simple room treatment EVOLVED

I reposted this in Acoustics... Think maybe it belongs there? How would you treat this room for decent acoustics? especially for recording drums! The room is 22x27 8.5 foot ceiling. http://sozoamplification.com/images/IMG_0316.JPG http://sozoamplification.com/images/IMG_0296.JPG Thanks!!! John

Im not worried about sound leakage, but how is the garage door going to treat the bass? what are some basic things I can do to stop the flutter and help the bass in the room I dont want the room totally dead, how does the carptet effect that..?

Please use the search function and read John's documents on his site. We encourage new members to not ask questions that could be answered for yourself if you really took the time to look for it, because the answer is there for sure. many times.

Ok this has evolved into a full on project! Where to go from here? Im most concerned with the ceiling... its 8.5 feet and im not sure how to approach it. also I can only fit two superchunks in the two front corners, and they cant go to the floor because of moisture etc... Thanks, John

I think that you need to comment on if your going to use the room only for recording? In notice you have the Heater and other objects in there?. Are you planning on Just recording drums? There are lots of options but looking at the room... you have allot of stuff in it now. If on the other hand, you just plan to use it for drums, I"d build a drum booth, there are lots of designs on the board for drum rooms.... If you want to use it for more than drums, I can see that you probably have to build a room in a room to get rid of some of the other issues. In California I had a garage door and I just built a wall on the inside of it and left the door down (removing the automatic garage door opener off of course)... But until you explain what exactly you want to do then it's hard to give suggestions..

davidki wrote:

I think that you need to comment on if your going to use the room only for recording? In notice you have the Heater and other objects in there?. Are you planning on Just recording drums? There are lots of options but looking at the room... you have allot of stuff in it now. If on the other hand, you just plan to use it for drums, I"d build a drum booth, there are lots of designs on the board for drum rooms.... If you want to use it for more than drums, I can see that you probably have to build a room in a room to get rid of some of the other issues. In California I had a garage door and I just built a wall on the inside of it and left the door down (removing the automatic garage door opener off of course)... But until you explain what exactly you want to do then it's hard to give suggestions..

I was going to keep it one big room and keep the garage door workable too. My main instrument is guitar actually. The HVAC is loud for sure... but can I box that in? I still have to access it for filters etc. John

Thanks for the reply.. If I were you, I'd decided on how much of the room you can give up and then design and build to that, it's is hard to guess what to suggest. If you want to use the room as mutil purpose,then a lot of guys have built Gobo's to help control sound.. Are you dealing with Acoustic Guitar or Electric? And what else will you be recording? You have labeled this as "full on", So, If it's full on... carve out a space, build a room in a room and treat it correctly... if not that, as I said, check out some of the Gobo's folks have built, just search Gobo's... I just built some for our studio..

Actually Knightfly a long time ago suggested I keep the room undivided to gain a larger room sound. I am not worried about the sound isolation from the outside so I want to keep the garage door working. I will be happy with a decent sounding room for tracking and mixing. The areas I want to work on are: 1st. the Superchunks in the corners, I can only fit 2 right now and dont know what to do with the other corners as there is a door and an hot water heater in them. 2nd. the ceiling above the drums and mix area. 3rd. the area around the monitors and speakers 4th. dampen the garage door reflections better. 5th. the parallel walls.

Perhaps it's time for someone else to chime in .... I was a bit confused,I thought you wanted to build a studio.. .Good luck..

A home studio with a garage door is, hmm, not acceptable?

I didn't say a garage door is not acceptable, my comment was that in my first studio the way I got over the garage door issue was to build an inner wall like you would build studio walls, I insulated it, added double drywall and sealed it up. I think I understood you wanted to build a studio, not just treat a room, in your original post you said you wanted to record drums, I suggested building a drum booth, there are plenty of designs.... I suggested you build a room in a room, you said that one big room was OK and I said, I'm out of ideas because with the current design of the room (parallel walls, and things like the heater, refrigerator and other items along with a garage door) it is just going to be hard to treat that space as a studio and have a mix station. If what you are using it for a garage studio,just do some close mic'ing. If your recording Electric guitars, a good SM57 in the front of the cabinet is probably all you would need. I"m not sure with out a dedicated space you will achieve a "Studio" controlled environment.. . but, perhaps others here can chime in with ideas.. Have you set a budget to accomplish this?

Yes thank you for you help.... budget evolving... not concerned

Something to keep in mind - and I am not one of the experts on this board by any means - is that you need to start thinking three dimensionally for the room. There are more than four corners in that room, and while it may only be easy to place superchunks in two corners, you can still treat the wall-to-ceiling corners with bass traps. For the flutter, there are multiple topics on this across the board. A cursory search will give you multiple ideas.

bwilkinson wrote:

Something to keep in mind - and I am not one of the experts on this board by any means - is that you need to start thinking three dimensionally for the room. There are more than four corners in that room, and while it may only be easy to place superchunks in two corners, you can still treat the wall-to-ceiling corners with bass traps. For the flutter, there are multiple topics on this across the board. A cursory search will give you multiple ideas.

Thanks.. yes I was thinking above the door in the right side of the room some kind of bass trap and one above the hot water heater. The flutter I can eliminate the parallel walls with one of the devices listed in the SAE recording manual no? Thanks John

Some progress, next is superchunks the corners and custom clouds over the mix area. Should I cover the superchunks with some kind of plastic/cloth or wood 1/4-1/2 gaps? Thanks, John

Update...

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