Hey guys, I dont usually post often but I browse through here quite often. Been producing trance on and off for about 4 years now.

One thing I am still a n00bie with is room acoustics. I understand what it means but I just wanted peoples opinion on how to set up (or how I could set up) a bedroom studio for superior acoustics.

Sound bouncing between bare walls = Resonance.
Empty corners = Too much bass around there.

So cover your walls with bookshelves or CD shelves as "diffusers", or line your room with thick curtains as "poor man's absorbers". Corners, you may put bass traps there. A milk crate stuffed with a pillow will do fine. None of these are really gonna soundproof your bedroom! So if you're treating your bedroom only to crank up the speakers late at night without waking up your neighbours, it's not gonna happen. Still, you shall hear a noticeable difference, as far as sound accuracy goes.

sound passing through a solid material will make it resonate and the frequency at which it resonates depends highly upon the material and its construction. glass does this, particularly if it is not glazed and loose in a windowframe (in that case you can even hear it rattle in the frame! very bad!). other solid materials have different properties which change the dynamic of the sound you are trying to record if they obstruct your monitors and recording device or are positioned in a way which amplifies the resonance through some or all of these materials. in most cases this is almost always undesirable because it introduces frequencies that would not be there if you recorded in a studio environment. you will never fully get rid of resonance through objects cuz thats just a property of sound but you can massively reduce it by

1) clearing everything (chairs, stacks of cds, everyday clutter) to the edges of the room, up against the walls.

2) shuttering all windows. more often than not i could feel my windows vibrating when i crank up the volume. frequencies you dont really want. also, if you have a window adjacent to someone elses house/flat they can hear your music far louder than if you had no windows. sound just travels through them very well.

3) plastering egg cartons over all the walls (or as many as possible). this is because sound doesnt travel as well through a gas (air) than it does through solids. egg cartons are a cheap way of covering your walls with pockets of air which minimise the resonance caused by sound passing through walls. ideally you would want to be in a room with an inner and outer wall and insulating foam or a gap in between. alot of houses in britain are built in this way although its purpose is for insulation. whack some egg cartons all over the walls to reduce resonance even further. you will never really get rid of it entirely. it will also annoy your neighbors less if you do this but ive found its not a massive difference. also fierodude is fairly spot on there. dont expect to crank up the level half again what it was before just cuz you've got egg cartons soundproofing your room. your neighbors will pay a visit.

4) never monitor or record from an audio source in the corners of your room. as fieroavian says, it creates artificial bass. i dont know the science behind it but if you put your monitors in the corners it sounds much boomier than if you move it to the centre of the room. all you need to do is move your monitors about 50 to 75 cm from the corner walls and record in the centre of your room to reduce this extra bass effect.

beyond that it all gets horrendously complicated because studio environments are designed entirely with specific materials which reduce resonance and theres an exact science behind it all. pick any acoustical engineering degree and this is what you'll do all day + the maths required for you to pass the exam at the end of it. eugh.

sometimes its desirable to have resonance though. if you listen to some of PJ Harvey's stories from the city, stories from the sea or Jeff Buckley's sketches for my sweetheart the drunk, both records are soaked in this cloud of natural muddy reverb. brilliantly lo fi and gives them both a really natural raw kind of feel. in dance music this is 99% undesirable though.

Nice info there, but I don't think your local fire officer will be happy with card lining your room.

LOL

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My room accoustics are so bad... My speakers are decent, but old. They're like 50 cm from the wall... But the floor is WOOD and the walls are GIPS!

So until I move out of here I cant help you lol. Use your headphones!

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To the headphones, accoustic isn't so important like in speakers ?

