Skip-trowel texturing as a diffusion surface

I was wondering if anyone has tried using a skip-trowel texture on wallboard (gypsum/blueboard) inside their control room. The skip trowel technique leaves the wall's surface irregular. Basically you put mud (joint compound) on a trowel and lightly drag the trowel accross the wall at about a 40 degree angle leaving small (or large) globs of joint compound on the wall. You finish this off by leveling off the high spots with a clean trowel. The result is an irregular texture that can be typically from 1/8" to 1/4" in relief. I'm just finishing up a new combined control/tracking room (which has a LOT of glass in it: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=48849#48849) and I'm thinking about texturing all the remaining wall and ceiling surfaces. Some absorbers will obviously be placed over the textured walls,... What do you think?

If I'm not mistaken, you need to have the irregular surface related to size of the waves you are trying to diffuse. In other words, what you're talking about might do something for very high frequencies, it wouldn't do much for the lows and mids and the whole idea of diffusion is to even up the sound across the spectrum of frequencies. len

len-morgan wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, you need to have the irregular surface related to size of the waves you are trying to diffuse. In other words, what you're talking about might do something for very high frequencies, it wouldn't do much for the lows and mids and the whole idea of diffusion is to even up the sound across the spectrum of frequencies. len

I plan to add some other diffusive sources to the walls. I am mostly worried that doing this to the ceiling will cause more problems than it will help. It looks very nice and classy, which is the main reason I want to do it. Plus, it's a fun, artisitic kind of endeavour and you get to play with clean mud :P

There is one other thing to bear in mind though: If you build any kind of panel absorber that has to go on one of those walls, you might find it difficult to get an air tight seal around all the texturing. len

So the texture would make my diffusion uneven accross the spectrum, which is not good. But is this 'bad thing' really bad enough to keep from texturing the walls, or ceiling?

I doubt it if you do it reasonably. In other words, if you end up with "waves" of plaster that you could literaly surf on, that would be a bit too much. The height normally used for this kind of finish shouldn't cause a problem. But, I don't think it will do anything good either other than look great. len