Small room acoustics

[sethayo]

Hello All,

Not a recording question per se, but I figured people in this forum would have some insight. We have a small (~8x12) room that we use as a practice room for guitar and fiddle. As you might expect, the acoustics of the room are poor and it is very loud with a lot of echo. Particularly when playing resonator guitar or fiddle, the room feels extremely loud. I would really like to reduce the echo and deaden the sound of the room a bit, but I do not want to spend a lot of money to do this. To be clear, I have no intention of using the room for recording, but I would like it to feel a little quieter with less echo for practicing.

I was looking around online, and found a variety of cheap bass traps and acoustic panels on Amazon, such as these:

https://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Pane...NsaWNrPXRydWU=

https://www.amazon.com/DEKIRU-Acoust...NsaWNrPXRydWU=


I have read the reviews online and done some research and understand that these types of products are not really up to snuff for a studio quality room treatment project. What I am wondering is, would you expect them to make a noticeable difference for the purpose I am describing, or is it just a total waste of money.

Thanks for the input!

[rick-slo]

Those type of foam products are not very effective even when using several and placed in the most optimal positions.
On the other hand probably better than nothing and you can return them via Amazon if you don't like them.

Do a forum search on recording room acoustics. Many prior discussions on the topic.

[Feste]

They might help a little, but you’ll need a bunch, making it cost prohibited. You can buy big sheets of similar material cheaper. What is on your floor and ceiling? Carpet will make a noticeable difference. There are other ways to build diffuser walls to create a better space.
For example, Safe 'n’ Sound Rockwool and Homasote® 440 SoundBarrier sheets can both be effective with a little effort. The Homasote comes in 4 X 8’ sheets which you could just set up on the walls. Both are available at big box stores. It really depends on what kind of effort you want to put into the treatment. I recently built diffusers and bass traps for a small studio which really didn’t cost too much but did take some skill and effort. Then again, I have heard old mattresseses can work too

[jim1960]

As rick-slo said, foam is a poor choice and I'd regard them as a total waste of money.

The biggest problem in a small room is low frequency build up which makes things sound muddy. The second biggest problem is sound reflections bouncing all over the place. You can do a lot to control both by building bass traps and putting them around the room. You can build them DIY or you can buy them ready made from companies like GIK Acoustics.

In post #4 on the AGF MEMBERS GEAR MASTERLIST & RECOMMENDED TUTORIAL VIDEOS are some videos on how to build effective bass traps in the section called "Room Treatment." One of those at mid-height in each corner of the room might be enough to solve your problem.

[BoxCar_Joe]

Moving blankets.
A few on the walls and a few on the floor.
They are cheap and they deaden the room a lot.

[sethayo]

Thank you all for the responses and for talking me out of trying the cheap foam traps! I am going to look into building some acoustic panels myself and see what is practical for my space and budget. The room is not carpeted, has a fairly large window and a bookcase in it so the wall space is somewhat limited, but I feel like I should still be able to improve the sound quality somewhat. I appreciate all of your expertise.

[TBman]

I bought a couple of these panels made by ATS and sit in front of them - I have them in a V configuration.

I'll be ordering another one or two when my basement cleanup/redesign is completed later this year. Right now I record in a 10x12 room.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by sethayo

Thank you all for the responses and for talking me out of trying the cheap foam traps! I am going to look into building some acoustic panels myself and see what is practical for my space and budget. The room is not carpeted, has a fairly large window and a bookcase in it so the wall space is somewhat limited, but I feel like I should still be able to improve the sound quality somewhat. I appreciate all of your expertise.

