Acoustic Treatment of a Rented Room

Good Day:D, I am Felix and I am currently doing a music course in Brisbane. Recently, I became intrigue about sound acoustics and started reading up on the subject from the web. At some point not too long ago, I decided to acoustically treat my room. My goal is to be able to mix songs in my bedroom. I will also like to do some light recordings in the room. Previously, mixing in my room has been frustrating. Muddy mixes and lack of punch have been the main issues. Moreover, my school does not have a proper mixing studio. Well at least I will not get to use it as they revealed that the new building will only be up somewhere in 2010. Right now I am in my planning and research phrase. I have read a few articles, books and have constructed my finished product on Sketch Up. Here is my file for your perusal. http://www.mediafire.com/?bcglf92g9mt Some stills from my drawings are included at the bottom of this post. I intend to start buying equipment and building bass traps right after I am done with my exams. My plan 1) Get advice on my plan for room treatment - Ongoing! 2) Get a part time job to fund my project - Accomplished! 3) Dick Smith digital SPL meter from Dick Smith Electronics = $78 Accomplished! 4) Behringer ECM8000 measuring mic = $95 Accomplished! 5) Test untreated room (Delayed due to possible furniture changes) 6) Buy electric carving knife = $39 from BigW Accomplished! 7) Buy Dust mask = $3 Accomplished! 8] Bought Insulco HD Fiberglass = 1 pack with 4 sheets (50mm thickness)(2.4m by 1.2m) $262.90 Accomplished! 9) Build traps!! 10) Treat corners and first reflections points 11) Test treated room. 12) Feedback and other changes where necessary. My budget = prefer to keep it under 500 bucks. But i hcve decided to build all the panels that i can with the 1 pack of insulation that i bought. My calculations adds up to about 800 bucks. I am also thinking of getting the Auralex mopads to decouple my monitors which are sitting on what looked like a steady but light weighted “stands”. I bought commercial monitor stands previously, but they were too flimsy and looked like it will topple if someone gave it a knock. Right now, I can foresee some of the problems with my project. This is due to mainly because I live in a rented room. 1) Unable to nail stuff or maybe even stick stuff on to the walls if it’s going to damage the wall badly. 2) Isolation of sound is impossible. I have a road near the house, a living room next to my room and I have occasionally noisy housemates and neighbors. Thus, this might distract my mixing sessions. 3) Unable to treat ceiling with panels. Might be able to treat the ceiling corners if I can reach them and somehow figure how to fix the traps. 4) Not too sure how to control some of the reflections as I have a few stuffs near the monitors. 5) Possible problem with installing a bass trap in one of the corners due to a table being fixed to the wall. I can get pretty loud if I want especially when I am playing with my DJ-ing rig. Hee. But my housemates seem pretty cool about it. I also noted that the walls are constructed by some kind of hollow-ish wood like material. My room dimensions are L: 381.2CM (~ 12feet 6Inches), W: 323.0cm (~ 10feet 7Inches), H: 317.2cm (~ 10feet 5Inches) I am not sure if I should treat the rear wall. I am hoping my clothing and the stuff in the cupboard helps to deflect and absorb the mid and high frequencies. But I am not sure about this. I also do not know if I should align the length of my DJing rig and my general PC tables to the side walls or keep it as shown in the plan. I am concern that the reflections from the desks, including the main table in the middle, will damage the stereo imaging. There is a curtain hanging down from the window (not shown in the drawing) which is not permeable to air. It seems like a reflective material, which means that I might have to take it down and cover my window with black paper. There is also a circular air duct that runs from the top right of the front wall ceiling which I failed to draw in SketchUp. I don’t hear any air noises from it so I assume it is not functional (Thankfully). However, this prevents me from install a tri-corner bass trap at that point. The floors are carpeted which is not reflected in the drawings. Cheers.

Hi & Welcome Felix, Looks like you've figured out the best bang for the buck you'll get without serious construction. I did a similar thing in a smaller room and the difference was night & day. I used 50mm Insulco Semi Rigid insulation which is pretty rare, but any decent insulation supplier can order it in. Comes in sheets of 1200x2400mm in packs of 4 or 5. You can get it with a black felt backing which will keep any fibres contained so you only need fabric for the front. It's a shame about your ceiling fan, I found that a cloud above the mix position made the biggest difference.

Hi Adam, Your room looks great! Yep i was also thinking of going for insulco's fibreglass. Which supplier did u get your insulation from? Are u living in a rented place? If so, did u hang those panels up without the use of nails? Yes i have been thinking about a ceiling cloud...maybe i could build some kind of structure that can hold the panel without attaching it from the ceiling. But until i can figure out how, I will stick with the corners first. I also noted today that the window does quite a good job of blocking outside noises when fully closed. Any advice on my treatment plan will be much appreciated. Thanks! :D

maybe you can hang the ceiling fan off a temporary mount on the ceiling and use some flat cable conduit to run the power to it? this way you can get the space need for the cloud? best bet to check with a licensed electrician to see whats feasible.

