Acoustic treatment : few practical questions (auralex inside)

[LeSedna]

Hello guys,

Just bought my first set of acoustic treatment (finally) and to make things easy I simply bought this :

http://www.thomann.de/fr/auralex_acoustics_roominators_alphadst_burgundy.htm

A few questions :
- I'm not owner of my apartment, and I'd like to avoid permanent marks on the walls, glue, etc. My walls are painted, so I think even tape would be a bit dangerous. Of course I could re-paint when I leave but if I could avoid that, that would be better. Do you have any idea ? I thought about creating squares of 4 units, like on my right, on my left, behind me, etc, pinning one of the top units, and linking it to the others using these :

.
Looks silly but if you stretch them and use them to link units together it's not a bad idea since they are made of foam ? Generally speaking, any good idea for DIY setting up one of those kits cleanly and without any destructive method ?
- I have 4 bass trap units (just like in the picture) that can be combined into cube units. Is it better to use 4 of them like in the picture, or to combine them in 2 big cubes ?
- If I got it right, the best idea for them is to put them behind and on the top corners right ? But what about a room like this :

Where the brown rectangle is like an almost empty closet (should contain clothes but I'm not using this room as a real bedroom) made of say 0.75 inch of wood or fake wood doors. From my understanding, bass waves would go through them right ? So should I put the bass traps inside in spot B or should I still put them on spot A ?

 

[SocialNumb]

I once blew a load of cash on Auralex too. Should have gone the DIY Rockwool or better yet OC703.

Anyways, when I did use those foam things I used really tiny and thin nails and kinda hung them on the wall like diamond shaped, if you know what I mean. When I moved the holes where so tiny that a one coat sealed them up. Oh, and they stayed up for years without tearing but I guess that also depends on many factors like being careful and wind and what not.

 

[LeSedna]

(hum sorry should have posted this on backline I guess ? just realized this kind of topic doesn't belong to "off topic/bar" section anymore)

DIY is complicated for me, I don't have a big car, would need tools, and then to store them and sell them or throw them away when I move country again in a few years, etc... and I'm basically moving places quite often so the auralex solution is handy for me, and the extra cash it costs is okay as well. I can even consider selling the kit when I move away if I can't find a solution to keep it with me, and buy another one whenever I arrive, or something like that. It's not like a proper studio solution, just a home-hobbyist solution.

I see for the "diamong shape" that's more or less what I'm looking for, either using normal pins or finding those T-pins, and linking the other ones to the first one or something like that. So if this works well I could consider doing that. Did you manage pinning some of those on the ceiling too ? Maybe with 2 pins per unit, on opposite corners (unit's corners) with an angle (so that they don't slide around the pins if you see what I mean) it could work for some kind of DIY cloud ? I'm trying to be creative here

 

[SocialNumb]

Well they're not that affective anyways. From what I remember they helped some with the high end reflections. I had so much of that crap up that you could clap in the room and it would have zero echo. Dead clap.

For the ceiling, well I guess it depends what it's made of. I couldn't get through mine for shit without a drill so I scrubbed that.

Test out the pin solution on a couple of them and let them hang for a while before committing to it, for testing.

The "bass traps" are harder to deal with because they're bulky and heavier. If you find a good way to get them up without messing the walls or ""bass traps" up let me know. I had to use thicker nails, kinda pinning it up with a nail every couple of inches down the sides. Not the best way to do it and I did end up tearing a few up some.

 

[LeSedna]

Oh yeah that's a good point for the bass traps. I was considering buying a DIY vertical bar of the cheapest wood or material possible and just put it under... So not glueing them nor anything but just mounting them and the length of that bar would be just enough to statically push them up against the ceiling. Should work and should be cheap, and instantly easy for obvious reasons. Good enough for me since the bar would be as much into the corner as possible.

EDIT : I actually thought of something even simpler to link units together. I'm gonna try sowing them with something very simple, and hang them to T-pins or something similar

 

[LeSedna]

So I finally went for sowing panels together, I tried for the elegant and fast solution of using ducktape on the back of them to assemble them in 60x60 units of 4 small panels, but the foam just doesn't stick. The best solution is to sow them together like a grandmother, which takes a HELL of a time, if I knew I would have bought 60x60 panels straight away and 2 or 4 LENRD bass traps and be done with it so fast. I went for the nail solution, I find than 1 very little nail per "bug" panel is okay because it doesn't leave a big mark when you remove it, you really need to actually search for it to find it. One the sides of the speakers for example, I made 120x60 panels (out of 8 little panels) so that I can stack panels using only one nail on top, to avoid doing another hole at mid height.

I could make up a short tutorial about how to decently set up a small room when I have finished everything. Also, since my panels are removable in a second I could do something cool : record what I hear from the sweet spot out of the speakers (when i get them) with and without them, to have a good comparison clip of the effect of treating your room. I could even do a phase null test and see how much is removed. If someone is interested ?

 

[LeSedna]

The "bass traps" are harder to deal with because they're bulky and heavier. If you find a good way to get them up without messing the walls or ""bass traps" up let me know. I had to use thicker nails, kinda pinning it up with a nail every couple of inches down the sides. Not the best way to do it and I did end up tearing a few up some.

I actually found that foam is easy to "hook" to a nail inclined with an angle towards the ceiling. I'm gonna try one single nail per bass trap, placed near the top of it, with an angle towards the ceiling, and see if it's enough to hang it there. If not, it would work with a single longer nail, there is absolutely no doubt

 

[RedDog]

I did these exact things, gluing 4x4 panels to a cardboard square, and using finishing tacks to mount them to the wall. Then there's these 3M tacky things you can find in office depot. They stick on, and peel off easy.

 

[LeSedna]

What's this 3M tacky thing ?