Mr. Winer,

Hello. This is my first question to you. You certainly seem to me to be the most knowledgeable and accessible person on the Internet in this field. That is so great. Plus, you are obviously a cat person. This only adds to your appeal!

My question is this: I have a very small recording space. I live in an 80 year old building and my recording space is an old Murphy bed closet with the bed removed. The dimensions are 9'6" wide by 4'8" deep by 8'3" high. There are also wood doors which can be closed while I am comfortably inside.

I want to treat the room acoustically. I acquired a 9 piece bundle of 24" by 48" by 2" Johns Manville 814 (pretty close specs to OC703). I initially thought I should make full panels of doubled up fiberglass (4") for the walls. Then I thought I should just make single, 2" panels. This would allow me to cover more wall space for the cost.

Then I thought that perhaps the best option would be to make a number of 1 foot by however long panels to place in all of the corners of the room. The fiberglass I have is not backed, and I think I remember seeing that non-backed is not the best for this application.

Very long story short - if possible at this point - based on my room limitations, how would you use the material? I will buy more if necessary. I just want to do it right. I sort of figure treating the walls without treating the corners won't be to practical.

In the event that you advise me to treat both the walls/ceiling AND, of course, the corners, which would be most effective AT FIRST? And what about the 1' by ??? for all of the corners?

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Very Sincerely,

MJG

I can't imagine mixing in a room like that, so all I can suggest is to cover all the surfaces. Otherwise, with every wall so close to your ears, you'll hear more reflections than direct sound!

--Ethan

Mr. Winer,

Thank you for the very quick response. I am so pleased as I am anxious to come to terms with what I must do asap.

Perhaps it would be best to leave these doors wide open while I mix and let the sound into my heavily decorated living room (?).

Plus, and more importantly, can I get by by covering virtually everything in that small room with 2 inches of fiberglass, or will 4 inches (plus 2 inches of air space behind) make a much bigger difference?

Thanks again.

MJG

Yes, use 4-inch rigid fiberglass, and also leave the door open.

--Ethan

Mr. Winer,

Thanks again for your advice. I think that it is fantastic that you help people the way you do.

MJG

Mr. Winer,

Based on what I am reading on this forum, I am leaning towards making 12" by 48" frames and use 4" of JM 815 for the corners of my very small room. I will stack these one on top of another.

My present questions are:

1) Do you think this will be more effective (for the first thing I do) than 24" by 48" on the walls? Of course, I will eventually do both.

2) for any of the traps, should I acquire some cardstock and apply as facing?

Thanks, as usual.

MJG

Mr. Winer,

Please disregard my previous post. I want to rephrase my questions.

1) What do you think about traps for the corners that are only 12" wide (with 4" fiberglass) but go from floor to ceiling (remember - I have a very small room)?

2) Would it be better if I applied some sort of backing (or "fronting") to the fiberglass.

3) If some sort of backing is beneficial, am I correct in understanding that I can use heavy duty aluminum foil instead of card-stock backing? What about newspaper then? Must the card-stock/foil/?? be adhered in some way with an adhesive or can it just be packed tightly and stapled within the outer fabric along with the frame and the fiberglass?

Thanks, as always.

MJG

1) The smaller the trap, the less well it works.

2) You are so close to every surface that you should use plain, un-faced material.

Mr. Winer,

Thank you, sir. I do want to add that a lot of my questions were answered as I dug deeper on your web-site. I am so new at this and I am only beginning to understand this concept of treating a room. I have wrestled with mixes that traveled poorly for so long. What a relief to finally be on the correct path!

MJG

Mr. Winer,

I started to make the 24" by 48" traps using 4" of fiberglass. I notice that one side of the fiberglass is "rubberier" (is that a word?) than the other side which is more like just plain raw fiberglass.

1) Does it matter which way the fiberglass faces?

2) If so, which side should face out?

2) And, again, If it does matter which way it faces, and I installed it incorrectly, how much of a loss of efficiency will I experience?

AND...

Will 24" by 24" traps "work" any differently than 12" by 48" traps (if placed in similar areas of a room)?

Thanks, as always.

MJG

If the fiberglass is not faced, then it should absorb the same on both sides. Hold it up in front of your face and "talk into" it. If both sides sound the same, like you're talking into a total void, then both sides absorb the same.

