Hey gang!
I have a Studio/Practice room above a detached garage at my home. Myself and two friends are currently playing amplified acoustic music in the space. A drummer friend practices separately there as well. After acquiring some necessary hardware and software, I intend to record in this space as well as rehearse. I would like to get a handle on the acoustics in the live room with adjoining "nook". The control room (currently storage) will be my next venture.
The immediate goal and quest for advice would be the placement of 2'X4'X2" absorbers made with OC 706 boards. I currently have 12 framed and ready for covering/cloth. I also have the components to fabricate 12 more. I have given consideration to bass traps however it kills me to pack out the 2 usable vertical corners (see pics 0001 and 0002). I'll add that one of those corners has hvac returns, top and bottom, 4.5" from the corner. The interior is gypsum/drywall and the floor is laminate with an area rug covering most of it. The ceiling has track lighting spaced 18" off of the entry door wall and 24" off of the side walls (image 0001). There is a 5'X10' area offset from the main room that I have referred to as the "nook" (best viewed in image 0003... the opening to the left of the slanted window is to the control room which will have doors installed eventually). My research on this forum leads me to believe that an offset like this might create acoustic control problems. Any suggestions for that area would be appreciated as well. Unfortunately, the layout of spaces in this studio isn't changeable at this point.
Generally, the main sound source will be a full range speaker/monitor on a stand in the corner, although there typically won't be one specific listening location to tune the room to.
If my lack of experience posting on this forum and acoustic treatment has left out any critical information, please let me know and I will relay it. I tried to get as detailed as possible with the dimensions on the attached Sketchup file. However, I had to remove some of the components to make the file size small enough to upload.
Thank you for any advice that you can give me!
Treatment Advice
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koolcheez
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- Location: Pennsylvania, USA
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Soundman2020
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Re: Treatment Advice
Hi koolcheez, and welcome!
In any event, the bog question here is: what problems are you having? What is wrong with the room (acoustically)? What needs fixing? It's hard to help you position your treatment if we don't know what you are trying to achieve! It would be very useful if you could do a full spectrum analysis of your room with REW (or something similar), and post the results here so we can see what is going.
Having said that, it is a small room, so it will need bass trapping, period. That's where I would start.
In any event, please post the specs of the 706, and perhaps also the REW graphs, plus your comments on what you want to accomplish, so we can get an idea of how to help.
- Stuart -
I'm not familiar with "OC 706". I know about 701, 703, 704, 705 and 707, but I can't find any info on the Owens Corning website about 706. Please can you provide a link to the specs for this product, to see if it is suitable and how it behaves.The immediate goal and quest for advice would be the placement of 2'X4'X2" absorbers made with OC 706 boards. I currently have 12 framed and ready for covering/cloth.
In any event, the bog question here is: what problems are you having? What is wrong with the room (acoustically)? What needs fixing? It's hard to help you position your treatment if we don't know what you are trying to achieve! It would be very useful if you could do a full spectrum analysis of your room with REW (or something similar), and post the results here so we can see what is going.
Having said that, it is a small room, so it will need bass trapping, period. That's where I would start.
What about the other ten corners? A rectangular room has 12 corners...I have given consideration to bass traps however it kills me to pack out the 2 usable vertical corners
Perhaps, perhaps not. This is a live room for practice and tracking, so that nook might not be a big issue. But once again, t would help if you tel us what you hear in the room, in the nook, and around the zone where they meet: any strange stuff going on there? For example, does it sound like that nook is resonating at certain frequencies?My research on this forum leads me to believe that an offset like this might create acoustic control problems.
In any event, please post the specs of the 706, and perhaps also the REW graphs, plus your comments on what you want to accomplish, so we can get an idea of how to help.
- Stuart -
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koolcheez
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Sat Nov 20, 2010 2:19 pm
- Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Re: Treatment Advice
Thanks for the quick reply Stuart! Firstly, they are OC "703" panels that I'm using. Sorry about that.
Thank you so much Soundman2020!
The room has an obnoxious high-mid bounce, I'd describe as a slap back and the room's reverb seems too long. (I'm sorry if my terminology is incorrect or misleading, I'm very green at this.) It's really fatiguing to the ear in long doses. I'm not exactly sure what frequencies but I will definitely do an analysis. I'm very interested in figuring out the procedure and understanding the results. I'm looking to treat in an educated manner rather than make a bunch of panel hanging fastener holes in my walls and not achieve a better sounding room. I've searched the forums for a tutorial of some sort but came up empty. Do you know of a good "beginners guide to performing a full spectrum analysis"? If there's nothing as specific as that, where would be the best place in these forums be to discuss because I have a bunch of probably "newbie" questions on the subject (if the subject is "off topic" in this thread). I've never done it before. I've only looked at REW's site briefly, maybe it's self explanatory as far as mic choice, mic placement etc. I'll be downloading it momentarily.what problems are you having? What is wrong with the room (acoustically)? What needs fixing? It's hard to help you position your treatment if we don't know what you are trying to achieve! It would be very useful if you could do a full spectrum analysis of your room with REW (or something similar), and post the results here so we can see what is going.
