Introduction
Dance studios often face challenges when it comes to acoustics, primarily due to the prevalence of large, reflective surfaces like laminate floors, mirrored walls, and reflective ceilings. These surfaces can create an environment where sound bounces around, making it difficult to hear, concentrate, or communicate effectively. However, there is a solution: acoustic panels strategically placed around the room and on the ceiling can significantly reduce reflections, resulting in a more conducive space for dance and music activities.
In this article, we'll explore the benefits of improving acoustics in music dance studios and provide a step-by-step guide on how to achieve it.
The Impact of Poor Acoustics
Before delving into the solution, let's understand the repercussions of poor acoustics in a dance studio. Large reflective surfaces contribute to a cacophonous environment, which can cause several problems:
Speech Intelligibility: Instructors often find themselves shouting to be heard over the reverberating sound, which can strain their vocal cords and lead to vocal fatigue. This affects the quality of instruction and the overall learning experience.
Music Quality: Music played in a room with poor acoustics can sound harsh, distorted, and lack clarity. This undermines the music's role in setting the right mood for dance sessions.
Inclusivity: People with special needs, such as those with hearing impairments or sensory sensitivities, may struggle to participate fully in dance sessions when the environment is not acoustically friendly.
The Solution: Acoustic Panels
Acoustic panels are an effective and versatile solution to address these issues. These panels, often made from materials designed to absorb sound, can be strategically positioned around the dance studio to mitigate sound reflections. Here's how they can help:
Improved Speech Intelligibility: With acoustic panels in place, instructors no longer need to shout to be heard. Clear and concise communication enhances the learning experience for students, while instructors can protect their vocal cords.
Enhanced Music Experience: Music played in a room with reduced reflections sounds richer and more balanced. Acoustic panels help in achieving a more controlled and pleasant auditory environment for dance sessions.
Inclusivity: A well-acoustically treated space is more welcoming and accommodating for individuals with special needs. Reduced sound reverberation can minimize sensory overload, making it easier for everyone to participate and enjoy the studio.
Steps to Improve Acoustics
Now that we understand the importance of acoustic panels, here's a step-by-step guide on how to improve the acoustics in your music dance studio:
Assessment: Start by assessing the current acoustics of your studio. Identify areas with the most pronounced sound reflections, such as walls, ceilings, and floors.
Panel Placement: Strategically position acoustic panels in areas with high sound reflection. Focus on walls facing mirrors, the ceiling, and any other large reflective surfaces. Aim to cover 15-20% of your wall sufrace area with absorbant materials.
Ceiling Treatment: Consider installing acoustic panels on the ceiling to further reduce sound reflections from above. This is especially important if your studio has a high ceiling. We recommend 40% of the ceiling where floors are reflective.
Panel Selection: Choose acoustic panels that match the aesthetics of your studio. Many panels come in various sizes, shapes, and colors, allowing you to maintain the studio's visual appeal.
Professional Installation: For optimal results, hire a professional to install the acoustic panels. Proper placement and alignment are essential for effective sound absorption.
Improving the acoustics in your music dance studio can have a profound impact on the overall experience for both instructors and participants. Acoustic panels, strategically positioned around the room and on the ceiling, are a valuable investment that can significantly reduce sound reflections. This leads to enhanced speech intelligibility, improved music quality, and increased inclusivity, making your dance studio a more enjoyable and accessible space for all.
]]>What is acoustic treatment, and why is it important for a home studio? Answer: Acoustic treatment involves improving the sound quality within a room by controlling reflections, echoes, and resonances. It is vital for a home studio because it ensures accurate monitoring, prevents sound issues, and creates a conducive environment for recording and mixing.
What are the primary components of acoustic treatment for a home studio? Answer: The main components include absorption panels, bass traps, diffusers, and sound isolation materials. Absorption panels reduce reflections, bass traps manage low-frequency issues, diffusers scatter sound reflections, and isolation materials prevent sound leakage.
How do I determine the right amount of acoustic treatment for my home studio? Answer: The amount of acoustic treatment depends on your room's size, shape, and intended use. Conducting a room analysis or using acoustic measurement tools can help you identify problem areas and determine the appropriate treatment needed.
Can DIY acoustic treatment solutions be as effective as commercially available products? Answer: Yes, DIY solutions can be effective, but it requires proper understanding and implementation. Many commercial products are designed with specific materials and testing, but with research and attention to detail, DIY treatments can yield good results and be more cost-effective.
Where should I place acoustic panels in my home studio for optimal results? Answer: Focus on the early reflection points, which are the walls where sound directly bounces off to your ears from the speakers. Corners with bass traps, as well as behind the listening position, are also essential spots to consider.
How do bass traps work, and how many do I need for my home studio? Answer: Bass traps absorb low-frequency sound waves, reducing room resonances and bass buildup. The number of bass traps required depends on the room size and shape. Placing one in each corner is a good starting point, and you can add more as needed.
Can acoustic treatment eliminate all sound leakage from my home studio? Answer: Acoustic treatment improves sound quality within the room, but it doesn't eliminate sound leakage entirely. To achieve significant sound isolation, you need additional soundproofing measures like mass-loaded vinyl, double doors, and acoustic caulking.
Do I need diffusers in my home studio, and where should I position them? Answer: Diffusers are beneficial for larger rooms and can help control flutter echoes and create a more even sound dispersion. Place diffusers on the back wall or the ceiling, opposite the primary listening position.
