Room treatment - priorities.

dupe

Hi Rain-

I agree with you and Dave. Bass traps are a great place to start. Remember that bass traps will absorb higher frequencies in addition to lower ones, so you'll gain quite a bit by starting with them.

A really solid investment is Rod Gervais' book: Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros . It super detailed, and you may not find all of it useful, but there are some great pointers in the book. It made a huge difference for me.


Something else that I found helpful was drawing out my room using Google Sketchup and posting the ideas on GearSlutz in the "Studio Building/Acoustics" forum. I got some feedback from people that was helpful. It also allowed me to pre-think the space before I got started.


Last, even though there are many places that sell the pre-assembled panels, etc. they all tend to be over-priced IMHO. You're on the right track looking for the raw materials and doing it yourself. You'll save a ton and get results that are tailored to your room.


Depending on how much effort you want to put into the room, there are free applications that will assist you with calculating the materials you'll need for your space. Real Traps (realtraps.com) has some free downloads that can assist. Also, I grabbed an awesome set of tools for an iPhone that give you a SPL meter, tone generator, RTA  and other utilities. Audio Tools


Last, Dave (bitflipper) and others have posted a lot of useful stuff on this forum about room treatment. We used to have a lot more folks asking about gear and stuff, and Dave used to tell people to start by treating their rooms. He was soooo correct. It's probably the single best thing to spend money on that makes a noticeable difference.


Good Luck!


Oh...and last, I bought a bunch of mineral wool (Roxul) for a good price from: 

Superior Plus Contruction Products Corp.
International Technifab - SPI
801.974.7684 

Wow, thanks a bunch guys. Those 1" Roxul sheet got me interested - I get a $45 estimate for shipping, but if 1 x 1" is comparable to 1 x 2" of 703, this means I'd get enough to build 6 traps, for under $150. 

Both books are available for kindle, that's great. Thanks again.

Thanks Danny. That's also part of the plan (ARC). After those 2 years in hotel rooms and such, anything will be an improvement but I plan on doing all I can to make my listening/mixing environment as good as I can. 

I made my own panels with Roxul (Rockwool). I started off with a 2'x4' - 2" thick - ceiling panel over my normal listening/recording area and it made a huge difference. I know have treatments (ceiling/wall and bass traps) in the entire room.

hate to be contrary... nah, hate's too strong a word<G>...

Priorities for acoustical treatment for a small, critical listening space, to me, would look something like this:
1) select your monitors - use what you go, budget for new, makes no difference.
2) GEOMETRY - trapping LF and reflections is fine and good, but, it's even better if you don't need to. That means focus on geometry, and if you can't move the walls remember you can move the loudspeakers, and your ears! Try to keep the distance from the back of your head to the back wall at least (roughly) 12 feet - this provides a lot of options further down the road.
3) Bad reflections - there are bad reflections, and not so bad reflections... start with the worst reflections. Even if you just sketch out the room on paper it'll be easy enough to see the bad ones. Adjust the geometry to get rid of them if you can, otherwise treat them.
4) LF problems - I almost always leave these to last because the other steps will usually mitigate them.

A couple other thoughts
- avoid tuned traps, broadband traps are easier to work with, tuned traps should be a last resort.
- avoid tools that claim to correct time domain problems in the frequency domain. I know a lot of people like them, but the fact is you can NOT equalize out a time domain problem yet - the horsepower to create the required information isn't here yet.
- be aware of just how much absorption you are adding to the space. Too much is, well, too much! There are other tools, such as diffusion and reflection, that you want to use as well.

While it is a difficult pill to swallow, allocating some of your budget to work with an acoustician can pay for itself many times over. Even if they just make suggestions, they've dealt with small rooms a lot, and they can provide that experience to help you avoid gaining that experience<G>!

Thanks guys. 
 
As I mentioned, I have no idea what the room will look like, but I'll make due w/ what I have. Since we're renting the house, it won't be possible to make any modification to the structure of the room itself.  
 
Considering the houses that we've checked so far, I wouldn't really expect to find a secondary room that's much bigger than, say 12 x 14 or such. As I said, far from ideal, but that's what I'll need to work w/. 

Lastly, I do intend to keep furniture and equipment to the bare minimum, so beside the guitars and amp, it all boils down to my little desk and what's on it (see below), so I shouldn't have to compromise as to where in the room I put it. So it's not likely that I end up in a corner or w/ the monitors against the wall.

We do have a good friend here who'll be able to assist w/ acoustics if needed, I'll most likely ask for his input anyway.

In the long run, we'll be moving back to Canada, in our house. I'll have a much bigger room to work w/ there and I can count on my brother in law to help me out w/ the acoustic treatment and all. He has designed and built his own studio, and the place is amazing. Great live rooms and terrific mixing room.



Here's the biggest part of the stuff I do have here w/ me. Beside the secondary audio monitors and a bigger computer/display, that's pretty much all I need and intend to work with.

Well, obviously if that's possible, I'd jump on it. That being said, so far, all the houses that we've checked had a smaller garage. And my wife is anxious to set up her power tools and all, so that'd be priority no 1 if there's room for more than a car.