TUNED BASSTRAPS FOR ODD SHAPED ROOM

[johnnyboy]

Hi everyone. Thank you for accepting me into your forum.



I am a producer of electronic dance music, mainly drum & bass. 
I am also a Music Technology student and next year is my final year and I will be writing my dissertation in Acoustics. This includes a practical project. So I figured I could improve the sound of my room and do my dissertation project at the same time.

So I have to acoustically treat my studio space and the kind of bass traps we have been taught to use are the panel-resonating type. I have the formulas for working out the depths the bass traps need to be so they are tuned to the standing waves. I have my friend who is a carpenter coming to build them for me.

I have uploaded a sketch of the room and some photographs taken from the listening position.

Here are the main measurements of the room but it is not a total rectangle as it has a protruding door-way and a diagonal part where the fireplace is.. (see sketch)

Measurements are in meters
L: 3.658

W: 4.448
H: 2.450

The floor is wood but has a thick rug that covers probably 70% of it. The walls are constructed of concrete blocks, cement render, plaster and wallpaper. The ceiling is plasterboard with an artex finish. There is 2 doors in the room which are wooden but have 15 glass panels in them, so they are pretty much glass. The type of glass that has patterns on it so you cant see through them properly.

My budget, at the moment is about 500 GBP but its an ongoing project so I can add to it over the coming year. My aim for now is to hopefully get the bass traps up first then look into reverb and acoustic panels etc later.

There is a couple of things that I am unclear about and wondered if I could possibly get some advice please. ??

1. So the first thing is about placement of the bass traps. My acoustics lecturer told us this… “Low frequencies are omni-directional and therefore the bass traps can be placed anywhere in the room and they will worK”. After doing some research I have found that this is not entirely true and placement of the traps is quite important. What are your views on this and how do I work out the best place to put them? Also, how many do you suggest for each standing wave?



2. My lecturer also told us that we must use Marine plywood and not bog-standard plywood you can buy from your local builders yard. Marine ply is double the price of normal ply. Wondered what your views are on this as well please… And if it is the case that I can use normal ply, then there is 2 options. Hardboard and softboard. Which one would you suggest?



3. Wooden bass traps are not that aesthitically pleasing and I was thinking about getting a graffiti artist to paint some cool designs on the front… Is the paint going to effect the properties of the plywood in any way that would make them less effective??

4. If anything else springs to mind that you think I need to know or you have any tips that might help me, I would be really grateful, thanks

5. Finally. I know there are different options with regard to the type of bass trap I should use. Another type I looked at was limp mass membrane but I came to the conclusion that tuned panel resonating traps was the best option for me. But if you guys think there is a better more effective (and cost effective) way to go about it I would love to hear about it. thanks

Thanks in advance for your help, really appreciate it. If you need any more information from me please dont hesitate to ask

room map.jpg

LEFT SIDE.jpg

FRONT REAR.jpg

RIGHT SIDE.jpg

[johnnyboy]

PS... forgot to say. My monitors are ADAM A7 (mk 1)

[DanDan]

Hi, welcome. The BBC have published pretty much all they have done and it's free.
They use readily available and cheap materials. I would not recommend anything tuned. Modes have very specific hot spots at the two opposing walls supporting that mode. That is where to trap, and the corners. https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/rdreport_1992_10
The Master Handbook of Acoustic by Everest is gold, and a lot more correct than whatever sources you have at the moment.
Recording Studio Design by Newell is also a life long investment.