New jam pad/private club - very bright where to begin?

Hi all - noobie here...I've been reading the forum for a few days now and also referencing the Davis & Jones Sound Reinforcement Handbook in an effort to get up to speed, so please bare with me if some of my questions are rudementary - it's not for lack of trying to learn on my own... So, here's the deal: I'm on the second floor of an old brick and mortor building that is roughly 20x50 (some jogs in there, but more on that later...) with a 12' ceiling. The interior walls and ceiling are lath and plaster with many old coats of paint. The flooring is tile (old asbestos I suspect). There are six 5x6' windows along one wall (long wall), each recessed by 8" and spaced 3' apart from each other. The oposite side of the room hosts a maple bar and cabinets; the bar extends 8' from the actual wall and the cabinets vary from 10 to 14" with the counter top below at 30", these cabinets house two glass doors and three mirrors (see pics for better detail, or inquire as needed). These two walls are parallel and stand 18' apart. From the bar, the wall jogs at 45 degrees for 6' and has a heavy, solid double-door; at this point the room is 24' wide. Pics below should tell the rest of the story...note that there is a ticket window (solid maple, 3/4" thick) above the bar, next to the doors and a single door at the oposite end of the bar (spruce I believe and leading to a 6x11' back room). Phew... I don't have a decible level meter at the moment, but we're talking typical club/bar volume for a metal band with 1/2 stack tube amps and pa. Sound proofing or reduction to the outside is not a concern. The goal here is for improved sound overall, not necessarily studio quality or anything like that, just decent live sound that doesn't tire the ears. At the moment, things are very bright, even shrill...there's also a ton of rattle going on with the cabinet behind the bar (it is hollow, so would stuffing it with insulation help?). The curtains obviously help, but are pretty wimpy on their own; I intend to add a second, heavier curtain on top of the window boxes. The paintings (the brightly colored series in the band area) are closet door panels and suspended from the ceiling by 20" and 18" off the wall, they seem to help, but I sure they're not the best thing to have...all the same, they're staying (along with the funishing)...again, we want a cool lounge space with improved sound, it doesn't have to be perfect, so we want to treat the space for what it is, not remodel it into a studio. My question in general is: going by the pics and info, what would you guys do in here on the cheap (say $200 or less). It seems to me that ceiling treatment may be most valuable, but I'm not really clear on how much, what flavor or placement. Sorry about the over-sized, off-site images, but they're all that I have to work with at the moment...

Treating a 20 by 50 foot room for $200 is simply unrealistic. You can make an improvement though. Find the best deal you can on 2-inch thick rigid fiberglass or equivalent, and spread it more or less evenly around the room. Or at least the portion of the room you'll use for jamming. --Ethan

ok, so how much cash are we talking in order to get a decent, worth-the effort effect out of treatment? I do have a lot of material on hand, so that will help with the budget. what would you target in order of priority and effectiveness? -thanks

Sorry about the over-sized, off-site images, but they're all that I have to work with at the moment...

You really should upload them to the forum, since they have totally blown the margins of your thread, making it hard to read.

At the moment, things are very bright, even shrill...

Then you need to deaden it! If it's too live, kill it! That means absorption, but not the usual kind that you find "recommended" by acoustic "experts" on the internet, such as carpet, egg crates, and mattress foam. Forget those myths, and treat it with stuff that will actually work. See below. Like Ethan said, there really isn't much you can do with US$ 200. I'd suggest that rather than setting an unrealistic budget, you should first figure out what needs to be done, then figure out how much that will cost, then figure out plan for doing that / paying for it over time, as budget allows. For example, instead of a fixed US$ 200 budget, if you change that budget to "US$ 200 per month for as long as it takes until we get good sound", then you are being more realistic. You'll get a slight improvement every month as you do stuff, then eventually you will get to the point where you like the sound, and you can stop. (Or if US$ 200 per month is to much, then make it US$ 100, and realize that it will take twice as long to get results.) But be prepared to be disappointed the first month or two, since you won't hear much benefit for the amount of treatment you'll be able to do per month. Here's a couple of random comments and thoughts on what you posted, and on the pictures:

The curtains obviously help, but are pretty wimpy on their own; I intend to add a second, heavier curtain on top of the window boxes.