Hi Felix, I own this house, but the panels were only ever temporary (moving back to the Gold Coast in a month, woohoo) so I made as few wall penetrations as possible. The corner panels are just free standing on the floor, not perfectly stable but if you don't run into them they won't topple over. The first reflection panels are hanging like a picture on a single hook, but there's no reason you couldn't make them tall enough to stand on the floor as well. For the semi rigid, I just rang Insulco and they gave me a local dealer here in Canberra, who ordered it in. Took about a week. You probably won't be drilling holes in a rented place, but the photos below show how I mounted my ceiling/wall panels. There are 4 holes for each, which I'll plug when we move out of here. To take Gulfo's suggestion further, can you temporarily remove the ceiling fan and use it's mount to suspend a cloud?

maybe you can hang the ceiling fan off a temporary mount on the ceiling and use some flat cable conduit to run the power to it? this way you can get the space need for the cloud? best bet to check with a licensed electrician to see whats feasible.

Nah i dont think thats possible.. the landlord is quite picky... doesn't even allow us to use heaters during winter. :roll: Wow adam, very nicely done. Thanks guys for the cloud suggestions + other info. I will think about a way to get it done without the owner chasing me out... I will carry out with my plan and update the progress of my project. I will probably need guidance along the way.

"""Nah i dont think thats possible.. the landlord is quite picky... doesn't even allow us to use heaters during winter. """" WHAT!?!?! :roll:

Pffft they don't even have winter in in Brisbane! :wink: Felix with what you have planned, you'll be miles in front of where you are now. It's all about working with what we've got.

:oops: Well yeah... we dont have sub zero temperatures here in brissy but technically its still called winter and i do feel the chills. I guess im more of a tropical person :lol: ... Would love to go down to gold coast and do learn some surfing sometime after winter though. The waves there are great and the view is fantastic too... i feel totally relaxed every time im there.

hmm... i am abt to purchase the fiberglass material but...which one is a better acoustic material? The data suggest that semi rigid is a better than high density. But semi rigid density is only 32kg/m3 while high density is at 48kg/m3. So should i trust the data or the density? Product thickness 125hz 250hz 500hz 1000hz 2000hz 4000hz Semi Rigid IB(nil) 50mm 0.41 0.84 1.02 1.25 1.22 1.16 High Density(nil) 50mm 0.38 0.73 1.20 1.17 1.15 1.11 Thanks :roll:

use the 48 kg/m3, it's "semi" rigid.

Thanks for all the advices so far... The insulation has finally arrived... I have cut them up into 1.2m by 0.6m sheets...Will post some pics later Im heading off to Bunning's to get the rest of the materials...

The timber cost quite abit... abt 160aussie dollars for 6 (120mm x 60mm) frames and 5 (600mm x 600mm) frames. I ended up covering the fbsheets with garbage bags and stored them in my room until i have my free day to build the traps. The bags help remove the strong fbglass smell and prevents me from inhaling any stray fbglass. Photo 1: 1 pack of insulco high density fibreglass insulation. Consist of 4 (2400mm by 1200mm) sheets of thickness 50mm. Photo 2: Slicing sheets with an electric knife. Other precautionary measures includes gloves, dust mask, long sleeve clothing Photo 3: Sliced sheets ready for storage. Photo 4: Storage with garbage bags saves the day. Photo 5: Since this is my first time working with wood, I built a sample frame to to get a feel of things.

You might want to consider spending a few bucks on a higher grade Xtension cord there buddy :)

You might want to consider spending a few bucks on a higher grade Xtension cord there buddy

:oops: I used nylon cords. It seemed sufficient and is able to hold the Fglass in place quite well... After struggling for a while, i finally built 2 panels (pic below). They took a while to be assembled due to me being a noob at construction. But i think all the panels will be assembled within the next 2 weeks. :)

Felix Hoo wrote:

You might want to consider spending a few bucks on a higher grade Xtension cord there buddy

:oops: I used nylon cords. It seemed sufficient and is able to hold the Fglass in place quite well... After struggling for a while, i finally built 2 panels (pic below). They took a while to be assembled due to me being a noob at construction. But i think all the panels will be assembled within the next 2 weeks. :)

Man u need to try harder!!! that rap looks like........ i´de take that off and try again before i go mass wrapping

Aw thats fine Felix...I was looking at the chain of electrical cords you had that electrical butter knife plugged into :)