ed612313 Posted January 30, 2023 Posted January 30, 2023 Afternoon all, Whenever I have no idea what I’m doing I seem to post on here So… My issue is I have a small spare room. This is my DJ room. Unfortunately it’s all I have to work with. The room is 5.5 (L) X 3.3 (W) X 2.04 (H). Sits its pretty long and thin, with a low ceiling. I lined the walls and ceiling myself and used sound insulated Plasterboard, Sound insulated batts, mass loaded vinyl, along with vibration clips for hanging the Plasterboard. Along with double glazed windows. So as far as sound escaping the room goes the room is fine. My issue now is the poor sound in the room - especially when music is loud. And being my DJ room the music is always loud. I mix Electronic music i.e. Bass heavy. I essentially have 2 questions The floor is currently tiled. I’m hoping to change this in the near future i.e. carpet with a nice thick underlay or maybe vinyl tiles with a rug on top? I’m open to ideas and am ideally looking to do it as cheap as possible. Any recommendations/ideas? Sound absorption panels. I’ve recently purchased the below. i. 6 X 500 x 500 x 90 foam acoustic panels. Do I just forget about these or ? ii. 4 x acoustic panels @ 1060mm x 620mm x 90mm iii. 4 x acoustic panels @ 1200mm x 620mm x 90mm iv. 6 x bass traps @ 590mm face x 810mm high x 300mm deep. Given my room dimensions and set up, windows, openings, doors etc where would these panels best be placed? Note the wall directly in front of the speakers where the TV is will remain as is and will only have room for the Bass Traps. Also note that placing panels on the ceiling probably wont work as the ceiling is too low throughout the room. It might be possible to place a panel directly above the speakers though? The foam panels "might" work on the ceiling due to them only being 90mm thick. I know this is a loaded question but im open to all suggestions 1
Guest Posted January 30, 2023 Posted January 30, 2023 Are you trying to soundproof the room or control the room's problems? And if the latter, do you know (with precision) what they are? What was the problem with the room before you took this approach? Unfortunately I see too much of this approach - buy a heap of random panels on the assumption that acoustic treatment must be a silver bullet and it doesn't/shouldnt matter what you buy and where you put them, the fact that you have them makes the world of difference. I hate to burst your bubble but... Psychoacoustics is a science, an art form, which is why those out there who are professionally trained can turn a bad room into a great room for whetever the purpose will be . It doesn't come cheap, but when done properly is the biggest single improvement you can make to your enjoyment of audio in a space. But it still seems to be the hardest thing for enthusiasts to wrap their head around, in terms of value for money. I genuinely wish you luck, but it seems a lot of trial and error in your product placement (and even product selection) is in your future! Not what you may have wanted to hear - sorry!
TheBlackDisc Posted January 31, 2023 Posted January 31, 2023 Alternatively, look to DSP. On bass management, it’s astounding. It doesn’t do as well as having a professional in as described above - but it’s a lot better than what us amateurs can do.
TheBlackDisc Posted January 31, 2023 Posted January 31, 2023 1 hour ago, ed612313 said: Whats DSP? https://www.dirac.com/live/ With something like the NADC658, it corrects for what your room is doing. There are other brands of DSP, and other brands of preamps/amps etc for you to research.
mmv Posted February 1, 2023 Posted February 1, 2023 Getting carpet in the room was the best purchase I made. Nothing special - just with a thickish underlay. I did have an acoustics guy look at my room - and there was a huge quote and a lot of panels suggested - so have been doing the slow and steady trial and error approach. Read about where things should maybe go and put them there temporarily without attaching to walls etc. The DJ setup vs hi-fi is certainly different and if you can mess with speaker placement this will help a lot. Good luck!
