Small Control Room

[Pato]

Hi, i am finishing a small studio and i have a problem with low freq echo.

My room is 19' x 11' with 8' celing aprox.

I have carpet and some aluminum frames on the walls with fiberglass/cardboard inside, the type used to partition office spaces, about 2 or 3 inches thick covering about 70% of the wall surface.

I dont have any bass traps yet.

My back wall is the one that has the least area covered.

Do bass traps really make a difference? or Should i start by covering the back wall completly with absortion?

I'll be posting pictures tomorrow.

Thanx in advanced

[Pato]

Here is a video of the studio in progress

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAMojPoR8Ek

and another question, for bass trapping what would work better, a single 6'x4'x4" broadband trap (the one with 4" mineral wool)with 4" space between the wall or 3 2'x4'x4" broadband traps with 4" between them and 4" between the wall?

Im also putting one of these broadband 2'x4'x4" traps in both doors

Thanx

[Sandyrb]

Hi Pato.

I dont have any bass traps yet. [...] Do bass traps really make a difference? or Should i start by covering the back wall completly with absortion?

The Primacoustics foam corner bass traps are very effective. We use them in three of our rooms and they work very well. These are the ones we use (http://www.primacoustic.com/australis.htm).

Your main problem as far as I see it is that your room is essentially square at every angle. Although it takes a bit of work, you could try building an angled surface for your back wall. It only has to be a couple of degrees out from vertical / horizontal to solve a multitude of problems.

Although your room is relatively small I would caution against making it completely dead. Capturing real ambience is, in my opinion, essential to making big sounding recordings. However you could fully damp, say, the biggest surfaces and leave the rest open. Coupled with some constructed angles this will give your room a very different and hopefully highly usable sound.

However! Because of the size and basic shape of the room you may still experience some problems. But in the perfect world the house across the street would be a public one and we'd all have massive studios with every imaginable piece of gear, wouldn't we?! :)

Hope this helps! :)

Cheers,

[Pato]

Thanx sandy!

However, my question was more oriented to my control room, wich is the one with the panels on the wall.

These modules: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyYUpkpL0gw

are the ones i plan to build for the back wall that you see in the begining of my video, the right corner is where my "exterior" door and the door for the live room are.

And another thing, lucky for me, the room is poorly constructed and there is virtually no 90 degree angle anywhere, it may seem squared but it really isnt...

Anyway, back to last question:

what would work better, a single 6'x4'x4" broadband trap (the one with 4" mineral wool)with 4" space between the wall or 3 2'x4'x4" broadband traps with 4" between them and 4" between the wall?

In second 32 of my video you can see the wall that im planing to put these traps.

Thanx again

[Sandyrb]

my question was more oriented to my control room

Oops! My bad. Sorry about that, I'm a silly old bugger. :p Note to self; read the darn question properly , Sandy!

what would work better, a single 6'x4'x4" broadband trap (the one with 4" mineral wool)with 4" space between the wall or 3 2'x4'x4" broadband traps with 4" between them and 4" between the wall?

I think it's too close to call. :) What I mean is that you've still got the same amount of surface area in your traps, whether there are several or a single large one. My own preference would be for the three smaller traps (because I think it would be more visually appealing), but I guess whatever seems best to you. Again I would bass-trap the corners because I've *heard* that make enormous and beneficial differences to rooms.

Hope this helps. :)

Cheers,

[Pato]

Thanx again for the input..

i went with the separate 2'x4' modules...

i'll post some pictures of the work in progress and the finished project sometime next week.