Wanting to remodel - Room sound

[Viral_Tyler]

Hello, first off I’d like to introduce myself, I’m a guitarist going on 12 years and a musician going on 16 years, I also sing and scream, play drums, bass guitar, and keyboards/piano.

I am living at my folk’s place right now and I would like to turn my room (I have pictures) into more of an audio studio and I need some advice from people with experience. Now, I’m on a budget, don’t know how much of a budget but I have to spend as little as possible.

A lot of people on these forums seem to be very educated and I’ve been reading every day for about a week now and have built up a 75 page compendium of notes for audio production, so thank you in that aspect. (Especially Glen for the drum acoustics) I plan on going into metal production, or at least just for recording my bands sake.

This is what I am working with:

Carpet, on a sub floor, it’s a remodeled single-car garage (that means it is a rectangular room). The dimensions of the room are within inches of 10’ wide, 19’ long and 8’ high. I have wooden cabinets/closets and a window seat in the very far back of the room, and there is an opening to the laundry/pantry room without doors, but we will add wooden doors with slots to prevent some sound coming through and it will still allow ventilation.

(During recording hours I will hang blankets over the slots. I also have camouflage blankets covering the windows for light, but it also helps with the sound diffusion I believe, and keeps some sound from coming in outdoors, as the walls are ALL exterior walls)

I have a small collection of yellow foam pads and recycled paper/Styrofoam egg cartons from previous years of... pack ratting… because I wanted sound proofing. So I’m planning on making some panels to put on the walls, cloth will be across the top of the panel, and underneath there will be the foam / cartons.

We will be removing the carpet after the room is prepped, then we will add a foam barrier, heated flooring, and then wood floors. I’m thinking of using the engineered plywood w/ oak or something hard on top as a veneer; I’ve read that wood gives a better room sound and it is pretty durable as long as you maintain it, why not! (Also the heat pads will work more efficiently with the wood floors as wood has an R-value of zero)

I imagine I will need either a lot of pallets, or a lot more sound proofing to make the room’s sound correct for drum micing.

Any advice for a noob?

And yes that is pad thai.

:O)

(edit: I put the metallica stuff on the walls years ago before suck. anger was released, wasn't a fan of death fagnetic either)

 

[Fandus]

head over to the john sayers forums, it's a whole forum dedicated to acoustics. without going into too much detail, foam and egg cartons will only offer you absorption and deflection in the high frequencies. think of it like this, the lower the frequency the more density you will need to properly treat it. in a room like that, on a budget you will always have problems in the low end. foam etc will do nothing to the low end, and you will find yourself in a room with no high end and all low end.

i would start with bass traps in any corners possible (cut out triangles of high density insulation, and stack them in the corners so you end up with a big wedge) and a few absorption panels in the first reflection points. the first reflection point is the area on the wall/roof where the sound first hits and then bounces to you in your sitting position. because sound works a bit like light (travels in a straight line) you can find these points by sitting in your chair, have a friend walk around the walls with a mirror, and any point where you can see your speakers (front OR back) needs to be treated.

there is really alot of information out there, john sayers forums is great, just read through it all an you will find alot of useful information. anything i have covered i have covered quite poorly as i'm no professional, and there is SO much that comes into play when treating rooms.