As for 24x24 versus 12x48, I'd have to see the placement.

--Ethan

Mr. Winer,

I would be lost without your advice! Speaking into the material is such an incredibly simple test, and makes such sense. I would never have thought of that on my own. I am not a stupid man, but I often cannot see "the forest for the trees".

In reference to the 12" by 48" panels, I was thinking of using them for the corners where a wall meets a wall. Please remember, the room is very, very small.

Thanks as always!

MJG

P.S. Are you willing to tell me the name of your cat? I have a black, short haired female named Zulu. And I was recently given a Himalayan kitten which I named Nikita - another female. I like to know what people name their animals. Sorry to get off of treatment questions, but you are the one that loves your cat enough to include him/her in your photo! Cats assist in keeping me sane. Even photos of them.

The small the room, the more bass trapping you need. 12 inches is not very wide, but fit whatever you can as best you can.

My cat's name is Bear because he's so huge! Bear is about 18, and he's very sweet!

Not to go too far off-topic, but as long as I'm posting Bear photos, here's a portrait by my friend Mike Rodericks in exchange for my helping him with his web site.

Mr. Winer,

This will be the last non-treatment post I will make (as far as I can help it).

You are quite obviously a very devoted cat person. I am always amazed when I encounter a person that says that they do not like cats. The painting is fantastic, really. The artist is excellent. I will look for some of his other work.

Thanks for the brief, but very pleasant, tangent.

And Bear is a great name for a cat.

MJG

Yeah, and sometimes they try to disguise their dislike by saying their "allergic" to cats. I don't get it either. I love all animals because they're so sweet and innocent. Animals have no ego! They just want to please you.

Mr. Winer,

With me, one of the most unpleasant human traits is deliberate maliciousness. Animals aren't that way - as far as I can tell. Although my long time cat, Zulu, just threw up on my couch exactly where I sit, and I know she still isn't happy about the new kitten. I have to admit, I do wonder.

O.K. Treatment question: I recently finished four 24" by 48" by 4" panels.

Using a sound meter from Radio Shack and your Test-tones download I measured the response from only one monitor (I am pointing the meter directly at the monitor)- without bringing a panel into the room.

Then I introduced a panel. I notice that I can place the panel in various areas very near the same spot and get either an increase in db or a decrease in db - as opposed to the signal without the panel at all.

Which do I want to pursue, the increase in db or the decrease in db?

As a final note, I have to say that I am very impressed with the power - if that is the correct word to use - of these panels to effect a change.

MJG

When an animal poops in a place they know is bad, they're most likely trying to tell you they have a tummy ache. Or some such. Animals are not malicious, though they can be jealous, which is an unpleasant and very human trait!

Okay, enough about animal poop.

When you place panels you are looking for whatever makes the response flatter. This can be hard to determine! When the entire LF response is a roller coaster of peaks and nulls, it's hard to know where the center line should be.

Also, there nothing wrong with testing speakers separately, but the most relevant test - for low frequencies anyway - is with both speakers playing in mono. Almost all pop music has the bass and kick drum panned center, for good reason, so that's how low frequencies will usually be played through your system.

--Ethan

Mr. Winer,

If it has not already been established, I can be slow sometimes.

My present question is this: Will I be able to somewhat effectively use a Radio Shack sound level meter to assist in some way to coming to terms with the placement of the panels? Or should I just concern myself with placing the panels in the corners and other apparent reflective areas suggested in your Real Traps web-site?

I can save $50.00 plus by returning the device. A much needed $50.00, btw.

No treatment question here but just a comment . One particular exception I have always noticed with the bass and/or drums being panned either hard left or right in what I consider an unusual, but very effective way is many Beatle tracks (Sexy Sadie, Helter Skelter, etc.).

This seems to be such a signature of their productions, and it never seems to work well with my music. I would always find that there was way too much energy unevenly distributed.

MJG

Also, when placing a trap on a wall, what is the optimum spacing away from the wall (how much space behind the trap)?

Corners are always good, but if you can treat only a few corners this short article explain a more scientific way to find which corners are best:

Pink noise aids placing bass traps

When the Beatles recorded some of those old hits they had only four tracks, so that influenced their panning abilities.