Can I use foam mattress toppers or egg cartons as acoustic treatment? Answer: Foam mattress toppers and egg cartons are not suitable for effective acoustic treatment. They lack the specific acoustic properties needed for sound absorption and can be a fire hazard. Invest in proper acoustic foam or other commercially available treatments for better results.
Is it possible to overdo acoustic treatment in a home studio? Answer: Yes, it is possible to overdo acoustic treatment. Too much absorption can make a room excessively dead and affect the room's natural ambiance. Balance is key, so it's essential to follow a well-informed acoustic treatment plan and adjust as needed based on your room's characteristics and personal preferences.
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Creating a well-tuned acoustic environment is crucial for achieving professional-quality audio recordings in a home studio. Acoustic foam panels and bass traps are effective tools for improving sound absorption and reducing unwanted echoes and reflections. In this guide, we will walk you through the steps to optimize your home studio's acoustics using these essential acoustic treatments.
Materials Needed:
Step 1: Assess Your Room Before installing any acoustic treatments, take some time to evaluate your room's acoustics. Walk around the space, clap your hands, and listen for any excessive echoes or reflections. Pay attention to areas where the sound seems particularly "boomy" or uneven. This initial assessment will help you identify the problem areas and determine where to place the acoustic treatments effectively.
Step 2: Determine the Quantity Needed. Measure the dimensions of your room to determine the quantity of acoustic foam panels and bass traps required. Calculate the total square footage of the room's surfaces, including walls, ceiling, and corners. Consider using the following guidelines as a starting point:
Step 3: Installation of Acoustic Foam Panels Here's how to install acoustic foam panels on your walls:
Clean the wall surfaces: Ensure that the walls are free from dust, dirt, and moisture before installation.
Apply adhesive or mounting hardware: Depending on the type of foam panels you have, you can either use adhesive or mounting hardware like command strips or nails. Follow the manufacturer's instructions for the specific adhesive or hardware you're using.
Start from the corners: Begin installing the foam panels in the corners of your room leaving space for the bass traps and corner kits, as these areas tend to have the most significant impact on the acoustics.
Continue with the walls: Work your way around the room, placing the panels at ear level or slightly above. Leave some spacing between the panels to allow for proper sound diffusion.
Step 4: Installation of Bass Traps Follow these steps to install bass traps in the corners of your room:
Position the bass traps: Place bass traps in each corner of your room where the walls and ceiling meet. These traps are typically designed as triangular-shaped panels or tubes. Depending on your room size your corners may need corner cubes to improve on the low end absorption.
Mounting options: Foam bass traps can be securely mounted using a heavy duty spray adhesive. If you are concerned about damaging the wall with spray and foam residue, you could mount the bass traps onto strips of ply wood and have these screwed into the wall.
Step 5: Fine-Tuning and Experimentation After installing the acoustic treatments, spend some time testing the improved acoustics in your home studio. Play music or perform recordings to evaluate the difference. You may need to make further adjustments by adding or relocating acoustic foam panels and bass traps to achieve the desired sound quality. Fine-tuning is a process of trial and error, so trust your ears and experiment until you find the optimal placement.
]]>Create the perfect space for work, hobbies and leisure with Pro-coustix professional acoustic treatment.
Most garden rooms are multi-use spaces with a majority being used as office, multi-media rooms or music practice spaces. However the clean contemporary finish with glass doors, wooden flooring and flat ceilings that these rooms contain don't lend themselves well to interior acoustics. This creates an unpleasant listening and working environment affecting end user satisfaction and use of the rooms. Often owners of brand spanking new garden rooms come to us seeking help to improve the acoustics in their spaces.
Our expertise in improving interior acoustics puts us in the best place to help you attain the optimum acoustics for your space wheter you are using the room as an office, listening room, home cinema or a chill out lounge.
Our acoustic treatment solutions start from the basic acoustic foam options in dark grey, white, light great and purple to the high end reall wood veneer diffuser panels and fabric covered acosutic panels.
How much acoustic treatment do I need?
Every room is different and the use you are going to put the room to once it is complete will determine how the nature and amount of acoustic treatment you will require. Some rooms e.g. home cinemas, music studios or listening rooms will benefit from a combination of absorption, diffusion and bass traping whilst others used as office space or home gyms will do just fine with absorption.
The type of acoustic treatment you choose will mainly be determined by your budget, the space available and decor you are looking to achieve, maintain or complement.
Broadly speaking acoustic treatment options range from;
Our team is on hand to provide you acoustic treatment advice whatever stage your garden room is at. In our article on home cinema acoustics we advise that engaging our team of acoustic treatment experts at design stage and incorporating our solutions into your build will result in acoustic treatment that blends with your room, reducing the clunky, industrial look that retrospectively adding acoustic treatment can sometimes create.
If this is something you are interested in please call us on 01442 899 294 or use the form below to get in touch and we will be more than happy to help you get the most out of your garden room.
Acoustic treatment plays a great role in making spaces functional and proper application of acoustic design principles will ensure you create a truly immersive space in your home cinema.
Many home cinema enthusiasts keen to bring the big cinema experience home will spend thousands of pounds on the latest projectors, speakers, amplifiers and cables and completely omit the room all this equipment is going to be sat in well apart from ensuring they have the most comfy cinema like seats.
Infact many times home cinemas are built by contractors who may have great design and build skills but have absolutely no idea about how to make spaces acoustically functional for the intended use.
We would always recommend engaging an acoustics expert in advance of your build. However not many people have the luxury of new builds/extensions for their home cinemas, instead resorting to converting an existing room for this purpose. New build, extension or conversion the importance of interior acoustics is often only realised once the space is in use. Bright reverberant spaces, muddy low ends or excessive bass boom degrade the quality of sound in your home cinema and result in a poor listening experience.
