DIY - sound absorption materials

Hello all, Question: could ceiling tile be used in place of the preferred choice or Auralex studio foam and Audimute sound absorption panels? Just wanted to know if this 'less expensive' choice is a good alternative for a household on a very limited budget. (photos of panels and room configuration are included). I have a room recording studio for myself, primarily songwriting and spoken word: yamaha 16g (16channel hard disc recorder), m-audio bx5a reference speakers, 2 types of mic pres , ada mp-1 (effects preamp for guitar), 2 guitars (Ovation acoustic/electric and Fender strat), Acoustic 60watt amp, 2 type of condenser mics (akg 420 and Sterling ST55) and 2 yamaha keyboards (mm6 and dx7). My room is small, 8x10 with 9 foot ceiling. I needed sound absorption on the walls as they are very hard, similar to plaster board; not dry wall (60yr old house). I constructed six 24”x48” panels using acoustic ceiling tile purchased from the local home improvement store. I built the frames using the instructions I found on this forum posted by 'studio-drum'. My apologies. the most important item was overlooked in my zeal to post a question. Read The Posting Rules. Newbie here (no excuse for not Reading the Rules). thanks for reading ... remor

while ceiling tiles are not generally as effective as deeper rigid insulation, you could try spanning some across your corners and space them out (~4-6in) from the walls. this should help take advantage of whatever absorption they do provide. you could make a few more for the ceiling and hang them down (~1-2ft) and angled. for the corners you could add some additional rigid insulation or packed pink insulation to increase the absorption there.

thank you gullfo for the detailed suggestion. i must say your diagram was more than helpful. I must be mindful of how much i can add and leave walk-in space for the room and not get my wife p'd off. you mentioned 'deeper rigid insulation'. i see it can be purchased online from various sites. can this type of absorption material also be purchased from a home improvement center? if so, what type or brand that is currently available? my local home center does not have the Owens-Corning 703 i've seen mention in this forum. I had the ceiling tile left-over from a basement ceiling project. seem like a good choice at the time. I can tell a slight differenct in the room. I will search the forum for more information ... gulfo, thanks again remor

OC 703 is sold by HVAC, refrigeration , suppliers like SPI. Look in the yellow pages phone book. It is generically 3 lb/ft^3 fiberglas and 4 lb/ft^3 mineral wool. Andre

i found where to purchase OC703 locally. now that i have the acoustic ceiling tile affixed to my frames with 'liquid nails', can i lay the OC703 on top of the ceiling tile with any sound absorption benefit? or should i toss the ceiling and the frames and start over with the OC703? i'm a 'cheap' old man who doesn't want to destroy any hard work and waste money. thoughts ... ... they have been good so far -- “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” - Albert Einstein

you could lay the 703 on the back of the tile units and cover the whole unit with cloth to finish. this keeps the insulation from shedding and floating around and can look nice to boot. treat the cloth with a fire retardant (or buy fire retardant treated cloth).

Again, Thanks gullfo for the encouragement and suggestions. I'm a cheap, sob. didn't want to waste time, money and effort since I was off to what seem a 'go start'. Now I can purchase the material with a pattern or design I like and not the plain colors offered at various sites. ... maybe its time I post a photo ...

Follow-up to previous sound absorption posting for acoustic panels ... Thank you everyone for the fab postings. I was able to build several acoustic panels for my small home studio, which my wife actually like. Her approval is most important. I was able to purchase 9 pieces of John's Manville 814, 24"x48"x2" fiber board for $70.00 USD from SPI. The company delivered the material to a local SPI site in my area. I purchased bulk burlap from Joann's Fabric, 20yds for $60.00USD and 9yds of micromesh for $18.00 USD. I build some frames following studio_drums instructions posted Mar 05, 2008. The lumber from Home Depot to build 9 frames cost close to $25.00 USD. With 9 pieces of John's Manville 814, 24"x48"x2" fiber board, I cut 3 of the boards in half to make 6 12"x48"x2" panels. I included the photos of the new look of my home studio. An earlier posting contains the before shot with panels made from 24"x48 ceiling tiles. Take a look and share your thoughts. The room sounds much better. Oh yeah, I used one corner of my room to configure a vocal booth using acoustic panels.

looks great! later when you budget permits, add some across the corner in front of your desk and some small ones across the corners over the doors and vox panels.