almikel Posted May 12, 2023 Posted May 12, 2023 If you're going to stay in the DIY world you need a measurement rig to see what the bass is doing in your small room. A measurement rig entails: A USB measurement microphone (eg https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1?gclid=CjwKCAjwx_eiBhBGEiwA15gLNys97vQD5LEKFz3CiPEWMvPqKilVbrWSRcuT-cjfoNj_3OPi5TKt3hoCjO8QAvD_BwE) plus a decent microphone stand with a boom (eg https://djcity.com.au/product/die-hard-dhpms40-boom-microphone-stand-with-tripod-base/ ) and a laptop running REW (free) https://www.roomeqwizard.com/ That way you can measure your room (easy), and work out what you need to do to fix your room issues (unfortunately much harder). There's plenty of tutorials on the interweb for using REW - it's an amazing free tool ! On 01/02/2023 at 6:01 AM, ed612313 said: Whats DSP? DSP (Digital Sound Processing) = EQ - as a DJ I'm sure you're familiar with EQ! The more rigid your room boundaries are, the more "in room" bass issues you'll have to manage, as the bass bounces off rigid boundaries taking ages to decay. On 30/01/2023 at 1:52 PM, ed612313 said: I lined the walls and ceiling myself and used sound insulated Plasterboard, Sound insulated batts, mass loaded vinyl, along with vibration clips for hanging the Plasterboard. Although you did this for sound isolation, some of this also provides compliance (flex) in the room boundaries - which is way better than say brick walls, which are rigid and reflect all bass Unfortunately good sound isolation and great "in room" sound can work against each other - a lightly constructed room that lets all the low bass out may annoy other house occupants and neighbours, but will have fewer "in room" bass issues to manage, as that bass is escaping the room and not bouncing around within the room. On 30/01/2023 at 11:08 PM, Hydrology said: Unfortunately I see too much of this approach - buy a heap of random panels on the assumption that acoustic treatment must be a silver bullet and it doesn't/shouldnt matter what you buy and where you put them, the fact that you have them makes the world of difference. I hate to burst your bubble but... This is very true. You already have a bunch of panels - you won't know their effectiveness without having a measurement rig and measuring before/after trap installation. On 30/01/2023 at 1:52 PM, ed612313 said: My issue now is the poor sound in the room - especially when music is loud. And being my DJ room the music is always loud. I mix Electronic music i.e. Bass heavy. I suspect you'll have long reverb times in the bass end. Managing "in room" bass is hard with absorption treatment - they need to be large/deep/gapped to be effective down to 150Hz or so, and ridiculously large/deep/gapped to work below that. EQ can work very well if appropriately applied - poorly applied it can be disastrous - hence why EQ has a poor reputation! A reasonable approach for applying EQ is: apply broad EQ only only apply cut rather than boost Get a measurement rig and post results. Mike 3
Sounding Posted July 24, 2023 Posted July 24, 2023 On 12/5/2023 at 11:29 PM, almikel said: Managing "in room" bass is hard with absorption treatment - they need to be large/deep/gapped to be effective down to 150Hz or so, and ridiculously large/deep/gapped to work below that. Hi Mike. I found your whole reply here very educational. I am in the process of considering what I can do for absorption. As per this screen, I have a couple of bass highs at around 50 and 70Hz - assuming that’s what is referred to as room modes. I also have plenty of low bass bouncing around hence the longer decay for low frequencies. Otherwise the decay is fairly flat at around 420 - 450ms. The RT60 Decay reading confirms that, and a pretty flat line apart from the lows. With some temporary room work (doonas on clothes horses etc), the decay came down from 450 to 350ms. So I am assuming if I can apply some absorption to the sides I should be able to get a similar result. As for improving the bass, based on your quoted comment, I assume I am going to need some significant panels to get it under control? I’m big on DIY and still looking for Aus suppliers of appropriate filling. I’m in Tasmania. As for peaks between around 300Hz and 4KHz I can use EQ to settle what the treatment doesn’t resolve. Not meaning to hijack a topic, but I figure this as an entry to REW example for the OP could be constructive. Cheers. 1
playdough Posted July 25, 2023 Posted July 25, 2023 (edited) 15 hours ago, Sounding said: 50 and 70Hz Ive had some luck treating this rather problematic frequency range. In one instance a stud wall, 2.7m x 3.5m x 100mm thick was built directly in front of an existing wall, it was lined inside with polymax XDR high density bats and importantly a membrane of mass loaded vinyl (CSR Supply) was applied like a loose drum skin (outside only), then a layer of upholstery material, similar colour to the existing paint over the vinyl. It was hard sealed against the wall, with quad. Some timber strips applied after to make it look better painted same colour as the existing. Sadly haven't the measurements at hand, but being next to where the sub was placed, the results were quite dramatic, lowering the decay times below 150Hz. It wasn't exactly cheap, but worth the result. Edited July 25, 2023 by playdough
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