If you are looking to bring the home cinema experience home here a few things you must do!
1- Reduce excessive reflections
The reason why your local cinema has absorbent walls carpets and ceilings is because excessive reflections from hard reflective spaces colours sound and impacts on the sound waves being generated by loud speakers. Home cinema 5.1 and 7.1 systems are designed to reproduce sound in a sequence that creates an immersive spacial effect to the listeners, with mirco-second delays and effects introduced to create the illusion of space and distance. In rooms that are not adequately treated these precise effects are drowned out by secondary waves reflecting off the surfaces the sound is bouncing off. Creating a listening experience which can be overwhelming and unsatisfactory.
Treating your walls
Introducing absorption is absolutely critical to improving your listening experience. Ideally you should be aiming to completely eliminate flat reflective surfaces with absorption however in many cases the practical multi-use nature of home cinema rooms makes this impractical. Users should aim for as much absorption as their interior decor will allow anywhere above 40% of the reflective spaces. Acoustic treatment for these vertical reflective surfaces doesn’t have to be thick, 30mm foam panels or 25mm fibreglass panels will more than suffice with 50mm panels strategically placed at primary early reflection points.
Treating your ceiling
For home cinema systems with atmos technology, ceiling treatment should be omitted as the speakers use the ceiling to create depth in the sound being replicated by the speakers. Ceilings in rooms where non atmos speakers are installed should look to introduce absorption equivalent to about 40% of the ceiling area. Again 30mm panels will suffice complimented by 50mm panels at primary reflection points.
Treating your floors
Avoiding hard wooden or reflective surfaces is recommended but where this i not practical then introducing medium pile rugs will help reduce reflections off the floor.
2- Control that bass
Low end rumble in movies is essential in creating an immersive cinema experience. The vibrations of the bass as it fills the room can be used to great effect. However small rooms are not particularly suited to low frequencies. The dimensions and characteristics of the room in many cases interact with sound waves creating standing waves. These waves can be more dominant than sound waves being created by your speakers, which can result in;
Muddy low ends when listening to music or rumbles that aren’t as deep as the sound designer and producer intended them to be.
Excessive boom in your room, creating points where the bass is reinforced and others where it is cancelled out. This excessive boom is created by the presence of bass modes which can degrade your listening experience.
Issues with bass propagation to neighbouring spaces and rooms causing unnecessary disturbance to occupants of neighbouring rooms.
Introducing bass traps into your home listening space will help soak up the energy of these low end modes creating a much more accurate and pleasant listening experience.
The choice of bass traps one goes for will depend on among other things budget, space and decor. At the cheaper end of the bass trap spectrum are acoustic foam bass traps and corner kits which work well and have the added advantage of being easy to mount and available in various profiles. The down side of most foam solutions is, colour options are limited and the dark grey foam creates a studio like feel in rooms which is an issue in multi-use spaces.
Fabric covered fibre glass or mineral wool bass traps perform better and are more expensive, however, offer the user a choice of colours of the fabric which can be used to complement or match existing decor. Bass traps of up 100mm thick will suffice with typical lengths of between 900 and 1200mm.
Placement of bass traps
It is a well know fact that bass energy builds up at points where two or more significant surfaces meet. The significance here being in relation to the wavelength of the bass frequencies. As such bass build up happens in corners and edges of rooms. It is important to install bass traps in or as close as possible to corners first and then work your way along the vertical and horizontal edges of the room.
Quantity of bass traps
Whatever option you choose the idea is to try and get as many bass traps into your corners and edges as are required to improve the low end in your room.
It has been said you can never over bass trap a room and this holds true for most home cinemas especially if your bass traps are concentrated at the points of maximum bass build up i.e. corners and edges.
3- Diffuse your sound
Diffusers are acoustic treatment elements that scatter sound waves that are incident on them. This has the opposite effect of absorbers in that, instead of absorbing the sound and converting it into heat energy and reduce the overall sound energy in a room. Diffusers on the other hand scatter incident sound waves reducing their significance whilst maintaining the overall sound energy in a room. Diffusers have an acoustic effect of broadening sound out creating an acoustic effect of spaces that are larger than they actually are.
Scatter plates may be combined absorption cores to create a diffuser that absorbs and scatters sound. These diffusers work really well in small spaces where both effects are desirable.
Placement of diffusers
Diffusers work best at their optimum listening distances however in our experience we have found that our diffuserflex panels are best placed in areas where the reflective surface is less than a meter away from the listener. This creates a spread of sound around the listener transforming they listening experience when compared to having absorption or no treatment on these surfaces.
Some diffuser panels can also be straddled across vertical corners, where the air gap between the panel and the corner lowers the frequency at which they start to be effective acting as bass traps.
Quantity of diffuser panels
Once the surfaces closest to the listening position have been identified a run of diffuser panels placed just above listening height or above the height of seating will suffice. If used as bass traps a vertical run from floor to ceiling works well. If used to treat early reflection points it is important to maintain symmetry in the room with panels on the left mirrored on the right.
Aesthetics
A final word on acoustic treatment of home cinemas. It is important to note that a room that is optimally treated is a listening paradise however if done post build or retrospectively this comes at the cost of aesthetics in the room. Acoustic treatment can look clunky and industrial. The user will have to strike a balance between quality of sound in their home cinema and aesthetics, working to balance the two especially in multi use spaces.
