Sound proofing

[john]

Hey

What do you guys do for sound proofing your music studio?

Cheers

John

[FinnArild]

What do you guys do for sound proofing your music studio?

Nothing - I've got a patient wife and neighbours. I also use near-field monitoring so it's not that very loud.

[Prometheus]

I had a problem with boxy standing waves when I first started doing this but I also have a problem with money, so I nailed a mattress to the rear wall and lined the corners of the walls with pillows and cushions... It actually makes a night and day difference to the clarity of the recordings done in here...

I also have cushioning up behind my nearfields to help prevent nodes and antinodes developing in my monitoring area...

[Nightwolf]

LOL, we wrapped a mattress round some bass drums to cut bleed, worked great

[Prometheus]

LOL, we wrapped a mattress round some bass drums to cut bleed, worked great

Oh yeah, they make excellent diffusers... Personally, I think having a reasonalby anechoic recording space is nine tenths of the battle in getting a clear recording, and nine tenths of the difference between professional recordings and garage ones...

I just noticed actually, you can see the very mattress behind me in my avatar...

The pop shield I'm holding there is a DIY job... the ones that shipped with my condenser mikes just did not cut the mustard at all, so I got the carousel from 25 CDR spindle, cut the top out of it and stretched a pair of socks all the way round, then fixed them in place with cellotape and staples... It works great because you've got a dual later with two inches of Space in the middle, so any blast of air that gets through layer one is sufficiently scattered to be stopped by layer two. The only problem is that you have to hold it up in your hand... Still, I'm damned if I'm paying twenty five quid for another pop shield that still lets plosives through...

Edited September 27, 2005 by Prometheus

[Didier]

What do you guys do for sound proofing your music studio?

Hi John,

Nothing has changed in my studio, so I would point to my initial description:

http://www.songstuff.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=271

Didier

[john]

I just noticed actually, you can see the very mattress behind me in my avatar...

I just thought you were lying down...

[ATom2]

I think I said this in another post, but I lined my entire studio (walls and ceiling) with those egg carton looking bed covers. I bought the Queen size sheets and it only cost me about $80 to do the whole thing. Works just like the foam crap you can buy from music outlets, for a tenth of the cost.

Screw them!

Tom

[Nightwolf]

Oh yeah, they make excellent diffusers... Personally, I think having a reasonalby anechoic recording space is nine tenths of the battle in getting a clear recording, and nine tenths of the difference between professional recordings and garage ones...

I just noticed actually, you can see the very mattress behind me in my avatar...

The pop shield I'm holding there is a DIY job... the ones that shipped with my condenser mikes just did not cut the mustard at all, so I got the carousel from 25 CDR spindle, cut the top out of it and stretched a pair of socks all the way round, then fixed them in place with cellotape and staples... It works great because you've got a dual later with two inches of Space in the middle, so any blast of air that gets through layer one is sufficiently scattered to be stopped by layer two. The only problem is that you have to hold it up in your hand... Still, I'm damned if I'm paying twenty five quid for another pop shield that still lets plosives through...

Are you talking about the bottom of the CD case or the outside cover? Great idea either way. You could take the piece that goes thru the CD's and glue it like a handle and fix it to an independent mic stand so you wouldn't need to hold it.

[Prometheus]

Are you talking about the bottom of the CD case or the outside cover? Great idea either way. You could take the piece that goes thru the CD's and glue it like a handle and fix it to an independent mic stand so you wouldn't need to hold it.

It was the outside cover I meant, but you're right, I really should fix it onto a stand... I just never got around to it...

[john]

It was the outside cover I meant, but you're right, I really should fix it onto a stand... I just never got around to it...

Hey

Interesting.. I still use a metal coat hanger with a pair of womans nylons over it. This is also effectively two layers, the width of the metal wire apart, and I don't have a pop problem even with close miking. Added to theat the hook of the hanger is ideal for attaching it to the mike stand.

Make sure you use new nylons...

Cheers

John

[john]

Hey

I meant to say in my last post, what's been discussed so far is really acoustics, i.e. shaping the sound environment for recording, rather than sound proofing, ie.e stopping sound escaping from your studio so that you can a) reduce external sounds spilling onto your recording, Keep your music spilling out of your studio.

Back to your standing wave problem. Prometheus, what sort of frequencies are you having standing wave problems? There are several obvious changes you can make that are more focused on addressing the problem:

Make the walls not parallel

Use a bass trap focused on key frequencies

Both!

Using acoustic tiles, egg cartons etc can be effective at dealing with high frequencies, but they do almost nothing for low frequencies.

For the parallel walls, the easiest is to put a thick strap of wood vertically down the middle of the wall. A thin strap on either side. For simplicity make this the distance of the width of plaster board. Nail the board to the strapping, creating a "V" shape on the wall. Fill the space between with rock wool. Cover the surface with fabric.

It's pretty cheap and cheerful, but it can also be easily removed if you move your studio.

I wrote a post somewhere on here about building a bass trap. I'll try and dig it out...

Cheers

John

[Prometheus]

Back to your standing wave problem. Prometheus, what sort of frequencies are you having standing wave problems? There are several obvious changes you can make that are more focused on addressing the problem:

All the problems have been done and dusted for a long time ago, but they were about 450Hz, which apparently is quite common in small rooms... I've got a lot of stuff up now to absorb bass that gets trapped in corners and to diffuse sounds that hit the rear wall (the famous mattress)... All low budget stuff, but it works very effectively... I've got a pretty reasonable recording space now that I can get a good clear recording in, even with a computer fan in a corner of the room...