Help Me Understand Room Treatment

[Jag94]

Hi everyone,

I'm in the process of either building or buying panels for room treatment, and I'm so lost. I spent literally years researching and building my studio to make it sound isolated (sound proof), but i haven't really done the research for acoustics. What little research I have done, has my brain in a pretzel.

When it comes to wall panels, ceiling clouds, corner bass traps, etc., I have so many questions and feel like I've seen so many conflicting "facts" on the materials to use for this that I'm just burnt out. Not to mention being burnt out from the research and building of the studio itself. But at the same time I'm broke. I used every penny I had to build this studio, and while I'd love to pay someone to just tell me what to do, I don't have that option. So I've come to you all who hopefully have some insight for me.

I'm not asking for anyone to do my work for me. However, if anyone could point me in the direction of some modern, up-to-date, real world resources that I should be looking at, that would be super helpful. Also, I have some more specific questions that if anyone can help me with, would be a major plus.

Before I get to my questions, here's what I'm dealing with. I'm a drummer. I practice (a lot), I record, and I sometimes have full band rehearsals. I'd say 80% practicing, 15% recording, 5% rehearsals. I'm hoping that as time goes on, the recording percentage goes up (because that means I'm getting paid more to do more recordings), and the practice time percentage will go down. My goal is to make the room mostly dead (although not completely. I will have absorption on 3 of the 4 walls, and on the ceiling (using clouds). The floor is hardwood, and the rear wall (to my back while sitting on the drum kit) will have skyline diffusors (mostly for the look of them, not necessarily for the acoustics).

Ok, my questions.

Panel material - Rigid fiberglass, mineral wool, eco core, earthwool, fluffy pink stuff, etc... what type of material is best for panels, ceiling clouds, bass traps? I've seen data that suggest that OC 703 isn't as good as it used to be (or that the testing has gotten better). I've seen arguments for using fluffy pink stuff, or other types of rigid fiberglass, or mineral wool. There are so many options, what should I be using? Is there a benefit to one or the other for specific spots? Is it just a matter of how much you use? How thick it is? the material I have available to me in my area is pink fluffy (have tons of it still from my build), OC thermafiber (Owen Cornings version of mineral wool), OC 703, Knauf ECOSE Black Acoustical Board, and whatever rigid fiberglass that companies like GIK uses.

Panels frames, should the frames have holes/ports? Should they not? Depends on where they go?

solid backs/no backs - should panels have a solid backing? Should it just be insulation? Combination of both? I've seen some panels that have a solid sheet of wood on the back, and then I've seen posts where people say there shouldn't be a backing at all. Some panels you can buy have a solid back, and some don't.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all.

[DanDan]

The best simple traps are deep frames filled with Light Fluffy. This would include a suspended ceiling using fully absorbent tile and fluffy above.
Here's a genius panel trap design.
100KG Knauf Ecose Earthwool Batt. Electrical Tray. Use angle grinder to notch out little triangles to create those neat corners. Bedsheets.
Backs on traps make no sense, if there are flush to the wall, what back? If there is an airgap it is blocked.

Best DIY Trap Ever smaller JPG.JPG

[Jag94]

The best simple traps are deep frames filled with Light Fluffy. This would include a suspended ceiling using fully absorbent tile and fluffy above.
Here's a genius panel trap design.
100KG Knauf Ecose Earthwool Batt. Electrical Tray. Use angle grinder to notch out little triangles to create those neat corners. Bedsheets.
Backs on traps make no sense, if there are flush to the wall, what back? If there is an airgap it is blocked.

Best DIY Trap Ever smaller JPG.JPG

Hey Dan,

Thanks for the quick reply. That's great to hear, because that's what I had planned. I build frames that are 6" deep, and I have a TON of owens corning pink fluffy left over. For the ceiling cloud I put netting to stop the insulation from sagging, then covered the entire thing in dacron so that the fibers from the insulation can't get out. Then I wrapped the whole thing in guilford of maine fabric. The one I've built so far looks really good.

If I can't do deep frames, is there a better insulation? There are a couple of spots in the room where I can't go deeper than 2-3", so is it better to use a different type of insulation or still stick with pink fluffy?

[DanDan]

For shallow traps use Knauf Ecose Earthwool.
100KG.