If you are fortunate to be at the stage of embarking on building or converting a space into a home cinema then many solutions can be incorporated into the build. Bass traps, absorption panels and even speakers can be mounted flush with your walls introducing optimum acoustic treatment without intruding on the aesthetics and decor of your room.
If you would like to see how our acoustic treatment can be incorporated into your build project fill out the form below and we will be only too happy to help you.
Scout huts and activity spaces that are poorly treated suffer from long reverberation times, flutter echoes and excessive reflections which impact on the audibility and clarity of any vocal information to be conveyed, whilst multiplying the noise levels from occupants in the room.
The typical nature of the interior of these buildings namely, plasterboard ceilings either peaked or flat, plain walls and easy to clean vinyl or laminate floors, provide the perfect environment for soundwaves to bounce around creating a harsh listening environment.
This environment impacts on the experience of the scouts, in particular children with special needs due to the degradation in the clarity of voices of those speaking, when projected across the room.
Over the last 10 years we have built a reputation as a trusted provider of practical and functional acoustic treatment products that help improve sound quality in scout facilities right across the UK.
We are offering you a free virtual survey to understand the acoustical challenges you are facing and run through some of the options we can provide.
If you would like any help improving the acoustics in any of your rooms, please click on the link below and let’s get you on your way to improving your building acoustics.
Our go to solution which is fire rated for public installations and offers high acoustic sound dampening and absorption are our melaflex acoustic panels.
Give us a call today on 01442 899 296 and let us take the headache out of the acoustics in your scout's hut.
Our Melaflex acoustic panels and baffles are;
• Cost effective compared to traditional cloth covered fibreglass panels
• Extremely light and won't affect load bearing of ceilings they are mounted on
• Are easy to install in-house with supplied adhesive and fittings
• Fire rated to the highest standard to comply with UK building regulations
• Offer excellent absorption across the entire frequency spectrum
• Availalble in brilliant white which won't discolour over time
• Can be cut into stunning 3 D shapes for bespoke requirements stc
• Fibre free resulting in a cleaner workspace due to no fibres escaping from the panels
Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Autism in short is a complex, lifelong developmental disability that typically appears during early childhood and can impact a person's social skills, communication, relationships, and self-regulation.
Going by the name it is clear that there are a number of ways that autism manifests itself in children with some being oversensitive (hyper sensitive) and others being under sensitive (hypo sensitive) to various sensory stimuli around including sound.
]]>Going by the name it is clear that there are a number of ways that autism manifests itself in children with some being oversensitive (hyper sensitive) and others being under sensitive (hypo sensitive) to various sensory stimuli around including sound.
From the work we have done with special needs schools it is clear that there is an important role that acoustic treatment plays in helping children who are over sensitive to sound. While acoustic treatment may not stop the sounds entering or leaving a room the absorption of sound that is resonant in spaces can go some way in making children feel safer and improve their overall wellbeing.
In the home your autistic child may for example avoid going to the kitchen or entering the hallway simply because of the excessive stimulation they get from these rooms, which are generally very bright and reverberant. Modern interior decor with laminated flooring, bare walls and minimalistic furnishings can further exacerbate the situation for anyone who is hyper sensitive to sound. Creating an environment that is both uncomfortable and unpleasant.
There are simple solutions which could include using noise cancelling ear phones, ear plugs or ear defenders to block out excessive noise. However, anyone who has used these knows how cumbersome it is to have to wear this as you go about your day, and that’s for adults leave alone children. Furthermore these solutions aren’t necessarily socially friendly with the user being cut off from those around them reducing their social interaction and thereby creating even more issues.
A more practical solution is to acoustically treat spaces that are regularly used to reduce the resonance and reflection of sound waves, creating spaces that feel quieter and cosy. Where cost is an issue treating a room which can be used as a calming space can help deal with the constant auditory over stimulation around the house.
Acoustic treatment may take many forms including using simple soft furnishing, carpets, rugs and curtains however these can only go so far in improving the acoustics of a room. In most acoustically bright rooms the biggest culprit is the ceiling, with high ceilings multiplying the issue several fold.
The use of purpose design acoustic materials such our Melaflex acoustic panels which are easily mounted onto ceilings and walls will significantly improve the absorption of reflected sound waves creating spaces in any room making the spaces much more pleasant for anyone with hyper sensitivity to sound.
Melaflex foam lends itself well to indoor use for a number of reasons namely;
I hope this article gives you some practical guidance on how you can make your home a better living space for your loved ones. If you would like any help with any of our acoustic solutions please give us a call on 01442 899 294 and we will be only too happy to help.
Acoustic treatment FAQs
How much acoustic treatment will I need?
This depends on the size of the bare surfaces you have in your living space. Typically absorption of 30% will make a marked improvement in the acoustics of your living space with every additional bit of treatment improving further the acoustics.
Where should I place the acoustic treatment?
Because of the unique properties of melamine foam it can be punctured by curious hands we recommend installing the panels on the ceiling and above door height this will ensure the panels are out of reach of anyone curious enough to try and investigate the panels which could damage the panels.
Does the white foam get discoloured?
No Melamine foam will retain its bright white colour for years unlike polyurethane foam which starts to brown in days as it starts to oxidise when exposed to sunlight resulting in unsightly looking yellowish foam.
How should I clean the panels once installed
Melamine foam panels are simple to clean with a duster or lightly vacuumed over. Care should be taken not to brush hard against the panels as this can result in the structure getting damaged.
