Small drum room idea

All, I started to rip up my small sound room and am going to use it for a small drum and vocal room. The room size is roughly 12x12 with a small closet on one sode that is about 6 x2. My idea is to have a slot wall on the far side that links to the neighbors house. Figured I would try to eliminate sound as much as I can. There is already a 3 foor fire wall on that side, so I figured a slot wall of 8' high by 10' wide would both aid in acoustics as well as look better. The long 12 foot wall has a window that is now blocked by a sheet of acoustic foam attached to plywood and bolted up. I am planning on taking a large heavy curtain and hanging it across the entire section with the existing foam behind it. On the closet side I am making bass trap out of 8lb. Mineral Wool. hanging 2 there, 2 in my corners, 2 on the wall parrallel to the slot wall and then one against the curtain corners. essentially 8 in the room. The floors are going to be wood floors and a small rug for the drums to sit on. I will try to get a design up if I can. just trying to figure out if this sounds right? The slot wall, is it worth even doing in that size? Thanks for any ideas or advice. - Doc

This is my start idea. http://www.tbrstudio.com/drumroom/DrumRoom.htm Obviously not entirely to scale witht he kit, but you get the idea. Thanks, - Doc

bump for the Doc

Doc, is your goal mainly sound isolation or is this intended for acoustic treatment within the room, or both? Have you looked in the REFERENCE section of the Construction forum yet regarding what works for wall construction? Basically just need to know more of your intentions... Steve

More for sound isolation,but it is safe to say for both! This will be a drum room. wood floors, rug under drums, slot panel and so fourth. I have checked a lot of sites and found good ideas. Just trying to decide on what would be best. The idea is to try to deaden it somewhat with the existing treatment, as well as make it sound decent enough to track with. I cannot physically change the room to terribly much due to resale in a few more years. gotta make do until the next house. figured a wall with a nice Poplar wod stained with teak oil will look nice for selling. That is the plan. thanks, - Doc

OK, here goes - Window ideas - what you have won't stop a lot of sound compared to my suggestions here - http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=272 Also, I need to know more about your "3 foot fire wall", as to how exactly it's constructed, from the outside surface all the way through to what you see inside the room. FYI, any time you add any kind of "trap" to a wall, whatever frequencies the trap "kills" will also be the frequencies that get through the wall easier - so, before you add a slot-wall (usually called a slat or slot absorber) to your wall, you want to make sure the wall is BETTER than you need by several dB, or else the sound you "trap" INSIDE will be the sound you HEAR OUTSIDE. That said, at least part of your slot wall should be designed around trapping 300 hZ - this is the modal first harmonic of 22-24" kick drum shells, and nearly always needs to be reduced in a room to get a more even drum sound. Using slats to do this rather than broadband absorption helps keep the drum room from getting too absorptive at high frequencies, so you don't lose that "sizzle" from the cymbals while you're controlling the low end modes. Can you describe the other walls in the room, starting with the visible surface on one side and continuing through the wall to the visible surface on the other side? Once I've got an accurate idea of what is actually there, I can try to help with ideas on containment/acoustics... Steve

Knightfly, thanks for the interest. The window is my least o the worries. It is deadened by a piece of MDF and the aurelex. Worksfor what it is worth. This is really my approach to making do with what I have until I move in a few years. Gotta ge through the wife ya know. The 3 foot firewal is your typical grey cinder block but 3 feet of it for each townhouse. 1979 technology here. It is pretty good as the neighbors do not hear stuff unless I really crank the aps or the drummer is going insane. The trap I am going to build was actualy focusing on the freqs that you mentioned so I think I am good there. The other walls are standard drywall , concrete slab floot that will be woodflooring this week. Not trying to absorb everything, but make it a better room for recording. So far I have had great results with the room, had carpet though. Bought the slats tonight and will use the freq. chart to setup the gaps for freq. isolation. Thanks again, and I will keep checking. - doc

Doc, be SURE you use the calculator here http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1363 and NOT the one on the SAE site, or any OTHER you may have found on the net; almost ALL of them, including the old one on the SAE site, have the WRONG FORMULA in the spreadsheet; it's apparently a "xerox engineering" holdover from someone who copied it wrong in the old audio cyclopedia, as near as anyone can tell, and it changes frequencies by over an octave in some cases; enough so that you're not getting what you THOUGHT you had, considering that helmholtz traps are relatively narrow band... Steve