DIY Room Treatment Project...

Orange Amps General Forum

Moderator: bclaire

Wendigo
Orange Master
Posts: 3273
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:24 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Wendigo » Sat Sep 01, 2018 8:03 pm

Hi everyone,

I've decided to do a pretty thorough acoustic treatment of my new studio room here in Canada, this time not just "however", but really with some theory behind it. I already have carpets, my monitors and thus listening area are out several feet from the front and side walls etc, but now I've built 8 bass traps, am going to build a QRD "skyline" diffusor/wedge absorber combo front wall, and apply other wedge absorbers in the right places on the side walls and ceiling to absorb early reflections. I just finished upholstering the first bass absorber and I though this might be a good time to start a thread in case anyone else wants to do something similar. The total cost of each bass trap is around 60 CAD, whatever that is in USD or Euros. For those of you who know, that's a tremendous saving compared to anything even remotely similar in the pro audio world. I'll keep the pics coming as I progress, but for now here's a few. The traps are 2' x 4' x 7" pine with 6 inch deep Rockwool cores, covered in a nice black fabric I found. The Rockwool is held in place by wires and screws...very cost effective. I also just bought 80 feet of 2 x 2 spruce to make the diffusor, which will be 2' x 3' when it's done and sit between and behind the monitors:


Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Dale2
New Member
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2018 12:33 am

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Dale2 » Sun Sep 02, 2018 2:57 am

Nice. I like it.

Les Paul Lover
Duke of Orange
Posts: 6821
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 9:08 am
Location: Derby, England

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Les Paul Lover » Sun Sep 02, 2018 8:20 am

I hope it'll make the difference you need!!!
Ant

Orange Gear: RV50 MKI, R30, AD15, PPC212
And.... Genz Benz Black Pearl 30
Past Orange: AD30TC Combo, TT, AD5


Guitars: Gibson Les Paul Standard Faded, Vigier Expert Retro 54, Gibson SG 70s Tribute, Aria Pro II RS X80, G&L ASAT Special Tribute

LD50
Tiny Terror
Posts: 112
Joined: Thu May 19, 2016 8:35 pm

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by LD50 » Sun Sep 02, 2018 8:54 am

Intrigued?

On what did you base your plans, design and layout?

I am very ill informed on this subject and might have to do some reading!

adkguy07
Rocker
Posts: 252
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 3:46 pm
Location: Upstate New York

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by adkguy07 » Sun Sep 02, 2018 9:37 am

Very neatly put together. Where did you get the experience to put these together? I'm not sure what a “bass diffuser” does? I imagine they not only cut down on the sound, but breakup bass waves? Please, fill the uninitiated in.

P.S. Novi is such a beautiful place. Here is a link I bookmk'd which takes me back to a trip to Yarmouth some time ago.

https://www.novascotiawebcams.com/en/we ... pe-forchu/


adkguy07

Wendigo
Orange Master
Posts: 3273
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:24 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Wendigo » Sun Sep 02, 2018 1:15 pm

adkguy07 wrote:
Sun Sep 02, 2018 9:37 am
Very neatly put together. Where did you get the experience to put these together? I'm not sure what a “bass diffuser” does? I imagine they not only cut down on the sound, but breakup bass waves? Please, fill the uninitiated in.

P.S. Novi is such a beautiful place. Here is a link I bookmk'd which takes me back to a trip to Yarmouth some time ago.

https://www.novascotiawebcams.com/en/we ... pe-forchu/


adkguy07
Well actually the black things are bass absorbers (bass traps). The diffuser will be coming soon. In a nutshell, bass waves ruin the sound of your room and congregate in the corners of the room, so you need to "trap" them to clean up the sound in your studio. The traps should have an airspace behind them, so they'll be mounted diagonally, floor to ceiling in all four corners of the room. This way, you can get an accurate frequency response when listening/mixing/mastering. Some reverb/decay is ok, but I also need to block early reflections using smaller foam wedges, which only really cut down on upper mids and highs. Too many of those and the room sounds dead, too few and you have the same problem as with the bass, but in the upper regions of your frequency spectrum. The wedges are coming from Amazon. The main concern is accuracy of the played back recordings, but also the sound in the room while recording instruments. Reflective surfaces are ok, as long as they reflect "randomly" and that's where the diffusers come into play. A QRD "Skyline" diffuser is a bunch of wooden blocks of varying heights that breaks the sound up according to some formula that the BBC developed at some point. I'll post pics of that once I get it done.

