Heated pipe in corner of room that needs bass trap

[Ericlingus]

I've been trying to treat my room with rigid fiberglass panels that I made. I'm going to make bass traps after making a few 2 in thick acoustic panels. The problem is that one of my room corners have a pipe that runs up the wall from the floor to the ceiling. It's pretty much right in the middle of the corner. I also have a radiator right next to it as well thats about 2 and a half feet high. They or course both get pretty hot the winter. The radiator I can always just turn off (the pipe gives out plenty of heat on its own) I was wondering what the hell I could do to treat that corner. It's to the left of my monitor speaker only a few feet or so back. Could I maybe just put a bass trap on a stand instead of the wall and just put it in front of that corner so it's maybe a foot behind my monitor speaker? Thats the only solution I can come up with. I probably should also make sure the fabric used on that bass trap is fire rated as well.

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Have a plumber insulate the pipe, treat the corner, move on with your life and make great mixes!

 

[Ericlingus]

well I'll to test it but I think hanging the bass trap in the first place would be difficult with the pipe in the way.

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

Stands for the panels is probably the easiest solution; I did this for one corner of my room where wall-mounting the panel would block a closet door. I just roll the panel & stand into the closet when I'm not working on music.

As for the distance from the wall, it actually helps with low-frequency reflections to have an air gap behind each panel as opposed to flush-mounting, so don't sweat it if you need to pull it out a little bit. You're going to want to maintain symmetry though, so you'll need to move the adjacent corner's to match.

I'll echo Fredrik-Ablaze's sentiment on insulation: you might as well do it anyway on general principle; your water heater won't have to work so hard to keep that shit hot and you'll increase the energy efficiency of your home or whatever, and your showers will be that much more steamy and enjoyable. It's a quick & cheap DIY job: pipe sleeve insulation + duct tape; $30 should be able to get it done. I use "Frost King" brand because "Frost King" sounds metal as fuck.

2" fiberboard is a bit thin for a corner panel though. Consider doubling up on those in the future maybe.

 

[Ericlingus]

I'm using 4 inch thick for the corners. The other ones are just regular panels. The problem is the other corners I won't be able to have the bass traps out as far as that one with the pipe. How big of a deal is it to not have symmetry. The other 3 will have the same spacing but the one with the pipe will be further out.

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

Symmetry is pretty vital when it comes to mids and highs. With bass traps, you have a lot more leeway, but I'd be cautious with your traps being so close to your monitors. At that proximity, I would assume you could start running into stereo imaging issues. Futher out, it wouldn't matter. Even so, I'd take "asymmetrical corner traps" over "no corner traps" 100% of the time, so it's kind of a moot point if symmetry isn't possible.

 

[Ericlingus]

should I have bass traps on the walls behind the monitors as well since they are only about two feet away from the walls?

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

should I have bass traps on the walls behind the monitors as well since they are only about two feet away from the walls?

The front wall is basically the least important thing to treat unless you've got rear-ported monitors, or you're stuck with a bad case of SBIR: http://gikacoustics.com/speaker-boundary-interference-response-sbir/