Mark Edmonds
Mark Edmonds has a very small room, and as such is looking for a very small RT60, therefore he was told to make it DEAD DEAD DEAD, so he will have maximum absorbption on as many surfaces as he can.
I've got some basic photos done so far at:
20040401
20040403
StudioTips thread about the build
But really, they don't show anything and obviously, aren't finished off. What is in the pictures represents about 5% of the work I have planned for the room so it should get more interesting (I hope!).
They are 100mm RW3 , mounted against the wall. The technique was to build a stud wall sideways (one fills studs with insulation), using shelf techniques. Wood dimensions are 2400x120x18 (mm) in planned softwood - nice easy wood to work. The photos with the coloured scribbling on them were intended to mark out what type of treatment is going where, and are provided here to show what the rockwool looked like in the packages.
Since I did that work and learnt a bit about the mechanical side of RW3, I am probably going to re do the rear wall with a vertical configuration and at least double the depth of RW3.
Covering is turning out to be a nuisance. Ideally I want acoustic foam across the whole lot but that is massively expensive for the entire room so I suspect, I will end up using fabric and stapling across the whole wall - or depending on how time works out, building inner frames from beading, wrap in fabric and slot into place. The latter would be much neater, especially with varnished frames.
June 8, 2004
The heat really got to me today and I couldn't face any physical work so I set up the basic listening kit and gave the room a try-out. Might as well find out now if I have a major problem before I get on with laying the laminate flooring.
I'm not going to bullshit about the results - there is no point in kidding myself or even worse, giving the wrong impression so other people go ahead and copy my work, good or bad.
First off, holy smoke, it is focused! I use a lot of orchestral recordings for testing and the placement is now really fine tuned. There is no messing about here - you can point to the individual instruments. The bass is alot tighter so you can really hear the sound of a bass drum rather than just a dull thud and the upper end, for example rasp in brass instruments sings out nice and smooth.
I kept a downloaded track by Carlos Arellano called Scarlatin when he posted it on Cubase.net and this has become a test track because it is really "up-front" and has a fantastic bass solo which used to play havok in the room prior to treatment. Magically, the bass solo is about 90% cured and I'm leaving that 10% because I don't know how the bass really sounded. His guitar work is really forward and you can really imagine someone actually there playing. Finally, I've always found the balance of the mix to be a bit edgy and difficult to listen to at high levels. It still has those characteristics but it is much smoother now.
OK, onto a deep bass track - Angel Voices (I think) by Jeff Beck. This used to be a great track for playing loud and walking round the house where all you can hear is that dull illdefined thuding sound. Now...... there is no dull thudding and you hear the rest of the mix at the same level as the bass! Proves all that trapping is doing so good.
I messed around with some sine sweeps but the results from this can't be taken too literally because I have three doors propped up in the door frames which are acting as nice resonators. Consequently, at the bottom end of the sweep when the doors get hit the room gets taken over for a second or two. I'm not good at guessing freq by ear but I think there is a peak at tuning fork A -ish 440Hz or so and in as much as you can tell from the bass, there is a big but narrow hole low down but I don't know if that is the loose doors. Other than that, it seems pretty smooth but I will have to dig out the Behringer 8000 and do some proper measurements before anything is really known.
As for can I live with the sound - I think so but I've only listened for a hour so far and I will have to learn the room as well. Yes, the sound is very directional when you sit in front of the monitors but walking round the room, it doesn't change very much except when you listen right against an edge. The only major variation onroom position I have noticed is that with a sub-bass sound, it seems to null in the middle of the room but I need to really check this again.
Overall, I'm encouraged. It is a new sound. The top end is definitely a major step forward and the bass judgement will have to wait until the doors are done. As for the dead sound? It isn't as dead I was expecting - in fact, I don't really notice it when going into the room.
Right, back to listening...