As far as the experience to build these things goes, I don't have any. :lol: Just looked at some videos and developed my own plans to cut costs and still have a professional result. I mean, I've done a bit of construction stuff in the past, but never something like this. It's a chore actually, I just want to be done with it. :wink:

Wendigo
Orange Master
Posts: 3273
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:24 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Wendigo » Sun Sep 02, 2018 1:19 pm

LD50 wrote:
Sun Sep 02, 2018 8:54 am
Intrigued?

On what did you base your plans, design and layout?

I am very ill informed on this subject and might have to do some reading!
Basically to absorb bass you just need mass and size with an airspace behind them, in the corners of the room. I just made my own plans based on easy numbers.....2' x 4' etc.

Any room will benefit from some heavy porous material, even a jam room. You can just stick heavy cushioned easy chairs in the corners and notice a big difference to the sound, but something like this is a lot more effective. Your end result should be a semi-live sounding room with diffuse mids and highs and controlled, focused bass.

adkguy07
Rocker
Posts: 252
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 3:46 pm
Location: Upstate New York

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by adkguy07 » Sun Sep 02, 2018 2:10 pm

I take it that your studio will be to record, preview playback for recordings as well as live performance recording too?


adkguy07

Wendigo
Orange Master
Posts: 3273
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:24 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Wendigo » Sun Sep 02, 2018 10:20 pm

adkguy07 wrote:
Sun Sep 02, 2018 2:10 pm
I take it that your studio will be to record, preview playback for recordings as well as live performance recording too?


adkguy07
Mostly layering as far as the recording side goes, then critical listening for mixing and mastering.

Boy_Narf
Orange Master
Posts: 2494
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:27 am
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Boy_Narf » Mon Sep 03, 2018 9:05 pm

I'll be doing this in a few months! Don't mind if I burrow your plans 😁

Wendigo
Orange Master
Posts: 3273
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:24 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Wendigo » Mon Sep 03, 2018 9:08 pm

Started work on the "skyline" QRD diffuser:


Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

adkguy07
Rocker
Posts: 252
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 3:46 pm
Location: Upstate New York

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by adkguy07 » Mon Sep 03, 2018 9:56 pm

This is going to be without a doubt, a very impressive project. Wow!


adkguy07

Wendigo
Orange Master
Posts: 3273
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:24 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Wendigo » Thu Sep 06, 2018 2:29 am

Got the diffuser unclamped, stained and installed on the front wall with absorbers. Just got to finish the bass traps, the side walls and install the lamps. More to come...


Image

Image

Les Paul Lover
Duke of Orange
Posts: 6821
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 9:08 am
Location: Derby, England

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Les Paul Lover » Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:22 pm

Wendigo wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 2:29 am
Got the diffuser unclamped, stained and installed on the front wall with absorbers. Just got to finish the bass traps, the side walls and install the lamps. More to come...


Image

Image

Man.... I'm so sad.... all I can think off is that this diffuser is going to be a dust trap..... :lol:

Somebody, shoot me, please. :roll:
Ant

Orange Gear: RV50 MKI, R30, AD15, PPC212
And.... Genz Benz Black Pearl 30
Past Orange: AD30TC Combo, TT, AD5


Guitars: Gibson Les Paul Standard Faded, Vigier Expert Retro 54, Gibson SG 70s Tribute, Aria Pro II RS X80, G&L ASAT Special Tribute

Wendigo
Orange Master
Posts: 3273
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:24 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Re: DIY Room Treatment Project...

Post by Wendigo » Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:05 pm

Les Paul Lover wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:22 pm


Man.... I'm so sad.... all I can think off is that this diffuser is going to be a dust trap..... :lol:

Somebody, shoot me, please. :roll:
Compressed air my friend....compressed air. :lol: Hey I bet you'd love this place:

Image

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 91 guests