Basement Drumroom

Hai ya'll :) A good friend of mine recently moved and got a house with a little basement. Just big enough too transform into a drumrehearsal room. He asked me if I could assist him with the room. Making it acoustically "perfect". The basement is fairly isolated and located underneath his garage. It's concrete all around. But there's 2 openings in the roof. One, in the middle and one on the side which is the entrypoint. There's a little stairs there too. There's tiles on the floor. My friend, Roeland, wasn't concerned about isolation since his closest neighbor lives about 20m further. I told him that it still is a good idea to add some mass to the openings. He agreed. :) The space is about 2,10m high, 4,50m long and 2,10m wide (approx). Exact dimensions will be measured tomorrow. (told ya it was small) The plan: - close the openings or atleast add some mass. They have to remain functional. - add panels to optimize acoustics (basstraps in corner, broadband on walls and ceiling. Adding a bass trap behind the drumkit). - Leave the tiled floor but add a carpet or rug underneath the drumkit. Not too much work but still SOME work. (hell I'm dealing with 3 projects at this time... aahrg). More info later, this was just a teaser ;) edit: Here's the build diary: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=12321

Cool! So we are going to be privileged to watch a "Ro-Run Build" in progress, right from the start! You can bet I'll be paying close attention. - Stuart -

Right. I've discussed the options with Roeland and he agreed on dressing up the room acoustically. We talked about corner suppa-chunks, broadband panels and a cloud. First a couple of shots of the room as it is now. Dimensions: 210cm wide by 476cm long by 210cm high. A very low ceiling indeed... In the ceiling is a big hole to transport big objects through, like a bassdrum :) So that one's gotta stay functional. We're gonna add some extra mass on the shutter and in the remaining opening we're gonna stuff a absorber. That one's gonna be somewhat above the drumkit. The TubeLights are gonna be replaced.

After I teached Roeland on acoustics and especially absorbers, I've instructed him on what to buy and how to build a trap. The broadbands panels will be made by himself. We agreed on building a 5cm thick framed panel. Using glasswool, plywood and cotton. Dimensions: 100cmx60cmx5cm Here's *his* first attempt of a DIY panel :) (not bad if you ask me)

Here's the design. Atleast 4 corner devices and a few panels to start with. (I didn't draw the ceiling plan yet) We're gonna take it from there and adjust as we see fit. If there's still too much "ooompf" we'r gonna treat the upper corners as well. Total cost is about 300 euros. (nevermind the drumkit, I imported a googled kit and adjusted the heigt... bleh) As you can see we're gonna use the "french cleat" method to hang the panels. That also means there's gonna be an additional gap behind te trap. Which is good for lower absorption. Remember, above the kit there's a "cloud" absorber. ps. 8 panels are build already. Next week, I hope, we're gonna start with building the corner traps.

Corner Absorbers Mkay, here are the designs of the, to be build, corner basstraps. (sorry for the Dutch language, I think you get it anyway) It's a trap using the suppa-chunk technique. The wool is cut at 50cmx50cm (20'x20') and moved a bit from the back. This is, acoustically, a little advantage but the real reason is to make it flush with the mounting frame (the angled studs at the front) :)

Here's a second design of a basstrap. Dunno which we're gonna use yet. The earlier posted one is more stabel (construction wise) but requires more wood than this next design. It also doesn't need space behind the wool (which saves space but is acoustically a little worse)

And here's the very simple broadband absorbing panel design. The sheet of wool (rockwool, the brand AND the type) is 60cmx100cm. The frame was made 0,5cm shorter on all sides (1cm in total for width and 1cm in height) so that the sheet will just stick within the frame. Adding cloth to finish it off. The panels hang on the wall using the French Cleat technique. (works very well) Check the build diary too see them in action.