You are correct. Unfortunately the third vertical corner in the larger/main area has the active entry door. Maybe there's a way to deal with that if my findings show it to be necessary. I am definitely open to treating the wall to ceiling corners with traps if it would benefit. My reference to the track lighting positioning was to show space tolerances in case angled/horizontal traps at the ceiling would be suggested.What about the other ten corners? A rectangular room has 12 corners...
Thank you so much Soundman2020!
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Soundman2020
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Re: Treatment Advice
It sounds like you have a problem with flutter echo, which is just a repeated back-and-forth echo between two parallel surfaces (probably a pair of opposite walls), as well as a general lack of bass trapping, which is why the mid sounds so strange. The long reverb time is most likely due to the lack of bass trapping as well (although "reverb" isn't technically the correct term for a small room, but we won't go into that: it's close enough). The high mid problem might also be due to the carpet: carpet is terrible acoustically, since it absorbs selectively and you have no idea which frequencies or how broad, since the manufacturers never bother testing, let alone publishing! So the carpet is probably killing your highs somewhere, and leaving the lows in, while maybe screwing around with the mids to some unknown extent. Best way to deal with that is to take out the carpet and put a cloud on your ceiling (a couple of your 703 panels hanging from chains or wires). The human brain expects to hear reflections from below, not above, since that is the way we are built, and what we are accustomed to all our lives. So right now your room is acoustically "upside down": your brain expects a hard reflective floor, and no reflections from above, so leave the floor bare and put absorbent clouds on the ceiling.
One way of checking for flutter echo is to just stand in the middle of the room, and make a short sharp sound, such as clapping two small blocks of wood together and listening carefully. If you hear a kind of "zzzzing" sound (hard to describe, but you'll know it if you hear it), then that's the issue.
So what I'd suggest trying first is "checkerboarding" your existing 703 panels on opposite walls, meaning that you place one against the left wall facing an empty patch on the right wall, and then on the right wall you place another one next to that "empty patch", facing the left wall. In other words, each panel faces bare wall on the other side of the room. That should take care of the flutter.
But bass traps is what you really need. At the very least, do an experiment: set up some of your panels across the vertical corners, just to see how it sounds. I think you'll be surprised!
You say you have twelve panels, so for a rough test I'd put four of those diagonally across the four vertical corners, use six of them for the "checkerboarding", and two for the cloud. That should give you a noticeable difference in the room right away.
I see that your panels are all made from 2" 703, and that is OK but 4" would be MUCH better, especially for the corners. You can just put another piece of 703 on the back of each one, doubling up the thickness, or stack two together. 2" is better than none, but 4" is even better.
Anyway, try that to start with, and see how it goes.
Regarding REW, I think there's a tutorial on the Home Theater web site: not sure. But the software is fairly self-explanatory: Just set up speaker and mic, play the sweeps, tones, pink noise, etc., and see how the graphs look. I'd really like to see the waterfall plot for your room! Set the speaker in a corner, where it will excite all of the modes in the room, and put the mic in a stand at the location(s) where you normally listen.
- Stuart -
One way of checking for flutter echo is to just stand in the middle of the room, and make a short sharp sound, such as clapping two small blocks of wood together and listening carefully. If you hear a kind of "zzzzing" sound (hard to describe, but you'll know it if you hear it), then that's the issue.
So what I'd suggest trying first is "checkerboarding" your existing 703 panels on opposite walls, meaning that you place one against the left wall facing an empty patch on the right wall, and then on the right wall you place another one next to that "empty patch", facing the left wall. In other words, each panel faces bare wall on the other side of the room. That should take care of the flutter.
But bass traps is what you really need. At the very least, do an experiment: set up some of your panels across the vertical corners, just to see how it sounds. I think you'll be surprised!
You say you have twelve panels, so for a rough test I'd put four of those diagonally across the four vertical corners, use six of them for the "checkerboarding", and two for the cloud. That should give you a noticeable difference in the room right away.
I see that your panels are all made from 2" 703, and that is OK but 4" would be MUCH better, especially for the corners. You can just put another piece of 703 on the back of each one, doubling up the thickness, or stack two together. 2" is better than none, but 4" is even better.
Anyway, try that to start with, and see how it goes.
Regarding REW, I think there's a tutorial on the Home Theater web site: not sure. But the software is fairly self-explanatory: Just set up speaker and mic, play the sweeps, tones, pink noise, etc., and see how the graphs look. I'd really like to see the waterfall plot for your room! Set the speaker in a corner, where it will excite all of the modes in the room, and put the mic in a stand at the location(s) where you normally listen.
- Stuart -
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koolcheez
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Sat Nov 20, 2010 2:19 pm
- Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Re: Treatment Advice
Thanks for the input Stuart! Everything in your reply is making sense. I ordered a measurement microphone and downloaded REW. I will be running some tests in the near future and will post the results.