]]>Carpet spray adhesive although cheaper doesn’t have the adhesion, tackiness and webbing to enable it mount foam panels permanently onto walls and ceilings. This is because carpet spray adhesive is designed to work with gravity not against it. Tiles are sprayed and the weight of the tile plus that of people walking over the carpets or objects resting on them, keeps the tiles in place.
Mounting foam panels however on vertical walls and ceilings requires a purpose made adhesive that has the right adhesion and is able to sit on the foam surface and not get soaked in. The right combination of these very exacting characteristics make ATAC Heavy Duty spray adhesive the ultimate choice for permanent mounting of foam panels on walls and ceilings.
ATAC spray adhesive has been manufactured to high quality standards to ensure you get a quick, clean and effective bond on your acoustic foam. This spray adhesive is ideal for use on both polyurethane polyether and polyester foams.
ATAC spray discharges in a thick webbed stream allowing the adhesive to coat the foam panel and not get soaked into the foam. The heavy duty formulation of ensures that once parts to be mounted are bonded they remain in place.
ATAC spray is specially formulated to ensure it does not distort or shrink the acoustic foam it is applied to which would happen using other non specialist spray adhesives.
This spray adhesive will bond acoustic foam to wood, chipboard, plasterboard, metal and furniture.
Producing vocal content in a space or room that is not effectively acoustically treated can result in poor quality audio being captured which in turn affects the professionalism of any audio content being created. In a world where first impressions matter it is important that your audio content hits the spot in terms of clarity and quality.
Many voice over artists will have a fairly good idea of the gear they require to start recording from home. Microphones, monitors and sound cards have come down in price that you can get a starter kit for a few hundred pounds which will have good response curves and should create good sound.
Investing in high quality gear
When audio equipment is designed, manufacturers spend a lot of time measuring the response across the frequency spectrum. Professional equipment is designed to accurately capture or replay sound that is being produced without distorting in any way or form. The closer the equipment is in reproducing the audio captured the higher the quality and hence price.
Audio equipment is tested in multi million dollar facilities with anechoic chambers and suspended floors. Speakers are placed on solid plinths to ensure that the surface they are resting on doesn’t colour the sound produced.
Unfortunately these test conditions are far from the typical listening or recording space. So a microphone with the flattest response rate in a test facility could sound mediocre in a room that is not sufficiently treated.
Using acoustic treatment to improve your sound quality
The best way to tackle sound quality in voice over recordings is by considering the influence your room has on the sound you capture. The sound that is recorded by your microphone consists of a combination of sound waves hitting the microphone directly as you speak and reflections, echoes and reverberations of sound waves that have bounced off walls and flat reflective surfaces of the room you are in. This resultant sound is what is captured and converted into a digital signal ready for processing in your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).
In order to reduce the influence of the space you are recording in on your content, every attempt has to be made to negate the effect of reflective surfaces around your recording space. Introducing acoustic treatment is the quickest and easiest way to do this.
Acoustic foam for Vocal Booths
There are a number of materials that are used for acoustic treatment however acoustic foam is by fat the most popular for a number of reasons.
Finally and most importantly,
Acoustic panels or bass traps or both
As mentioned above, the frequency range of vocals means that panels of suitable thickness and density should be sufficient in improving the quality of vocals being captured. There is absolutely no need to purchase bass traps, diffuser panels or fibre glass panels when recording vocals. The traps would only use up space that would be better used for panels at a cheaper cost.
The ideal vocal recording space
If you are recording vocals for voice overs, jingles and narration you almost certainly want to deaden your vocal recording space as much as possible. We would recommend 100% deadening for recording vocals. Digital effects such as phasing, echo and reverb can then be applied “in the box” once the audio has been captured.
Completely deadening your room will ensure you have a great audio recording to start with on which to carry out your post capture editing.
Care should be taken to take into account the deadness of the room if you decide to carry out your mixing in the room as the deadened surfaces will almost certainly result in a mix that is not portable and will be distorted when played on different players/speakers in the typical untreated room.
For vocal booths, the patterns on the tiles are mainly an aesthetic choice as is the arrangement of tiles when placed on the walls or ceilings. All the acoustic tiles in our voice over studios section will work well, with thicker tiles giving greater absorption.
Portable adjustable acoustic filters for voice over artists and podcasters
If you are stuck for a dedicated room to acoustically treat of are looking for a solution to use when you have to travel to meet guests then a portable acoustical screen or set of screens will work well.
The flexisorb acoustical isolation filter and privacy screen is one such screen designed to sit on your table top and wrap around your recording equipment, be it a laptop, workstation or microphone. By adjusting the wrap around your device you can vary the acoustics in the area immediately surrounding the microphone, resulting in content that is comparable to that produced in sound deadened rooms.
The isolation wraps have another advantage over box type filters in that you don’t have to fiddle trying to get your head into a box and does away with the otherwise unwanted boxy effect that a box creates which colours the sound you are capturing.
That's just about it on acoustic treatment for voice over artists. There is obviously a lot more to take into account but I hope by the end of this article you can tick off one thing that needs to be sorted to get that professional sound audio content.
]]>Acoustic foam has become the treatment material of choice for many home music producers for a number of reasons however the top three reasons are;
Broadly speaking, there are three types of open cell foam used for acoustic applications. These are, in order of increasing price.
Polyurethane polyether foam
Polyurethane polyether foam has a large range of applications and comes in a variety of densities and colours. Acoustic applications are best suited to densities that are 29kg/m3 and above. Furniture foam converters generally tend to use the 25Kg/m3 foam or less and pass this off as acoustic foam. Whilst this foam may look similar to acoustic grade foam the performance shows that this foam falls below that of higher densities. This is basically down to physics. Although the structure of lower density polyether foams is the same as higher density foams lower density foam doesn’t have enough air pockets to absorb the sound waves impacting on them which reduces the observed performance.
