Storage cabinets as acoustic treatment?

[Ted Nightshade]

Hi,
great forum!

I find myself needing a lot more cabinets and storage in general for my one-room cabin studio. Kitchen cabinets, bookshelves, other shelves maybe, places to hang skillets, mic cabinets, places for cords, a place for the stereo, all of that.

So I'm thinking, perhaps some of these cabinets and shelves can be designed to solve acoustic problems too?

The place is roughly rectangular and about 1000 sq ft all in one room. The kitchen is like a big alcove off the main box. Ceiling is nice and high (12-20') except under the loft area.

I plan on making modular quadratic residue diffusors and absorbers, bass traps in the free corners, but then there's these cabinets- I'd like the cabinets to represent a big improvement in acoustics right there.

I like things live, so overall I am leaning towards diffusion with some absorbtion here and there (mostly bass traps).

Any ingenious ideas?

BTW, this is a mountain cabin, so roughsawn and rustic wood will be the thing. Also, I would like to use as much raw wool (cheap and available here) as possible in lieu of fiberglas (after building this place, I never want to lay eyes on fiberglas again...).

[Ted Nightshade]

So here's a couple idears to start with-

Have a cabinet door be an acoustic panel (wool or rockwool wrapped in cloth with a frame for the hinges and to keep it in shape).

Maybe not have a door, and just let the sound bounce around amongst the contents?

Have the sides of a cabinet covered in diffusion-type material- complex shapes in wood, perhaps. Or covered with absorbtion material.

Have live sheep wandering around in the kitchen! Well, that could be problematic...

[John Sayers]

Ted - wool will work in place of insulation but you just need more of it. I redid Music Farm totally in wool as Olivier N John was to record there and she was recovering from cancer so they wanted the place as clean as possible.

With your cupboards you could fill them with wool and put a cloth cover over them or you could turn them into slot resonators by adding slats to the front.

cheers
john

[Ted Nightshade]

The cabinets aren't built yet. I do need to put stuff in them, other than wool.

I wonder are there any particular dimensions that will create the right kind of acoustic? I suppose every size thing has a corresponding wavelength that it diffuses?

[John Sayers]

Ted - go and read up on absorbers at the SAE site

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

cheers
john

[Ted Nightshade]

OK- reading up! Thanks!