building some large free standing sound panels that are portable. Bring them into the Dining Area surrounding the musician while recording and store them away when not recording. That way the room is unchanged when mum wants to entertain guests.

Sounds the easiest option. 

What would the easiest way to get leads out there? I know I could run them through the door way, but I think that would stop the door shutting, which wouldn't be ideal for monitoring.  i guess, I could have a xlr wall plate put on the adjoining wall? A stage box poked through the wall, would be easier, although not as flexible as having xlr sockets on both sides of the wall.

Gaz

[stainless]

for running cords you could put in a dog door? or hardwire a small patch bay on each side of the wall

[gaz7224]

I've been looking for sound treatment for the room, and I've come across a company who seem pretty cheap.

I thought this sounded good:
http://www.soundservice.co.uk/acoustic_quilt.html

The garage is single brick so the builder is adding a layer inside - board or something - so I though he could stick this quilt in the cavity. 

Also........

http://www.soundservice.co.uk/corner_bass_traps.html

I'm not sure how good they are, or if they're overly expensive, so any advice would be great.

I've never had a decent sounding room, so I want to try and get things right this time.

Gaz

[stainless]

the quilt looks interesting, however since you've got brick walls, if they're "furring" out a wall with standard studs you might get a similar result by simply stuffing the cavity with an R-19 or greater insulation-  Ideally, you want a 2.4 cm "dead air" space behind the insulation which would take a little extra building effort. Their claim of 13 dB on floors doesn't sound all that impressive, so I'm wondering what the overall effectiveness in a wall would be (and I noted their graph was weighted.. which to me means it's skewed)

I've tried the Aurelex foam bass traps and they weren't too impressive, and for the price I decided that building my own was worth the effort

I wish I had brick walls!

[gaz7224]

OK the house is coming along, slowly.

I was going to have wood flooring in the studio, but I've decided carpet might be less 'echoie'.  Is this so or not really?

I've been thinking about carpeting the back wall because I thought it might be easier than diffusers.  Would this work or not?

I also have a problem with corner bass traps.  I haven't really got any back corners - there's a window 6 inches away from the one corner, and a door in the other corner - about 10 inches away from the wall.  I guess a bass trap could go under the window.  If they can't go in the wall-wall corners, will they work in the ceiling-wall corners?

There's been a mix up and the builder has installed a window in the wall that my monitors are going on.  It's frustrating because it's right in the way, but I think I can build a shelf around it.  How might this affect acoustics?  I thought maybe I could get some kind of 'acoustic' blind?

I've made a plan of the proposed layout:



Thinking the left rack (Bottom of picture) can have my mic pre's and patchbays in, and then the other 2 can have my synth sound modules etc in.  I think that would work well for me.

Advice welcome (and needed!),

Gaz

[stainless]

I had carpeting and took it out in favor of wood floors (bamboo)- a major difference IMHO (for the better)... not to mention simpler housekeeping.  and you can always use some area rugs if you do think there's too much reflection

as to the walls/carpeting, it's the density of the material so the carpeting probably won't do a whole lot for you, yes, it may dampen reflections, but there's still the solid wall behind and the carpeting won't stop that much sound.

a 6" diagonal bass trap would be better than no bass trap.  and the ceiling/wall junction is a perfect spot for a trap... corners are corners are corners!

assuming you may want to open the windows and look out... heavy drapes and maybe an "insert to fin inside the window made of RFG or rockwool in a frame

[kip4]

intresting 
i like the sound of that
i had a lad come to do an acoustic guitar and vocal recording last week and i put a bed quilt on the long window and it worked well i didnt get nearly as much reflections on the recording and with close micing i got a fair sound ( nice guitar quite well played did help)
anyway im intrested in these bass traps as i have not
ideas on how to make removeable ones for my part time studio are of great intrest to me please advise

[gaz7224]

Thanks Stainless.

I have to agree re: floor carpet, being awkward to keep clean.

Are the store-bought acoustic traps any good?  They would be easier than finding someone to build some.

Like these........ http://www.avocations.co.uk/2-x-sound-absorbing-acoustic-studio-bass-traps-116-p.asp ?

If I bought a few pairs, and stuck them in, would that be OK?

Also, these...... http://www.avocations.co.uk/24-x-acoustic-foam-sound-treatment-tiles-115-p.asp ?

I sound very amateurish.  I haven't done room treatment before, and I know there's only so much you can say/help with.  But any help/advice is appreciated.

Gaz

[gaz7224]

This seems like a good idea?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKd1epPRVOU&NR=1

He's built like a façade on the wall; filled with insulation, and covered in fabric.  He's incorporated the bass traps into the whole structure.

[stainless]

Gaz.... the only "store bought acoustic treatment I bought was the Aurelex foam panels... and I wasn't overly impressed with them (despite the $$$ I spent)  because of this, I wouldn't opt for the foam traps....   likewise the foam diffusers, HOWEVER, they'r ebetter than nada, and if that's what you can do, you're ahead of a lot of folks!

Kip4- that's sorta what I did... except I didn't cover the entire wall... I used "knife/wedge boards to attach to the wall, making the frames slightly narrower than the rigid insulation so once screwed down, the knife/weges were the only solid points of contact to eliminat as much "telegraphing/coupling" as possible... was it necessary


well, as John Wayne once said (more or less) "Pilgrim, we're all on the same trail ride..." 

wish he'd shown better detail of the corners/bass traps... I'm curious if they're solid filled, or just a 4" piece across the hypotenuse???

[gaz7224]

I tried explaining to my builder what I wanted, but he didn't have a clue what I was on about, nor did I really.

I'm confused about what to board it out with (to cover the foam with)?

A video on youtube was going on about fibreglass boarding?

I'm thinking the waves need to penetrate whatever I cover it with.  Guessing I wouldn't plaster over the boarding as this would make it less absorbing?

My idea is: Board/frame all the walls out and include corner/bass traps in the boarding/frame.  Pack the frame with insulation, leaving a 2.4cm air gap behind it, and then cover with wood or something.  If I cover with wood, it would still reflect the high/mid frequencies right? So, perhaps some parts could be covered in fabric, and some in wood?  I don't want it too dead do I? So that's why I'm thinking a mixture of wood and fabric.

Would that work do you know?

Planning is boring huh

Gaz

[stainless]

I used a "sport-weight" polyester cloth I got at the local fabric store. I used 3M "88" spray adhesive on the rigid fiberglass itself, and wherever it wrapped around wood I stapled (where you couldn't see it)

I initially tried a felt... but it didn't 'wear' well and was hard to maker neat corners