Home Studio Room Treatment

ok, heres the deal. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment and the second bedroom is my "studio" room. It is standard bedroom size (maybe 12x8 ?) and I have people living directly above me and someone's living room is sharing a wall with one of my studio's walls. I am not trying to sound-proof the room, but I was wondering if spending $100 on 24 sq ft of studio foam out of Musicians Friend would cut down the amount of sound travel? Also, would it make the room sound better or worse? I record electric and acoustic guitars in the room as well as mixing and mastering on my PC. Any thoughts appreciated!

I'm no expert on acoustics but I would say you would get better results covering the wall with heavy blankets. the heavier the better. That foam only cuts the high freq. stuff. Maybey leave some air gap in there. Save your money.

hate to say it, but blankets don't do a lot in the low frequencies either.
air gap may make a difference, but not too much.
anyway this good for acoustic treatment, not for soundproofing..

if you wanna treat the room acoustically you have to catch reflections and possibly some outstanding frequencies too.. if you only treat in one frequency range you may make the room sound worse.. if you put a lot of foam in the room it may become dull and bassheavy and your recordings will sound like that...
what to do exactly depends on the room , the construction of floor, walls and ceiling and whats in the room already,furniture carpet, wooden flooring.. stuff like that..

you won't seal off sound from the outside for $100, that's for sure.

here's the quick solution for you:

go buy that 24 squares of foam. it will take the "ping" out of your room. place the squares in checkerboard patterns on different parts of the walls, leaving blank spots where it's just your normal wall.

then get two bookcases and put different sized books in them. put the book cases on each side wall. place them where the sound radiating out from the speakers would "hit" the wall (proably about a 60 degree angle). the idea is to break up the sound waves where the soundwave first hits the wall. this is called "diffusion".

this will give you a reasonable amount of absorbtion and diffusion. you'll see a huge improvement from what you are used to. improvements beyond this will cost a lot more time and money.

the next step would be to invest $400 in some bass traps to put in the corners. but i'm sure you're probably getting sticker shocked. so stay with your $100 foam squares and hunt down some cheap used bookcases.

Thanks for posting this thread diskserious.

I'm in the same situation and was looking for some advice on this topic.

I like your ideas Bubba

Thanks

Play in the center of the room where you are less likely to hear bass peak coming from the corners and also where most of the standing waves cancel eachother.

Try this link.... http://www.alegriaaudio.com/acoustic_ceiling_panels.htm

[KX]

When sound isolation is the target, go for mass. Nothing isolate more than mass.
(euh..maybe distance!)

Bass is tough, you have an 8x12 room prefect for giving your neighbors ear damage. The bass will actually boost into the other room. I would for about $250 build a room inside a room with drywall, r-17 insulation and 2x4s, then put you woofer or you bass amp at a 50 degree angel with the wall. Get some good acoustic foam if you have $500. I just used the room inside a room when I outfited a practice room and reduce sound by 35db.

Dani www.LaughingEar.com

Has anyone here tried to make thier own bass traps?

I found this site with directions for traps made from fiberglass pipe insulation tubes.
http://www.teresaudio.com/haven/traps/traps.html

They look very simple to make. In fact they look so simple I question thier effectiveness.

I also Found this site: http://www.ethanwiner.com/basstrap.html

But this looks like quite a construction project and I would surely forfit my security deposit on the apartment.

it's a big deal, but sometimes the answer is simple - fiberglass.

put 4" rigid fiberglass - owens corning 703 in all your corners: where ceiling meets wall, wall meets wall, wall meets floor, and especially cover up the tricorners. for only $100, that's the best you'll do. you might want to get some speaker cloth to cover up the pink, though!

also, keep your speakers out of the corners a bit and make sure they're symmetrical. if you have a closet, fill it with clothes and open the door halfway. it's an amazing trap! keep that at your back when recording acoustic guitar - basically, make sure the mic is pointed at the dead zone (closet in this case) while recording so you don't get the room as much.

good luck!

mudd
brooksound productions

Check out http://www.soundprooffoam.com. You can find an economical solution to all of your soundproofing needs there.

Amicro,

> You can find an economical solution to all of your soundproofing needs there. <

I was surprised not to see any absorption data for any of those foam products. Did I miss it?

--Ethan

[Bops2000]

while we ar at it...
Isn't better to have a little bit of wood
in the room?, I would like oak tonge and groove(no pun) for the floors, and
I have noticed that really big rooms have them.
If a smaller room had at least some sort of reflective(polyurethane lets say), wood floor; would that be user friendly?
sorry for the 'post invade'

Why dont you move your studio to a different room ^_^