I recently moved to a new place. A wooden place. Everything is wooden, and the sound is pretty shitty. I’d like to do something to make the sound better and a bit more isolated, but I don’t know where to start. Any tips?
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I recently moved to a new place. A wooden place. Everything is wooden, and the sound is pretty shitty. I’d like to do something to make the sound better and a bit more isolated, but I don’t know where to start. Any tips?
Start with rugs and drapes, then think about sound diffusion wall mounts and corner bass traps.
Ahhhh, rugs. Didn't think of that. There's nothing currently on the floor or on the walls. Thanks man.
Beds and sofas can be bass traps too
I have a loveseat in there, along with my half-assed ikea DJ booth. The sounds sounds so far away, if that makes sense.
It sounds far away because you have a lot of "reverb" by sounds bouncing all over off your walls. Do what SirReal said.
Here's a bunch of info on sound treatment: http://www.gikacoustics.com/articles/ from a really good company. I just worked with them to get some treatment and it made a world of difference, plus they're very good to work with since I came from knowing very little and asked them question after question after question. But a lot of these things can be built on your own too if you're handy. You can google and youtube the hell out of it.
Mind you, sound treatment which will improve the sound in your room will NOT necessarily sound proof your room. If you're looking for sound proofing, that's something altogether different.
Thanks for the link. I'm blocked here at work, so I'll check it out later. What about that foam for the walls?Quote:
Originally Posted by ImNotDedYet
http://www.thefoamfactory.com/acoust...usticfoam.html Stuff like this.
I have used curtain clips and hung moving blankets around the walls in my room ... i make sure they are a few inches from the wall to sort of act like a sound trap.
Definitely start with that. I'm in a similar situation and just starting research into doing my room. From talking to people and some experiments....Quote:
Originally Posted by ImNotDedYet
Blankets and drapes do literally nothing.
Beds and couches do literally nothing.
Bookshelves can work as diffusers, but they won't solve your problems... They're part of step 7 or 8, and your working on step 1.
GiK looks like a good company to work with, and I've been told some of their packages are a great deal if you're not going to build things yourself, which is harder than it seems at first, or at least more complicated.
Ambient tracks.
They're right there in your city! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by mostapha
They are very cool, as mentioned...their guy was super patient with my idiotic questions, super quick service and great products. Not cheap, but...seems to really be quality, and worthwhile.
In order to start understanding treatment and how to treat, you need to understand basic sound waves. The higher the frequency, the shorter the sound wave, hence why you can get away with fairly thin pads. Bass on the other hand, not only moves in a spherical direction out of speakers as opposed to directly out in one direction for higher frequencies, but the sound waves are much, much longer - which is why you need really thick stuff for bass "absorption." I've not heard good things about those curtains, etc. either.
$++!+, I never realized that.
It's like 20 minutes door-to-door. I've driven by there IDK how many times.
If they have anything like a showroom, I'll have to go actually check out their stuff before I buy it. I think I'd still probably let them ship me my order because it'll be too big to fit in my car, but....that's awesome.
But, yeah.....if bookcases, beds, paintings, curtains, and closets actually worked to control bass, I wouldn't have 40dB swings in my room. It's not terrible right where I stand while DJing, but walking around the room while recording and then listening back in a halfway-treated monitor demo room was enough of a revelation that I put off my monitor upgrade and am spending that money on treatments instead.
Amazon always has sales on studio foam. Pick some up. Well places studio foam pieces can be a life saver. If you have hardwood floors, rugs only help if they have the ability to absorb sound. Most rugs actually reflect and bounce sound around more than the hard wood does. :p
Based on my research, the kits that are often on sale are the little/thin panels that help with slap/flutter echos, not the wide range absorption and bass traps that really even out the room.
It looks to me like Auralex, GiK, and RealTraps are all around the same price when you talk about treating a whole room. Unfortunately, all three (and probably some others) claim they're the best in the world. And I have no idea how to compare them objectively without spending several thousand to treat the room with each one and take measurements that aren't exactly the simplest thing to do.
GiK has gotten back to me about my room and given their recommendation, and my wife gave her approval. So, hopefuly I'll have some direct experience to post soonish, but we're still at "weeks" rather than days or hours.....trying to decide how much to do, how to mount them, and what fabric to use.
Yeah, that stuff on sale at Guitar Center/Amazon - the studio foam is only any good at removing the high frequency reflections. Even the stuff that claims to be bass traps is not thick enough to actually do anything for bass wave reflections. There's a forum about it over at gearslutz, but the conversations can get pretty detailed and deep for the uninitiated in sound treatment.
If you really want you can download Room Equalizer Wizard for free and with a mic with a USB cable test your room as it stands. Since the stuff at GC/Amazon is cheap, you could try it and re-run another test, but all I've heard from people is that those foam items are really only good for higher frequency stuff.
And another recommendation I've seen often, and received myself from the folks at GIK is that even with wood floors, you want to treat the ceiling above the listening location first, the back wall, and at least the front corners but preferably both front and back corners.