Question to ... Now that I have installed the acoustic panels I am rethinking the size and placement of the panels. Is it necessary for brass trap panels to be 24"x48"x2"? for what purpose? Can a 12"x48"x2" bass trap panel function just as well? In from of my mixing desk (behind the speakers) I have two (2) 24"x48"x2" in landscape orientation, that meet in the corner. I'm thinking of changing this out for 12"x48"x2" colums and stacking two (2) 24"x48"x2" panels in the corner, from floor to ceiling to serve as a bass trap. However, If stacking two (2) 12"x48"x2" columns in the same manner I can save on some real estate behind the desk. let me know our thoughts ...

spanning the corner will be better than what you have now since there will be an air space behind them (or you can fill ala super chunk) and they cover then entire corner including tri-corners where they should be more efficient.

so, I can span the corner with either 12"x48"x2" or 24"x48"x2" panels for bass traps. it sounds like having a pocket of air behind the panel(s) is important for the bass frequencies. I think i got a weekend project; redesigning the wall in of my desk. thanks for the support.

use 24x48x4" not 2", if you can put another 12x48x4 behind it as shown.

thanks Glen. question: do I go from floor to ceiling with this configuration or just use a single use 24x48x4 panel? I may not have enough room to place a use 24 inch wide panel in front of my desk. The desk is pretty much stationary due to its size or configuration. it is similar in size and shape as the one in the photo. the center section is facing one corner of the room and is 14" from the corner of the two walls. tight fix i'll say ... ... but, if i could use a use 12x48x4 piece ...

Is there any chance you can re-arrange your room? The layout you have, with your desk and speakers up in a corner, is not ideal at all. There are many things wrong that, acoustically, that could be improved by re-arranging the room. No amount of acoustic treatment can make your current layout sound great. Maybe if you could post an accurate SketchUp model of your room, showing what things can and cannot be changed, plus several more photos form different angles, we could help you improve that into something that would at least sound reasonable, acoustically. - Stuart -

thanks soundman for the suggestion. the current room setup will change until i get another computer desk setup. sometime you gotta work with what you got. and i got this setup. excuse the crude drawing. from my previous photos nothing has changed. however, the sound is much better than before, although my mix front is in a corner. the speakers are facing the length of the room. I know i will not get "studio" quality sound. but this is a multi-purpose room; recording instruments and vox, mixing, working and listening. i know with the amount of absorption in the room i will be able to produce a good demo mix. sometimes you gotta make what you have work. by the way, no disrespect; was your suggestion based upon personal preference or science theory? i've seen my photo examples of room setups and a corner setup similar to mine was in a few examples. just a question, no disrespect. thanks

"by the way, no disrespect; was your suggestion based upon personal preference or science theory?" Panel Vibrations are known to converge in the corners, that is the science used. And then when you place all the things that make vibrations into the corner you have an environment that creates loss of highs and an increase of lows that are too difficult to overcome when mixing. It's taking a bad situation and making it worse :) Any corner setup you have seen, that has been in the corner of a rectangular room had the same issue your room has and is generally frowned upon as a placement area and is never recommended by anyone with any experience. Now a corner that has been modified in some respects, E.G. hard boundary installed to actually remove the corner and make the existing 90 degree side walls "splayed" has been used with effectiveness.

"Now a corner that has been modified in some respects, E.G. hard boundary installed to actually remove the corner and make the existing 90 degree side walls "splayed" has been used with effectiveness Can you translate ... make the existing 90 degree side walls "splayed"

whoa soundman, i think i understand. perhaps, i don't need to move the furniture, just the re-arrange the monitor placement. instead of having the monitors spread across the corner, move the monitors to the back wall to fire down the length. for example in the items on the right in the photo will be remove or relocated and replaced with the monitors. Is that what you mean ... ... if so ... ...Doh!!! Also, the speaker placement would be more center to the room. keep you posted.

