tmh - you misunderstood part of what i wrote.... about putting deadening shit on the walls. but nevermind. i hate clutter. i like a sparsely furnished room. i sometimes like natural sounding reflections, but i also love dead drums, totally dry or with some crappy, obviously digital delay. we're gonna build it and see what happens. i'll let you know. thanks for the links you all.
-n

toomanyhelicopters wrote:hey seaside, go check out your thread about the STC calculation. everything everyone told you there was absolute garbage. i registered to clear that up.

That must be my partner Josh. I'll read it now. Thanks for caring.

seaside lounge wrote:something something http://www.recording.org

You do get quite a bit of misinformation over there. I tend to listen to Rod and Wes above others. Still a good resource.

oh, bam! i thought that was you. my bad. HA!

yeah, after some emailing back and forth, i'm definitely down with Rod. i haven't read really any of his 2000+ posts, but from the emailing, i give the guy two thumbs up.

hey, i just got back from recording schhol and in the lecture for studio design, the guy said that intead of the little rubber things (THAT are really expensive) you can just use carpet underlay...like this.
(bottom to top):

(cement) floor
carpet underlay
plywood
2x4 (or whatever) supports (with insulation between them)
another layer of plywood
then on top, a nice looking hardwood floor!

im getting ready to do that in my basement studio.. it will look and sound nicer that a cement basement floor and you can run your snake and stuff under the floor and insulate the room more!

sorry, I don't know where you went to recording school but that's fucked.

Carpet underlay will only compress and then basically be no better than nothing. There is a reason to use the rubber things. They are a specific hardness / thickness for a reason.

I'll admit to not knowing a ton about this, but I had a conversation with Bill Skibbe - who knows his shit - when recording at Key Club and he basically denounced the whole foam padding bullshit all together.

I went to recording school, too. I learned a lot and a lot of it was utter bullshit. No regrets, cuz I never took it as gospel.

-n

I'll make it off square to avoid standing waves.

No.

Making it off square will not avoid standing waves. It will just make the areas of occurrence of those standing waves less predictable. Treat your walls to avoid standing waves.

I posted a while back about a studio construction project I'm working on. I'll update that and post again.

= Justin

Justin from Queens wrote:Making it off square will not avoid standing waves. It will just make the areas of occurrence of those standing waves less predictable. Treat your walls to avoid standing waves.

This is very true...but, slanting the walls will reduce flutter echo and adds a decent amount of diffusion. While they don't disappear, the magnitude of the peaks and valleys in the standing waves will be decreased. If you slant the walls enough you can get pretty decent low end diffusion, which is fairly difficult to achieve with treatment. Overall, I think its really a matter of considering the specific space and using the appropriate treatment or construction in regard to space and cost....

ebeam -

What you ended with was assumed. Perhaps I should have been more explicit.

I am resisting to repeat most of what you've said in a weird urge to broadcast what I already knew but didn't say. This seems to be a common (if unjustifiable) urge on the internet. What's that about?

Anyway, I'll clarify my point -

I wouldn't splay the walls in a 120 sq/ft room. It's not worth it.

= Justin

Uh, yeah...sorry. I thought you were making a more general statement and I didn't see the dimensions earlier. For that room, I agree that it's silly to splay the walls cause in order to get anything effective you'd lose a lot of precious real estate.

And I'm not sure where that urge arises. I'm certainly guilty of it. Trying to make yourself seem smart to a bunch of internet dorks that don't even know who you are.....weird...

My 2 cents for what it's worth.

Be very suspicious of information gleemed from chat forums. These threads are always entertaining but rarely contain any useful information that will be of value to anyone. There is usually more misinformation than information. There are many excellent books and websites devoted to this subject. Read as much information as you can get your hands on. A quick Google search will produce results (probably more than you can stand).

Here are some reading suggestions:

1) Almost anything published by F. Alton Everest is good (although perhaps a bit outdated at this point). I especially recommend his book Sound Studio Construction On A Budget which is available from Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0070213828/103-4750507-8247809

2) Auralex offers an excellent primer on the subject which can be found here: http://www.acoustics101.com They tend to recommend their own products but so what. Still makes for interesting reading. I like Auralex. Cheaper products tend to discolor and/or disintegrate quickly. I have Auralex products which are going on 6 years old and still look like new. Sonex also is good stuff.

3) Here's an interesting story: http://members.aol.com/magaz15522/studioarticle1.html

4) More stuff from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0240516273/auralexcom-20/103-4750507-8247809


As you start to read through this information, you will see similar concepts repeated over and over. Some things will ring true to you and other stuff will sound like bs. Discard the bs right away. Have fun learning!