At a rough guess, I'd say that the curtains are not doing much for you at all! (if anything...) They look to be very thin, lightweight, small, not deeply pleated, and they cover very little surface area compared to the room. At best they are taking a tiny fraction off your high end, but I doubt it would be much. But you really do need to have something in front of those windows, since glass is a great acoustic reflector: So you need to do something to kill flutter across the room, and maybe reduce room resonance a little, so I'd suggest replacing those flimsy curtains with some thick, heavy, large, lined, and deeply pleated curtains ("drapes" in the USA). If you raise the rails up higher, almost to the ceiling, then you'll be able to have longer curtains, meaning more surface area. Extend the rails too (past the edges of the window frames, for even more area. If you did that, you could even hide some proper absorption (703 for example) behind the curtains, above the windows, in the gaps between the window frames and the (raised) rails. That would help too, without being too visible.

The paintings (the brightly colored series in the band area) are closet door panels and suspended from the ceiling by 20" and 18" off the wall, they seem to help, but I sure they're not the best thing to have...

Well, if you can't get rid of them, then I guess you'll have to live with them, and maybe you could pretend that they are acoustic treatment of some kind! They might already be acting vaguely like hangers or panel traps then, so I guess you could carry on thinking down that road, and glue thick 703 to the back of them (the side facing the wall, where it won't be visible). It might do something to damp their resonance a bit, and maybe act somewhat like a bass trap of sorts. At the very least, it will add a tiny amount of absorption to the room, which is a good thing since you don't seem to have any at all right now! Floor: You have a hard reflective floor, which is good, so if that were my room I'd leave the floor exactly as it is, and be thinking of hanging a bunch of clouds from the ceiling to kill any flutter echo and other nasty stuff that you might have in the vertical plane. You could make those clouds yourselves. Basically they are just large wooden frames, hung form the ceiling on wires, chain or brackets, filled several inches deep with mineral wool or fiberglass insulation, and with acoustic cloth stretched over the bottom, for aesthetics. Search the forum for "cloud" and you should find numerous examples of how to do that. You have lots of ceiling area, so you have space for lots of those! You also have plenty of space above the bar for some serious treatment: Thick absorption up there would be good. Say, for example, at least couple of inches of 703 or fiberglass or mineral wool in wooden frames, with acoustic cloth across the front, similar to the clouds. Lots of room up there! You could maybe even buy some of Ethan's bass traps (or make some yourself), and install them all along that ceiling/wall corner above the bar. In fact, you could treat ALL FOUR of your wall/ceiling corners like that! That would help considerably. Front wall (where the speakers are): You seem to have blank areas in the two vertical corners (wall/wall) where you could almost do some superchunks, or partial superchunks. that would also make a difference, I reckon. The front of the bar: You have space there that you could put to good use as well. Not quite sure how, but it is a large flat surface that isn't doing you any favors right now, and is just begging for some kind of treatment. The problem is that it is in a location that will get banged by knees, feet, and bar stools all the time, so you'll have to design it with that in mind. Ordinary insulation will get crushed there, unless you protect it.

there's also a ton of rattle going on with the cabinet behind the bar (it is hollow, so would stuffing it with insulation help?)

Stuffing it might help to kill any resonance going on inside it, but it won't stop the rattling: to stop the rattling, you need to figure out exactly which parts of it are rattling, and stop them from rattling! :) Nail it tighter, stick more screws in it, apply acoustic caulk around the edges (from the inside, where it won't be seen). etc. Sounds easy, but probably it won't be. . . . That should at least get you started. If you invest US$ 200 a month doing that, in a few months you should start noticing the difference in the sound, and maybe in a year or so you'll be where you want to go, acoustically. My US$ 0.02. - Stuart -