Lower density foam whilst appearing cheaper may cost more in the long run because trying to get equivalent absorption values in your studio will mean purchasing more foam which is probably not a good idea because excess absorption can leave your room sounding flat.
If you are on a tight budget look for polyether foams that have higher densities 29Kg/m3 or greater, are darker coloured as these foams will tend to discolour with time and darker colours age gracefully. Also consider the fire rating UL 94 HF1 is the most stringent acoustic foam fire test and means you are not taking chances in your studio.
Polyurethane polyester
Polyurethane polyester foams are the Rolls Royce of acoustic foams and come at a premium which reflects the performance you can expect from these foams. Professional acoustic foam brands use polyester foams because the performance is guaranteed. Polyester foam is manufactured to very high standards because the applications these foams are used for require only the best foam.
Polyester foam lends its great performance to the greater percentage of open cells meaning more air pockets exist which soak up the energy of sound waves. Polyester foam is manufactured in blocks and tested for air resistance at intervals to ensure that the performance is uniform which ever part of the block is used. This precision led manufacturing process means that polyester foams aren’t riddled with blow holes leaving a shiny aesthetic surface that delivers performance time after time.
Polyester foams provide controlled absorption across the entire spectrum with thicker foams offering effective absorption down to 125Hz right through to the top end of the frequency spectrum. This wide band of performance means polyester foam is the choice for professionals looking to introduce absorption into their studios. Polyester foams take longer to discolour when compared to their polyether counterparts.
Melamine Foam
Whilst not traditionally used in music studios melamine foams are fast gaining recognition as an acoustic treatment option for studio acoustic treatment. Priced higher than polyester and polyether foams melamine foam offers the perfect combination of absorption and light weight.
Melamine foams achieve this extraordinary feat by exhibiting a true 3D filament structure. This structure means that melamine foam doesn’t have any closed cells but rather millions of air chambers which significantly increase its performance in the mid to high frequencies. Although thicker panels will shift the absorption down to the lower end of the spectrum for domestic purposes the cost doesn’t justify the performance.
So where then does melamine foam come in handy? The answer is simple. Firstly the extremely light weight nature of this foam means that melamine foam panels can be stuck on to ceilings of large buildings without any concern of the impact on roof loading. This property means that melamine baffles and blocks are used in large building, factories, gymnasiums, churches and swimming pools.
Secondly melamine foam is available in brilliant white and is the only type of foam which holds its colour without getting discoloured when exposed to UV rays. This lends it well to use for indoor applications where darker coloured tiles would present an aesthetic challenge. Melamine panels are handy for home cinemas and used for treating walls and ceilings at reflection points as well as treating home studios that double up as work offices.
Melamine foam can be cut into a number of shapes although most popular are flat panels with bevelled edges. Melamine comes in standard White, grey and light grey however the white panels may be spray painted using specialist equipment to any colour.
Finally melamine foam is class 0 fire rated which is lends it well to applications where building regulations mean only materials with high fire ratings can be used without impacting on the aesthetic of the room it is applied to. Other foams can be treated to make them class 0 rated but this involves impregnating them with graphite and carbon which results in black sheets. Not exactly the best for indoor use.
Melamine foam however is quite brittle and can easily get damaged so needs to be handled with caution.
I hope this helps you understand what to look out for when you are next shopping around for acoustic foam for your studio. Just remember if it looks like furniture foam and is priced like furniture foam then it most likely is furniture foam.
]]>Perhaps the most frequently encountered challenge faced by the home music producer is a studio which sounds "boomy". Poor acoustics which cause boomy rooms also present problems to the audiophile and the home cinema user and if untreated can create an unpleasant listening environment for the user.
To understand how to treat the boomy rooms it is important to understand what the causes are first and foremost and then proceed to adopt a suitable strategy coupled with acoustic treatment using high quality acoustic foam to tackle this low end frequency phenomenon. Successfully tackling room boom will greatly improve the quality and portability of your audio material.
The boomy sound is created by amplification of waves of various low end frequencies as they reinforce themselves at different points in your room.When these waves fit squarely in your room a standing wave is observed. A collection of frequencies that create standing waves in a room are called modes. The dimensions of your room will have an impact on the nature and frequencies at which these modes occur.Room modes would primarily occur in any plane where there parallel opposing walls as such would occur along the length, width and height of the room. To complicate things a bit more there are tangential and oblique standing waves are created by sound waves bouncing off a combination of walls and ceilings. Standing waves are more an issue in low frequencies because of the higher reverberant energy and the ability of the energy to persist or take longer to decay. Higher frequencies will decay quicker and as such by the time the reflected wave travels back to reinforce the direct or original wave the residual energy of the wave is very low. Higher frequencies however cause echoes and flutter echoes which will be addressed in a seperate article.
It is important to realise that any amount of acoustic treatment will not eliminate the boom created but will definitely go a long way in reducing its impact. As such before venturing out to invest in acoustic treatment we recommend you follow these three simple steps
Make the most of the dimensions of your room. Placement of speaker and mixing position within your room can significantly reduce the significance of unwanted modes in your room. Always aim to have your speakers along the shorter wall in your room such that the speakers are firing the length of your room. Also, space allowing, move your speakers away from any corners and walls. Finally try and maintain symmetry in your layout this will help balance out the sound image you receive. Read our article on basic acoustics to help with your placement.