Exactly: Get your monitors out of the corner, and centered in the room, firing down the long axis. In your case, that means moving the desk so that it is facing the window (which includes rotating the desk 45° clockwise). That will put your speakers in a much better position. As Brien already explained, corners do bad things to your sound, acoustically, which is why you never want to have speakers in a corner. You get all kinds of artifacts from the way sound bounces around between the surfaces: comb filtering, reinforcement of bass, nulling of highs, multiple reflections, etc. You will never be able to get a decent mix with speakers in the corner. Maybe you have seem entire control rooms set up in a corner, but that is always done the other way around, where the corner is at the BACK of the room, still leaving a wide flat surface at the front. As Brien said, you won't ever see a great studio with the desk and speakers sitting in an untreated corner. At the very least you need a large hard surface across the diagonal, with suitable treatment on it. On the other hand, if you move your desk to face the window, setting it in the middle of the room, then you can get a pretty good setup. I would also suggest that you get your speakers off the desk and put them on very heavy stands just behind the desk. Hollow sand-filled stands seem popular right now, but any kind of very massive stand will do. If your speakers are resting on the desk, then they cause the entire desk to vibrate in sympathy at some frequencies, and cancel out other frequencies. You'll also get reflections off your desk. Plus, your desk isn't big enough to get the speakers far enough apart form each other, and far enough away from your head, to create a good sound stage and stereo image. Ideally, your speakers should be about 1.5m to 2m apart, and the same distance from your ears: in other words, your head and the speakers should be at the three points of an equilateral triangle. Your speakers are also too low: they should be at about 1.2 m above the floor, which is roughly the same height that your ears are above the floor. The speakers should point at your ears. So look for solid, massive speaker stands that are a bit less than 1.2 high (so the speakers axes ends up at 1.2m). Then I'd set up one of those absorption panels right up against the wall behind each speaker, another in the middle between them (up against the window), two more diagonally across the front corners of the room, floor to ceiling, like Glenn said, another two on the side walls at the first reflection points, and a few more on the wall behind you. Do that and I reckon you'll be amazed at the difference on your sound! It might not be world-class, but I bet it will be immensely better than it is right now! :) - Stuart -

whoa soundman, i think i understand. the speaker placement would be more center to the room. moving the desk would take away much needed space, long one wall as the room is compact. i may recover space near one window and lose space by the other window. the acoustic panels will stay in place as in they are in the photo. but looks as though i have a major project on my hands to take apart and set the desk; 3 pieces. or purchase another desk, this time one piece like the Omnirax Presto 4 Studio Desk $600.00 USD keep you posted.

new setup photos with new desk. desk is in the facing the center of the front wall with the speaker a bit further than with the old desk. moved speakers out of the corner. Sound is different; bass not as boomly in certain portions of several of my mixes. Which is good. however, i did notice some of my background keys were 'way in the mix'. i need to listen to the mix more to determine whether this is a good thing or remix. overall new sound takes getting familiar. Next step is to get speaker stands. but don't know where and how to place them. one good thing, the desk is easier to move. looking for more feedback, if you like ... ... not giving up!

moved speakers out of the corner. Sound is different; bass not as boomly in certain portions of several of my mixes. Which is good.

Great! That "boomy" sound was definitely due to having your speakers in the corner, where you were most likely getting all kinds of strange artifacts. The way you have them now you are hearing a much "truer" response. You still need more treatment on the walls: You might still be getting comb-filtering artifacts from reflections off the front wall, and you still need more bass trapping, but you at least have a good start. If you make more absorber panels, make them thicker and larger. At least 4" thick, and as big as you can afford (wide and tall). One question: Is the desk centered on that wall? Room symmetry is very important to creating a good sound stage, so you should have your desk exactly centered, with your speakers exactly the same distance to the left and right of the center line. - Stuart -

One question: Is the desk centered on that wall? Room symmetry is very important to creating a good sound stage, so you should have your desk exactly centered, with your speakers exactly the same distance to the left and right of the center line.

Yep. measured, measured and remeasured. keep you post up for reference. Desk is sitting center to the front wall. don't know how much more panels to add without covering the entire wall, unless you are referring to a cloud overhead ...

do you have a cloud? if not. it will definitely help.