Inner brick walls - simple plaster, a bit of wood or ?

Ivo · Post by **Ivo** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 4:06 am

The inner walls of my new studio are almost finished. I am pondering whether I should simply plaster them all, or whether there would be any acoustic advantage to use some wood instead of plaster at some places. It would look nice, maybe also sound nicer than just a plaster ?
Would there be any advantage to use more structured/porous type of plaster (kind of "minidiffusors")
The room is of about 7x4,7x3,4 m size and is meant for recording fine acoustic instruments (violin, viola, flutes, guitar, ethnic instruments etc.), so a kind of more lively acoustics would be welcome. The floor will be wooden floating, the ceiling semi-absorbent (cassetes of gypsum and rockfon)
Of course, there will be a fine acoustic treatment done later (corner bass traps, diffusors etc.).
To summarise my questions: would there be any acoustic advantage not to plaster the walls completely but to use some partly some wood ? Would a porous plaster bring any acoustic advantage ?
Thanks for an advice.

Ivo

bpape · Post by **bpape** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 1:10 am

If it were me, I would certainly use some wood over insulated stud cavities in front of the brick. Besides being at least something different acoustically, it would offer the opportunity for some bass absorbtion of different bands. I'd also do some of the rougher plaster. Every little bit helps and variety also helps IMO.

Ivo · Post by **Ivo** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 2:08 am

Thanks, do you mean to put some wood instead of plaster on the brick wall at certain places ?
What acoustic qualities does a plain wood surface have comparing to plain plastered brick wall ? Maybe a bit more "reflective" ? But also more "warm" sounding ?

I was told that too rough/porous plaster could take away some high frequencies and the room could sound a bit "dark"

bpape · Post by **bpape** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:32 pm

I was speaking of a spaced out wood wall/stud combination that would act as a bass absorber.

The plaster won't likely do much of anything but reflect. However, even small surface variations will scatter higher frequencies somewhat depending on their size relative to the wavelengths.

My point overall was to have a variety of surfaces in the space. A hard surface behind the monitors is not a bad thing to start with. A more flexible surface behind the listening position (the back wall) is more desirable than a hard one.