Advice for treating MY room...

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I have been reading up about studio acoustics and design but only ever find general principles and I would really value any suggestions or help from anyone about the specific sized room I need to work on:

The room 16 x 14 feet (9 feet high with arched ceiling) and I am turning into a recording space, but also for practicing my drums.
The walls are just plaster at the moment and the floor is concrete. As well as recording my drums, and guitar amps, etc this room will also have to double-up as a control room environment because I haven’t got space elsewhere.

The main advice I need is – (bearing in mind the room’s size and ceiling shape) – if this was your room, would you make it completely dead-sounding and just add reverberation plug-ins, or is this room large enough to give a nice, pleasing and natural reverberant sound?

In either instance and in terms of getting the best sound I can from this size room I would appreciate a few suggestions:

1. What might be the best finishing material for the walls in this specific room, i.e. wood finish, plain plaster, etc?

2. What might be the best material for the floor in this specific room, i.e. laminate wooden flooring, carpet, etc?

3. Are there any specific treatments you might suggest in this specific room for frequency balance in terms of both the sound of recorded instruments (especially drums) and also when mixing through the monitors in this same room?

Any help would really be appreciated, as I can’t find anything specific to my situation in any books or websites I’ve found.

Cheers.

CS.

[Styles Bitchly]

When I decided to treat my control room I contacted auralex.com and did my research there. They have a page where you input your room dimensions, and what type of room it is (control room, iso booth, etc. . . ) and they'll tell you what you need to treat it. This will give you an idea of how much money you'll be spending. Then you can fax them a diagram of the room, with all your furniture, monitors, gear, etc. drawn in, and they will send you their advice on where to place the acoustic foam. It's not the same as having an acoustic engineer come to your facility and "tune" it with reference mics and spectrum analyzers, but it works very well and costs a fraction of the price. I spent about $800.00 on my room, and BOY, what difference! My mixes now translate very well, to any system. I should have done this years ago. It's worth checking out. Good Luck.

[dr sound]

Try this link
http://www.recording.org/users/acoustics/
You'll be better off than buying those acoustic wedges.

[georgia]

A simple trick to getting started with acoustic treatment.

One of the things you need to deal with are reflections.. First and second order the most. Place your speakers where you want them to end up and sit down at each of the primary listening positions ( one position at a time )
Have a friend take a small mirror and place it on all flat surfaces between you and the sepaker, as wellas behind you and around you. A wall, the ceiling, a table, the floor, etc. Slide the mirror around on each surface, when you see the speaker reflection in the mirror mark the spot. These spots that create first reflections and need to be treated accordingly.

The angle of reflection = the angle of incidence.


cheers
georgia

[jai7388]

Best link I have found on the subject.

http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

jai