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative 3) plastering egg cartons over all the walls (or as many as possible). this is because sound doesnt travel as well through a gas (air) than it does through solids. egg cartons are a cheap way of covering your walls with pockets of air which minimise the resonance caused by sound passing through walls.

not true. sticking egg boxes on the walls improves room acoustics only marginally at best, and does almost nothing to soundproof the room, not to mention having brown cartons all over your walls brings fire hazard, and totally kill the vibe, thus your creativity

quote:

4) never monitor or record from an audio source in the corners of your room... i dont know the science behind it but...

that's boundary effect. bass is boosted by 3db when you stick your speakers against the wall, and 6db if you put them around the corner (since there're 2 walls). that's doubling the bass. a little experiment: face the corner of a room and say something aloud, you'll hear your voice boomier than usual.

quote:

Originally posted by Neeldan To the headphones, accoustic isn't so important like in speakers ?

with headphones you may make tunes anywhere you like, at anytime. the downside is that headphones don't really give you the sense of space.

how well do blankets on the walls work? (as meantioned above) obviously it won't be as good as bass traps and such.. but is the difference they will make worth putting them up?

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you will see a difference. blankets and bass traps serve different purposes. corner traps tame the excessive bass around the corner, blankets or curtains absorb resonance resulted from high-mid to high frequencies (1000hz and above). but the worst resonance happen between 100-300hz, and that's handled by bass trap panels, which are shallow wooden boxes with holes drilled at the front, then wrapped with a cloth. the bass trap panel's width and depth is up to the frequency range you're trying to control. so for a bedroom studio, a wall treated with bass trap panels and blankets is the best option i can think of.

the guitarist from system of a down has covered his walls with persian rugs. Supposedly works great. Also has the effect of giving the room a sort of eastern vibe. That being the case, you may start coming up with some sick Psytrance.

A tip from a pro.. Goldenscan posted this on the AP.net forum


A few people have asked me about some tips on improving the sound of a room.

Any treatment is better than none, so it's all about doing as much as you can and steadily making your room sound better.

Unless your very lucky no one has a room that sounds good from the off.

When sound comes out of your monitors it reflects of any surface that doesn't absorb it. What you really want is just to hear the sound that is coming from your monitors, this is the only true representation of your mix.

The more sound bounces around the harder it is to truely know what is going on.

Bass frequencies particularly can really screw things up. Sub frequencies can reflect off each other creating standing waves, giving the impression that you have more bass than you actually have. This in turn will make you under-compensate in bass EQ leaving your mixes bass-lite and bass-confused.

Sound waves reflect like light waves, you can trace their path by simply using your head and following imaginary sound direction lines out of the front and back of your speakers.

By doing this you can then approximate where these waves will hit your walls and try and absorb them.

The reflections attch shows how waves travel approximately and where areas should be treated.

An area that needs to be treated in a different way is the back of your room, i.e behind your head. Because this is where the most sound energy arrives the best thing to do is diffuse the waves, i.e totally randomise the reflections.

Many studios use custom built diffusers that adhere to a specific and very complicated series of strips and traps. These diffusers cost thousands.
A very good way to randomise reflections on your back wall is to put up shelves and keep all your records, boxes, files etc on them.

Even this will make a huge difference.

As for the absorbtion pannels, it's up to you how many you make.
In order of importance 1. behind monitors. 2. on side walls. 3. ceiling

They are cheap to make but require a bit of DIY know how.

They are simply 4' by 2' boxes made out of MDF. they are solid apart from the fronts are left open. They are 4 inches deep.

Don't bother trying to cut the pannels yourself, it'll take you forever, any timber merchants will cut out anything to order.
You simply nail or screw the parts together.

The pannels attch gives a good idea of how they should look.

Once you have them put together the cavity is filled with 4' by 2' rockwool slabs. You can get this from insulation supplier. Get the flexi-slab rockwool, and make sure it's 4" deep.

All you have to do then is stretch and staple fabric over the front and hang them in place.

All of this might take a bit of preparation and a day to put together but I promise you the results will be huge.

Acoustics are so important, give yourself a chance of turning out good mixes.

Foam is shit, it doesn't absorb anything.

And remember making just 4 of these will help massively.

Cost-wise you are looking at £90 for MDF for 6 pannels and £50 for rockwool for the same.

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