Just so you know the book case will act somewhat as a diffuser (which is good) as well as absorb some sound

If you are handy at DYI you can definitely build some decent sound absorption units ' Also might consider some triangular shaped ones for the corners and some flat 2ft. by 4ft. to either mount on the the other walls or even on wood stands that
you can place around you.
Also you might consider some kind of heavy throw rug ( often seen on stages during live performances )

[sethayo]

I thought I would give a brief update since I received some good advice here. I ended up building my own panels using Rockwool Safe N Sound, following this tutorial fairly closely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLk6fQVcoSw

I built 5 custom sized panels to fit the available spaces in my room, roughly the equivalent area of 5 24x36x4" panels. I put four of them on the walls at the corners (not across the corner), mounting them on non-parallel walls, and I put the fifth one on the wall roughly in front of where I am playing most of the time. These panels have made a very noticeable difference in the acoustics of the room and I think I have achieved my desired goals. I live in Alaska where everything is expensive, so total cost was around $200, including using some expensive and nice fabric. I used garden weed mat for inner lining to seal the insulation into the panel, which was a cheap and easy to work with material.

I also considered buying some of the ATS panels that were recommended here. They looked nice and their customer service was very helpful in recommending a simple treatment solution based on my room dimensions and goals. I probably would have bought panels from them, but the shipping to Alaska was over $250! In the end I am glad I built my own panels to fit my space and it was a fun project.

Thanks everyone for the recommendations!

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by sethayo

I built 5 custom sized panels to fit the available spaces in my room, roughly the equivalent area of 5 24x36x4" panels. I put four of them on the walls at the corners (not across the corner), mounting them on non-parallel walls, and I put the fifth one on the wall roughly in front of where I am playing most of the time. These panels have made a very noticeable difference in the acoustics of the room and I think I have achieved my desired goals. I live in Alaska where everything is expensive, so total cost was around $200, including using some expensive and nice fabric. I used garden weed mat for inner lining to seal the insulation into the panel, which was a cheap and easy to work with material.

Well done!
Room treatment doesn't have to be rocket science, especially for a rectangular room. The physics of sound are such that we know where the low frequency buildup will happen and, as you discovered, it doesn't have to cost a fortune to tame the room by controlling those frequencies.

[Feste]

Originally Posted by sethayo

I thought I would give a brief update since I received some good advice here. I ended up building my own panels using Rockwool Safe N Sound, following this tutorial fairly closely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLk6fQVcoSw

I built 5 custom sized panels to fit the available spaces in my room, roughly the equivalent area of 5 24x36x4" panels. I put four of them on the walls at the corners (not across the corner), mounting them on non-parallel walls, and I put the fifth one on the wall roughly in front of where I am playing most of the time. These panels have made a very noticeable difference in the acoustics of the room and I think I have achieved my desired goals. I live in Alaska where everything is expensive, so total cost was around $200, including using some expensive and nice fabric. I used garden weed mat for inner lining to seal the insulation into the panel, which was a cheap and easy to work with material.

I also considered buying some of the ATS panels that were recommended here. They looked nice and their customer service was very helpful in recommending a simple treatment solution based on my room dimensions and goals. I probably would have bought panels from them, but the shipping to Alaska was over $250! In the end I am glad I built my own panels to fit my space and it was a fun project.

Thanks everyone for the recommendations!

Glad it all worked out for you. Always better to DIY

[Rudy4]

It's always good to read about a happy ending! DIY panels seem to be the go-to solution for most folks.

I recently stumbled upon a different route to getting rid of odd room resonances and "room sound" artifacts. I often record my K&K Pure Mini directly, and although it works well when I'm doing multi-tracks with additional instruments it falls far short of a mic or two on the guitar if I'm looking for that.

While listening to one of Doug Fearn's podcasts, "The room where music is recorded", he mentioned that he was forced to use a storage area for recording once and he was pleasantly surprised by how good the recording turned out. The reason was it was lined with racks of storage that worked as diffusers instead of his usual use of absorbers and traps.

Correction, I believe it's Doug Fearn's "Recording In Improvised spaces" podcast whee he discusses the "storage room diffusion" recordings.

I said, "Hmmm... That sounds exactly like my little basement play pen area!.

I tried out a pair of Avantone SDCs and was pleasantly surprised by the results, considering there as zero cost and no effort to "treat" the space.

The first video posted in my "Zoom R20... something a little different" topic demonstrates the result of my experiment.

It shows me that diffusion might be a very attractive alternative to room treatment, especially if you have a LOT of accumulated / stored stuff!