As for the ideal air gap, that's covered in the Forum FAQ:

Acoustics FAQ

Look for Optimizing the air gap in the Table of Contents.

--Ethan

I am actually very disappointed about reading this answer which i believe might be sad but true, especially coming from you. My control room is 12' depth by 8'height by 5,3' wide. I've always dreamed of having a home studio but as far as i've found out it seems to be an useless plase for mixes.

Also i have a five sided cuasi-diamond shaped vocal booth measuring 5' by 5' by 2,7' by 2,7' by 3' by 8,3' high. Now, should i be pesimistic about my mixes or is there any good solution by properly placing traps all over? could i expect great mixes coming from this place?

Also i'd appreciate a link where i can learn to perform a proper procedure for measuring and tuning my control/live room with a pc software based software like smaart or acoustisoft eft. I'm from Venezuela and i just registered but i've been reading your articles from a few months ago. Please excuse my poor english and thanks ahead for any help provided Mr. Winer!

The only way to get a decent mix in a very small room like that is to line the entire interior with thick traps.

As for measuring software:

ETF, Windows, $150
FuzzMeasure, Mac, $150
Room EQ Wizard, Windows and Linux, Freeware

This article explains how I use ETF, but the principles apply to all such programs.

--Ethan

That really is going to be a hard room to get a great sound in, but the good news is if you put enough work into it you can get it to a point of workability. Better said you can make it sound better then a larger non-treated room.

Glenn

Thanks for the lightning fast response. As i have no other choice than sticking with my place, i'll follow your advice no matter if the only space left is me and my gear in there. Now,

I read your excellent article about panel traps and i just love them because they don't protrude too much and also seem to be very effective on low frequencies without taking too much space and using less fiberglass (would a "2 instead of a 1" panel do a better job on panel traps? )but i'm confused because you recommend only to be used on bigger rooms.

i've also read about superchunks but my concerns are,
I actually can't afford to buy too much fiberglass to treat the whole control room with superchunks because rigid fiberglass and mineral wool are really, not to say impossible, hard to find in my country. And shipping costs are quite expensive from USA. Actually i could just buy one or two dozen of 2' x 4' fiberglass units OC 703.

What other materials have similar properties as fiberglass and mineral wool?

Also, would you recommend using superchunks and/or pressure bass traps. Or could i use both devices in my control room.

What i was planning to do was this:
Place panel traps all over the walls and ceiling, except the one behind me which i'd just cover with diffusors, place a carpet on the floor and install superchunks on all corners. That would be a slow process of getting fiberglass but i am convinced it would be the best path to go. I just need your point of view to make my final decision.

Thanks again and hope to read from you soon.

fluffy fiberglass if used thick enough works well.



Panel traps are great if you are only targeting a curtain frequency but in small rooms you have problems throughout the frequency range so trying to cover all them them would be almost impossible. Like I said above use fluffy fiberglass and fill the corners. If done thick enough it will work quite well.

Glenn

Hi Glenn, It's a bit frustrating because i just raised a wall to divide a room and thought 5.3' wide would be ok but i found out late that it wansn't What are the smallest measures you'd recommend, i hope not to change depth and height (that would be virtually impossible in my case) but to modify width alone. I'm actually considering that height and depth are usable, hope so...

Hope i explained well...

Again, my actual room size is:
12' depth by 8'height by 5,3' wide

Ed

More yet, i haven't finished my project and i can still manage a few slight modifications on the structure. What about a diamond-shaped control room measures? The smallest recommended...

Please sorry if i overwhelm with doubts and questions, i just need a good starting point for my studio project and your answers are the the key to light my ideas.

Thanks ahead...

I would keep the room as large as possible.

Glenn

Ethan,

No questions (at this time) only a comment or two. First, thank you and the other contributors to this forum for the wealth of info. It is truly appreciated!

Second, it is nice know that you are a fellow cat person as well as an acoustical wiz! My wife and I are cat folks as well. As a matter of fact, my wife tells me that as soon as I convert one of our spare rooms into a "cat condo" complete with sun deck, she will allow me to finish my project studio.....

We actually rescue strays and adopt them (except for the ones we keep) out to loving homes.

You can read a little about our "children" at our site:
http://www.kountykitties.com/documents/scooters_story.html

And here is a picture of a couple of our boys:


Thanks again!
Derek