Ensure your monitors are adequately isolated from the surface they are resting on, this includes monitor stands. Working monitors sitting on a desk will invariably force the desk to resonate at its own natural frequency, this would create unwanted colouration in your room muddying the sound and reducing the quality of the sound in your room.A decent set of Monitor isolation pads placed under each speaker. Good isolation pads should be made of a material that is both flexible enough to absorb energy without suffering compression set and resilient enough to prevent the speaker from swaying when in use.
Addressing placement and isolation can in some cases reduce a significant portion of the issues present in your room. Once you have sorted the placement and isolation you can now start to invest in bass traps to further refine your rooms response. Bass traps come in various shapes, sizes and makes. What ever bass traps you settle for ensure you are getting products that have been adequately tested for absorption. A good indicator is the Weighted absoprtion coefficient and sound absorption class. Aim for Class A as this will guarantee you are getting a product that is effective at sound absorption.
Acoustic Foam Bass traps.
Properly designed acoustic foam bass traps are a very cost effective choice and recommended where ease of flexibility and cost are important. The design and quality of foam play a very important role in the performance of the bass traps.
There are manufacturers out there who will try to make you believe that any type of foam will deliver effective bass frequency absorption. These same foam converters will pass off low density matteress grade foam cut in attractive shapes as bass traps. This is simply not the case! Upholstery foam used by comfy mattress manufacturers and converters is simply not effective in dampening low end frequency sound. What may seem like a cheap deal could ruin the acoustics in your room by providing uneven and excessive absorption.
Genuine acoustic foam suppliers and manufacturers will provide full test data and reports to support the performance of their products. Look out for these and ensure standards followed are recognised standards by appropriately accredited test labs. Otherwise any comparison will only result in comparing apples and oranges.
Adopting these three easy steps will go along way in helping you improve the sound quality in your room. Good luck and please don't hesitate to share with us pictures of your studio/ listening room.
Polyester foam is a high grade acoustic foam that consists of a uniform open cell structure which lends the foam well for use in sound absorption. The millions of air pockets formed by the fine structure of this foam effectively absorb the energy of incident waves reducing the impact of these waves on your sound mix. The speciality nature of this foam means it is not an attractive material for foam converters to stock. Our manufacturers test the air flow resistance of the material used in our eXtreme range to ensure structure is uniform.
Our Hyperflex range of bass traps and panels ismade from polyester foam providing solid performance in your studio, lounge or home cinema. Our unique profile is accurately designed to delivery Deep Bass Controls in the lower sound frequency spectrum.
With a bit of luck on your side you will have a room with one longer side. For purposes of this and other text we shall refer to this side as the length. The shorter wall of your room will be refered to as your width and the distance between the ceiling and the floor will be refered to as the height.
Step one - Deciding where to place your mixing console
Determine which side of your room is the longest side. It is against the walls on one side of this axis that you will place your mixing console desk and chairs.
Step two - Choosing your sweet spot (The point where you will sit to evaluate your music mix)
Now that you have decided where to place your mixing desk we will get on with deciding where your sweet spot will be. This will be the point where you will sit when evaluating your mix during the mixing phase. You may wonder why we have decided to position the chair before accurately placing the mixing table and speakers, this will become clear later.
The sweet spot is an area where the interferance from reflected waves and standing waves in your room are theoretically least therefore allowing you get an accurate image of the sound being produced by your speakers.
The dimensions of your room will almost innevitably have an impact on the nature of standing waves generated in your room. Put simply, standing waves are waves whose frequency is such that half of it's wavelength is the lenth of your studio and whole multiples there of.
Therefore a room of 10m in length will create a standing wave a frequency where by half the wave length of the frequency is equal to the length of the room i.e. a frequency of about 17Khz. The human ear is generally regarded as capable of hearing sound between 20Hz and 20KHz as such this first standing wave will not be heard and for our purposes can be ignored. Reducing the wave length by 1/2 sequenctially gets us to the first standing wave of significance which has a wave length of 5m or frequency of about 68Hz, most of the bass energy of music can be assumed to exist around this frequency. Simplistically put this standing wave, bouncing off the walls of your room will exhibit maximum sound pressure at the following points along the length of your room, 0m, 2.5m,5m, 7.5m 10m or 0L, 0.25L,0.5L,0.75L & 1L where L is the length of your room. Because the wave causes maximum compression and hence maximum sound pressure at these points you should avoid placing your sweet spot at any of these points.
Similarly this standing wave will exhibit minimum sound pressure at the following points 0.125L,0.375L,0.625L & 0.875L you are probably getting the idea by now. Any one of these points is theortically ideal to place your chair however, practically you will need enough space between the wall and your chair to place the mixing desk so that your speakers are at a position equidistant from the wall and your ears. This point is normally at 0.375L. It is highly recommended that, space allowing, this is where you chair is placed.
Step Three- Refining the position of mixing desk ad speakers
You probably figured this out in the previous paragraph, you will need to place your desk so that your speakers are equidistant from you and the wall when you are in your listening position or at your sweet spot. Given that you have placed your chair at 0.375L then your speakers would be placed at 0.1875L along the length of your room.
Step Four - Dealing with early reflections
Early reflections also called primary reflections are reflections that would theoretically reach your ears second quickest after the original sound has hit your ears. These reflections are generally created by sound waves bouncing off the wall on the back of your mixing console, the side walls, the floor and the ceiling. Treating these first reflections adequately will significantly improve the acoustics in your studio and hence the accuracy of your mix.
