acoustics

[ronniemac4]

I want to turn my closet area into a vocal booth and acoustic guitar room. I am working on a limited budget and need to purchase some Auralex foam for my main room to mix in and was thinking of using carpet pieces and padding to line the closet to deaden it. This would save me some money to put towards getting the acoustics in my mixing room better. Would this be a good idea or bad idea? Any problems using basic carpet for a vocal booth? Any info is appreciated!
Ron

[Park Seward]

You'll probably laugh at this but clothes hanging in a closet make a very dead room. You'll find it a good location to record without adding anything (just keep the clothes)!

[lwilliam]

I have some 2' x 4' carpet remnants that I bought at Home Depot 5 years ago that are still hanging on my back wall. They help with nodal ringing and "slap" supression, but definitely don't work as well as the Auralex I have on the other three walls.

One thing to watch out for in a small room: you will tend to get a "boxy" sound with mics. You might want to study a bit on room nodes to see what options you have that don't cost an arm and a leg. Here are couple of places to do some research:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/acoustics/messages/

VERY Techy group. Some very smart people there.


Also, Auralex has a web site on some basic acoustics theory. It's well worth a visit:
www.acoustics101.com

Good Luck!