So we move in to a new place and I have been relegated to a single car garage. This will be for mixing only, mostly. Maybe a acoustic guitar here and there but thats it.
So, at the moment the measurements are:
18.5 ft long X 10ft wide X 6.9ft high to 7.3 ft high sloping from front to end, low to high.
All brick walls and a concrete floor. The roof is your typical tin garage job with rafters that extend down about 5 to 6 inches, this is on top of the given hight above.
I have read scores of pages on this site and have learnt a bit, but to be honest its still all over my head really. I feel I have a terrible space here and need some solid recommendations on what to do to make it usable.
To top it all of , we are renting so I am limited in what I can do construction wise. Though I think I can nail some plaster board across the rafters and stuff it with insulation. Not sure how this would work with a sloping roof though. ANY and ALL ideas/recommendations/commiserations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all!
Ok, my photos are too big to post and I dont know what you guys use for drawing/plans. Anyway, till I get that sorted, here is what I have decided I might do.
Remembering this is a rented house ,so I am severley limited in what I can do to the garage.
Not surprisingly, we have a concrete floor. I would really like to have a reflective floor for once, instead of wall to wall carpet. Not being able to get into major construction, I am thinking of just LEAVING it bare concrete! Ok, thats the first "should I, shouldnt I ?"
The damn roof is just your normal thin metal type mounted on crossbeams of 6 inchs depth. My idea here is to stuff the entire ceiling between the beams with 6 inches of rockwool and stretch a very tight layer of material over the beams to cover it up.
For the corners I will be making bass traps. One question here, would using 3 inches of rockwool instead of 4 make a noticable difference in absorbtion? My source of rockwool caomes in 3 inch thickness.
Using the 38 per cent rule, the back wall (double brick) will be just over 12 ft. behind me. I am not sure if I should make it totally absorbive or build a diffuser. I am thinking the front wall behind the speakers should be totally absorbive. In fact, the "front wall" is the roller door!! I have to do something about this, still thinking. If I was to face the otherway, the door would be right in the way of alot of things, least of all the 38 per cent rule would put the door in front of the mixer and generallly be really inpracticle.
I have already got stuff to take care of the first reflection points for the side walls. However, I would like to build some sort of slot device or what not further down the walls. I have seen some units used in home theatres which are said to really help the soundstage. Im sorry, I dont know much more about this.
One saving grace is that I am NOT planning on having drums or very loud amps in there. I only need to be able to monitor to a resonably loud level.
I realise the info here is a bit vague, and my lack of knowledge makes it hard reading, sorry about that. I think I have read the vast majority of posts in the acoustic forum here, and still can get confused. Thank you for any and all advice!.
Duffy, it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on much of what you need to do - on the floors, leaving the concrete is fine - especially if you treat the ceiling as you mentioned. If you don't monitor louder than about 85 dB, it shouldn't get your neighbors too upset (at least before bedtime) -
should help your side reflection points without killing too many highs; I would build each unit with ONE continuous slat wall, 4 feet wide - this gives better flutter control and also better control of early reflections; these should be placed on the walls where your first reflection points occur.
If you want more bass trapping (and more broadband response from the traps) you can always double up on the 3" rockwool - if you can afford it, you can just cut triangle shaped pieces of the stuff and stack it in the corners floor to ceiling for the most absorption.
If you can re-scale your pix to less than 800 pixels wide, then convert them to JPG's, they should be small enough to get under the 150k limit... Steve
I shall resize the pics and get them up. One further question for now as I get down to some solid planning...
The side wall absorbers...how would these compare to rockwool/703 mounted in frames and mounted to the walls for the first reflections? Would the side wall units be more/less effective? I am guessing that it would do about the same sort of job, BUT may be more beneficial compared to plain insulation in terms of the overall soundfield?
Right - using splayed slat absorbers will keep the room brighter sounding and still eliminate the first reflections - so if the room needs quite a bit of otehr absorption, using the slats would help keep from making the room too dull sounding... Steve
Hi,
The idea is not to essentially KILL the reflections but to REDIRECT them from the mix position. And if angled correctly your slats will do that.I mean, you can kill them as well, but then the high end, as Steve pointed out, might be too dead.
cheers
