Sound treatment

I have a very small room, it's 2.7m x 3.0m and 2.7 high. I've done a little research and have found out that a room like this is not very good and probably best insulated dead. Now I am aware through my research of the pitfalls etc of dead rooms like adding too much verb on tracks and listening fatigue but I think it may be my only solution.

 

I'm not working on pro audio projects here it is just a project studio so I dont want to get really hung up on stuff high end studios would worry about but do want it to have a result that's beneficial to my mixes as I've listened to a few of my track and feel they have the sound of a bad room.

 

I have a limited budget for this, I can easily make up any fibre glass based paneling required. Glass fiber, wood and acoustic cloth is cheap and DIY is not an issue for me. I can also budget for some proffesional manufactured foams, a friend of mine has offered to help with acoustics in regards to working stuff out but can anyone also give some advice? are those online calculators any good and what do the results mean? If I were to work this out myself then what variables do I need to consider apart from room size, room material and absorption materials.

 

Many thanks.

I'm no expert on acoustics, but an MIT-trained engineer I used to work for had a good rule of thumb about sound absorption:

 

"Mass is the key. If you want to get rid of acoustic energy you have to somehow dissipate it as heat by vibrating heavy particles in an inelastic medium."

 

So a really ideal material would be something like foam rubber with small lead particles embedded. They used to make that sort of thing before lead was pretty much outlawed in construction materials. More realistic would be to cover your walls and ceiling with acoustic tlles like the ones in suspended ceilings. But do consult a real expert before spending your time and money.

 

Cheers,

Mike

I'm no expert on acoustics

 

Words of wisdom.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Scott Jackson

I have a very small room, it's 2.7m x 3.0m and 2.7 high. I've done a little research and have found out that a room like this is not very good and probably best insulated dead. Now I am aware through my research of the pitfalls etc of dead rooms like adding too much verb on tracks and listening fatigue but I think it may be my only solution.

 

I'm not working on pro audio projects here it is just a project studio so I dont want to get really hung up on stuff high end studios would worry about but do want it to have a result that's beneficial to my mixes as I've listened to a few of my track and feel they have the sound of a bad room.

 

I have a limited budget for this, I can easily make up any fibre glass based paneling required. Glass fiber, wood and acoustic cloth is cheap and DIY is not an issue for me. I can also budget for some proffesional manufactured foams, a friend of mine has offered to help with acoustics in regards to working stuff out but can anyone also give some advice? are those online calculators any good and what do the results mean? If I were to work this out myself then what variables do I need to consider apart from room size, room material and absorption materials.

 

Many thanks.

 

 

So you are basically in a small cube.

 

What to do first is speaker placement to eliminate as much interference as possible. For example, placing your speakers against the wall will give you a lack of low end at some spots and too much in other spots. What you want to do is minimize both ends of that spectrum by placing your speakers so that the sound seems balanced no matter where you are in the room.

 

In your case, I would suggest starting at the center of the room and work out from there. Play some commercial tunes that you know have a good balance of sound and walk around the room to listen for the low end. Corners, walls, ceiling, and the floor - listen everywhere.

 

The center of your woofers could be slightly below the halfway point of the room height. Somewhere between half and two-thirds from the walls but not perfectly symmetrical. Try spacing your speakers around 1 meter or less apart. You may also will want to skip the perfect triangle theory for now and listen from a position closer to being in between the speakers. Chances are the father away you move from the speakers, more of the low end will start to disappear. That is a general idea to help get an optimal sound.

 

Another issue is how low and loud you play. In other words, don't play loud and don't add way too much low end. If it sounds pretty good in the 'sweet spot,' go stand against the back wall and listen to hear if the low ends gets deeper and louder. If it does, you may have mixed in too much bottom.

 

Once you have all that relatively balance out, you can start doing the corner treatment to absorb the low end. Don't forget about the high end absorption (use the mirror theory for that placement).

 

You may not get it perfect, but you should be able to even out the sound all over the room and work at a comfortable level.

 

That's my 2¢

Acoustic Treatment & Soundproofing Links

 

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

http://recording.org/studio-construction-and-acoustics-forum/

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

Thanks a lot for all you advice guys and Shiver that 2 cents was golden, just the kind of basic straight to the point info I was after. Will certainly check them links but I find there's a lot of info in a forum based on acoustics. I'm kinda trying to avoid this route lol but I did see a good thread on using 4inch fibre on a door. I may need to do this as the door is in one of the corners.

Quick answer: I would put a bunch of bass traps in all the corners, on the door etc..

 

http://gikacoustics.com/gik_244_bass_traps.html

 

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