Now that we know who the culprits are the question is where should you place your acoustic foam panels. It as this point that some keen producers will panic and plaster the entire studio with acoustic foam panels. Poorly planned acoustic treament will instantly deading the sound in your studios by shortening the reverberation time.
The ideal location for your acoustic foam panels would be half the distance between your ears and the speakers. We already know that your speakers are placed at 0.1875L and your sweet spot is at .375L therefore an acoustic foam panel placed at 0.2813L will be slap bang in the middle of your ears and the speakers. An alternative way of determining this position is called the mirror method, where by sitting in your sweet spot you get a friend to hold a mirror against the wall first on the right hand side of your mixing desk and as the mirror is moved towards the back of the room a spot is identified where you can just see the right speaker reflection. This process is repeated on the left hand side to obtain the position of your side panels. The size of the acoustic foam panels is really a matter of choice but we recommend a 3x2 vertical panel of our 12" tiles arranged so that the centre line is on the line that is at the centre of the distance between your ears and the speakers. In chosing what studio foam to use for your treatment be sure to purchase foam that has be tested with accompanying reports.
To deal with early reflections from the ceiling you would need to place a cluster of acoustic foam panels in our case a 3x2 horizontal array along the line joining the centres of the panels on the left and right wall.
This then leaves the front wall. As a minimum a horizontal panel of 3x2 acoustic foam tiles across the back of the mixing console at ear height will suffice however some people may go further and completely deaden the whole back wall, it all depends on how much you have to spend. You can then proceed to place another 3x2 horizontal panel along the back wall. Our 30x studio pack gives you just enough tiles to deal with early reflections in your room.
If you have a bit of cash to spare you can repeat the process for the back of your room mirroring exactly the same positioning at the front with the back however depending on the length of your room this in the first instance isn't absolutely necessary.
Step Five - Dealing with modal points and low frequencies.
Low frequencies generally exist in the sub 500Hz region and a good idea of your room size will enable you better understand what frequencies are going to cause you problems. In our 10m length room we identified 68Hz being the first audible standing wave generated. Any mix created in such a room would almost certainly suffer from amplification at around this frequency and subsequent modes thereof. Unfortunately for us standing waves do not only exist in one plane but in the horizontal, vertical , longitudinal, tangential and oblique planes but for simplicity in our studio setup we will ignore the oblique standing waves and focus on the other three.
Standing waves by their nature exhibit maximum sound pressure (Maximas) at the extreme ends of the room they are generated in, applying this to our room then you would have a high sound pressure level created where two walls meet (edges) and even more where three walls meet (Corners). It is for this reason that bass traps are introduced into corners of the room. The thickness of the bass traps helps absorb some of the modal energy generated by standing waves at the corners as well as distorting the dimensions of the room to affect the formation of standing waves.
Ideally you would want to place bass traps allong all edges top, bottom and sides as well as all corners, however the cost of doing this far outstrips the benefits in completely treating all corners. The minimum you will need is two corner traps for the top/bottom left and top/bottom right and you can proceed to fill out other corners and edges as you get more money.
That's it! Following these steps will go a long way in improving your studio acoustics and once done you should now be ready to mix.
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The manufacturers of aerogels have hailed it as a space age material that is super light and yet posseses superior thermal and acoustic absorption properties compared to acoustic foam. When we first found out about aerogels we too were impressed by the said capabilities of this wonder material. We were intrigued and wondered if this was the future of studio acoustics and acoustic treatment.
A Cabot sales representative of one of the companies that makes the aerogels into wraps even boldly stated.
[blockquote class="{classname}"]…. aerogel absorbs sounds very well and has good impedance match with sound waves so it reflects very little sound. The structure of the Aerogel also creates a torturous path for the sound to travel though it once inside, resulting in a slowing down of the speed of sound from roughly 350 meters per second to around 100 meters per second. This reduction in speed reduces the amplitude of the sound.
The porous structure of aerogel will reduce the transmission of airborne sound waves through either reflection or absorption. Acoustic insulating properties can be particularly notable at lower frequencies (< 500Hz).[/blockquote]
Indeed a wonder substance you would think, so did we! At 200 quid a meter we set about obtaining a sample of this material and had it acoustically tested to prove if this was really the next big thing in acoustic treatment.
We’ve had the results back in and surprise surprise. An 8mm thick blanket of this stuff is pretty much transparent to sound frequencies below 500Hz talk about them being “particularly notable at lower frequencies (<500Hz)” . Even above 500Hz one only starts to see a significant change in absorption coefficient at 5000Hz where the aerogel’s absorption coefficient comes in at a decent .74.
It appears the huge discrepancy between the claimed and actual results is due to the method of converting the substance into a practical useable format. Aerogels are mainly available for sale as granules and wraps. The wrap which is what we tested basically constists of a fine polyester material infused with aerogel granules. The fact that the granules are not tightly packed in the material would theoretically have an effect on the absorption properties observed. Perharps in future solid aerogel panels will be readily available and maybe then would we have an acoustic product that is a practical solution for interior acoustics.
Conclusion
We carried out this test to answer the thousands of questions out there about the performance of aerogels and their application in acoustic treatment products for studios. The results show that if you are looking for a material to absorb high frequencies >5000Hz and have enough money in the bank then this is for you. Otherwise stay clear of the “Hype” (No pun intended) and leave this stuff for thermal insulation which we understand it is even more effective at. If the acoustic properties are anything to go by then we know what this means.
Find out more about aerogels and the nanotechnology used to create them here.