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Old 02-19-2013, 04:46 PM
7thbassbA 7thbassbA is offline
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Default Question about floor reflection solution

I have a small room (11x13) with carpet on the floor and 9.5' ceilings (no ceiling treatment). I have a number of 2'x4' acoustic panels and bass traps that do a pretty good job of cutting down the echo I had in the room.

I am not in a position to put in a wood floor and treat the ceilings at this time. I have heard that putting reflective material in area recording acoustic guitars can help.

So, if I took a piece of plywood, stained it, and put felt or something that would not mark up the carpet, how big would it need to be to he helpful

I guess i could put hinges on in so it would fold up out of the way.

Any thoughts would be helpful.
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Old 02-19-2013, 05:17 PM
moon moon is offline
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I think the room is just too small to generate any of the "good" kind of reflections. I'd probably want to make it quite dead and add tuned reverb in the DAW.
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Old 02-19-2013, 05:18 PM
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rick-slo rick-slo is offline
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That is impossible to say. When my floor was carpeted I tried putting down various sizes of plywood boards on the floor. I could not say it did much of anything. Usually there is so much variation in recordings from numerous factors that it is hard to sort it out. Carpet is pretty thin and attenuates only the higher frequencies - the lower frequencies are unaffected.

And like moon said, lots of room absorption and a good reverb gives more consistency in a small room.
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Old 02-19-2013, 05:53 PM
sdelsolray sdelsolray is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by moon View Post
I think the room is just too small to generate any of the "good" kind of reflections. I'd probably want to make it quite dead and add tuned reverb in the DAW.
That's worked for me in my small room (16' x 12' x 8').

As to the floor, you can place several 4' x 2' x 4" bass traps on the floor and consider the ceiling to be a reflective surface. In other words, making the floor reflective and putting traps/clouds on the ceiling is the same thing, only in reverse. Usually, floors have other things on them, such as furniture, which can help, particularly sofas or loveseats.
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Old 02-20-2013, 08:07 AM
Scott Whigham Scott Whigham is offline
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I'm trying to get my room straight right now and I'm dealing with much of the same things. I have about a 15'x'13'9.5' room with wood floors. This weekend, I hung two 2'x4'x2" panels of OC703 over the recording spot. I did some test recordings before/after and it was definitely tighter and more focused after adding the ceiling treatment (with nothing on the floor). It did, however, affect the feel of playing in that spot. Not terribly but enough that, when I first sat down to play, I found myself playing a little harder/more-aggressively to try to get the same sound/feel.

Last night, I was doing some tests with putting things on the floor to stop those first reflections. I didn't really get anything down that I felt was conclusive, but I only tried (a) wood floor only, (b) putting a 1'x3' strip of acoustic panel covering material in between my seat and the mics, (c) putting down a sweater, and (d) putting down a really thin, crappy rug (nylon?). When the mic was 22 inches away, I felt I could hear a difference - putting something on the floor (anything actually) made it sound better/tighter/more focused. But when I tried 14 inches and 18 inches for mic placement, I don't know if my ears were tired or playing tricks on me but I couldn't be sure that I could tell a difference. In an ABX test, I think I'd probably have scored 50% haha.

In my last studio, I had carpet. I went to Home Depot and bought a 42"x42" plexiglass shield and placed it on the floor. My recordings were wayyyyyy better. In this studio, I'm doing the opposite. I now want to dry a thicker, better quality rug in that spot.
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Old 02-21-2013, 02:12 PM
7thbassbA 7thbassbA is offline
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I appreciate everyone's help.
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Old 02-21-2013, 03:56 PM
philjs philjs is offline
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Have you considered a chair mat like you can get from most larger office supply stores?

Phil
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