While we're on the topic of small room treatment for vocal recording. For the corners, do you recommend trapping lower, or high near the ceiling?

Go low and high if you can, but if you only have so many and you're treating a small vocal booth, I woudl place them at mouth height to help with the high frequency reflections.

I'm doing the entire verticle corner in three corners and about 75% of the other corner because there is a vent at the top of that corner. I am then placing one 2'x4' trap horizontally in each lateral corner. I'm hoping this will really balance the bass in this small room.

Should I wrap each panel in a light plastic to keep dust from the panels from getting out? I am using the FSK on the front of the panels and wrapping them in landscape fabric. Will this be enough to seal in the fibers or should I also wrap in plastic painters drop cloth?

I am building my bas traps and I bought this landscape fabric to wrap them in but this fabric is pretty junky looking. It is more like a fabric/paper material. Is all landscape fabric like this??
I may look at getting burlap or muslin at joann fabrics. I have completed two 8' tall corner bass traps wrapped in this landscape fabric. If I go and get some muslin or burlap and just wrap it around these panels that are already wrapped in the cheapo landscape fabric will that be OK? Or should I remove the cheapo landscape fabric first?? Will this affect the sound if I don't??

I prefer muslin. It does a better job of minimizing color variation in showing through and is nicer to work with IMO.

Bryan

WHat about canvas?? Is it as good as muslin?
I found canvas "trigger" at joann fabrics at a good price but I'm not sure what canvas trigger is compared to canvas.
Any ideas??

Sry - answered in different thread.

Not familiar with canvas trigger. Most canvas I've seen would be unacceptable.

I'd stick with a known. Lightweight muslin to me is an excellent combination of being relatively transparent, holding in the fibers, and being inexpensive.

Bryan

Thanks for your help, AGAIN!
I bought a bunch of muslin at Joann's yesterday. Had I known I was going to use it last friday I could have gotten it for $.77 per yard. I paid $.99 per yard. I'm going to hopefully finish all my traps today.

Is it going to matter that I can only put one 2x4' panel in one of the vertical corners? I have a vent on the wall near the top of that corner. This corner is where I normally sit with my back towards this corner to record my acoustic guitars.

Also, strangely enough, the corner across the room where I normally face when I record my guitar still seems to have more bass issues. I have an 8 ft trap in that corner which goes from floor to ceiling and a 2x4' trap in the wall/ceiling corner beside this trap on one side and I can still hear more bass frequencies when I face this corner and play my guitar. I am about 10 ft. away from this corner also when I play my guitar. Any solutions??
I'm not done treating this room yet but I have 3 corners treated completely from ceiling to floor and the other corner treated with one 4 ft. panel.
If I put one 2" mid/high absorber near this corner bass trap and space it about 2" off the wall will this make a big difference in getting rid of the excessive low end??

Do you know exactly what frequency you are having trouble with? Maybe getting that information will tell you what kind of treatment you need.
So you are in one corner, and you hear LF problems from the opposing corner? Square rooms are hard to deal with.
How high is the ceiling?

Are you sure it's not just because you're actually hearing the reall bass from that corner since the cancelling reflections are now gone?

ahh, I had that reaction for a couple days after treatment too. But after measuring and some more recording, I am starting realize the low end is so much more detailed, that it almost sounds odd. As though the resonance I was wanting is now
actually "there" and seems to be too much? hmm, is that possible? i've had some treatment up for yeasrs, so I suppuse my ears have gotten accustomed that "I handle the truth" LOL

T

Well, go grab REW (Room EQ Wizard) and take some measurements and see what the frequency response and decay times look like. It's a freebie program. Runs under Java.

Bryan

Here is another thing I noticed: Like I said earlier, I have my back in one corner and I'm facing the corner across the room but when I turn a little and face the regular flat wall across the room to my right, I don't hear the excess bass anymore. If I start strumming a chord and face the flat wall to my right it sounds pretty good but as I turn towards the corner across the room I can hear the bass more.
The ceiling is only 8' tall.
I'm wondering if It will help if I put a mid/high panel up close to the corner bass trap and space it a couple of inches off the wall. Will a mid/high absorber that's only 2" still absorb a lot of low end if it is spaced off the wall?
When I was recording acoustic guitar and had the Foam By Mail foam up I could hear that same problem in that corner and it seemed to be a frequency below 200 Hz. if I remember. Sometimes there would be two problem areas in the low end and no matter what I did I could not eq them out. Of course when I was using the Foam By Mail I had overtreated the room and I was absorbing way too much mids and highs so my sound was totally out of wack anyway. Maybe when I get all of the traps up and the mid/high absorbers up and space them off the wall so there's some air behind them it will help a lot.

OK, I treated my studio with adequate bass traps with FSK facing covered in muslin fabric.

My room sounds much better but I have flutter echo. I have only used 3 mid high absorbers.
How many more should I make? I don't want the room totally dead. Just balanced for acoustic guitar recording. Will 3-4 more broadband absorbers be enough?
Should I just have not used FSK on my corner traps? If I had done that I'd probably still have problems with flutter echo from parallel walls, wouldn't I??

> I have flutter echo. I have only used 3 mid high absorbers. How many more should I make? <

Some things just have to be done by ear - or RT60 measuring.

> Should I just have not used FSK on my corner traps? If I had done that I'd probably still have problems with flutter echo from parallel walls, wouldn't I?? <

Yes, probably. So add some more mid/high panels.

If I make them from 4" #8 mineral wool panels that should help tame the bass even more, right?