diffusion vs. angled walls

telefunken · Post by **telefunken** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 3:00 pm

im planning how i should treat the walls in my main tracking space of my studio. i would like the walls to look similar to this:

http://www.toeragstudios.com/cover.html

i would assume that the wall treatment around the window is diffusion, since to the best of my knowledge, they dont have angled walls at this studio.

the wall treatment in those photos seems like it could be recreated without much work.

is there an exact science to adding diffusion treatment to a wall? could i build a series of squares like that at varying thickness' and properly diffuse my space. my live room is 35x16, and as of now has parallel walls.

im debating if i should angle the walls or just leave them parallel and add diffusion. any help would be appreciated.

giles117 · Post by **giles117** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 11:13 pm

I did the diffusive thing 2 years ago for a live room. Never was what I truly wanted. Although it did sound different. I prefer the angled wall thing as it keeps the room alive, but neutral.

I used vary lengths of 2x4's on 2'x2' pieces of wood mounted to the walls and ceilings. I borrowed the design from a studio about 30 minutes from me. However I should note, he had angled walls and ceilings as well as the diffusers. Which sounded nice on drums. But for my square room never was what I wanted to hear. Was a little too live for my taste. Did you look at a this photo from a studio John designed?

<img src= "http://www.johnlsayers.com/Pages/Images/drumkit_2.jpg" /img>

This caption reads "This drum room is totally live. All the walls are pine timber or glass and the floor is slate on concrete. The wall and ceiling angles are varied for maximum diffusion."

Bryan Giles

telefunken · Post by **telefunken** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 10:42 am

so angling the walls would lessen the ambience of a room?

im looking to make my room as lively as possible, so id be better off with parallel walls and diffusion?

in regards to diffusing a wall, would a series of squares at different thickness, as in the photo in the link above work, or am i wrong?

giles117 · Post by **giles117** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:21 am

Sorry, maybe I was not clear. The object in non-parallel walls again is to eliminate stannding waves/flutter echo, etc. Not to get rid of ambience. You do not want parallel walls PERIOD.

Not to sound crabby, but re-read the caption under the drum booth pic. This is what you are after and a best practice recomendation.

Read this link.

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... fusion.htm

The angled slat resonator walls are recommended because they perform multiple functions. Sound control, absorption and diffusion.

And if you haven't, read the entire manual

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

Bryan Giles

telefunken · Post by **telefunken** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:26 am

You do not want parallel walls PERIOD.

yes but if you have parallel walls AND treat them with proper diffusion, can you get the same result as having angled walls?

again sorry if im misunderstanding you.

knightfly · Post by **knightfly** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 6:50 pm

No, you can't.

Non-parallel walls deflect ALL sound in the same direction, and if they're laid out right the sound takes several feet to backtrack on itself. Standing fairly close to a wall when this is happening does NOT smear the sound you hear, it simply deflects it all in a direction that is chosen by design NOT to come back in a short enough time to cause problems.

Diffusion, on the other hand, deflects the sound in ALL directions simultaneously, so SOME of it gets back to you in short order. This can cause smearing of sound images by mixing direct with reflected sound. The difference in time of arrival of the two will cause phase shifts of varying degrees depending on the wavelength of the sound. This means that different frequencies get canceled more than others, which is known as Comb Filtering.

Neither angled walls nor diffusion will do a lot to absorb sound, so in that respect they are similar; absorption WILL absorb (hence the name) but you have to be careful - different materials, and different thicknesses of the SAME materials, will absorb more at some frequencies than at others. This is usually NOT good, unless you have OTHER materials that compensate by absorbing different frequencies.

What you normally want in a room is for all frequencies to be absorbed nearly equally - that way, the reverb in the room sounds "natural", because it doesn't accent one frequency over another and make the room sound too bright, or boxy, or dull, or boomy, etc... Steve