ACOUSTICA THE MUSIC ROOM FULL
ACOUSTICA THE MUSIC ROOM TRIAL

The CD rack, meanwhile, may have seen better days, but like the bookcase, it makes an excellent cheap diffusion device. Obviously, given that they come in all different shapes and sizes, results may be variable, but if you just want to introduce some extra spread in an empty room, don’t rule them out.

The average bookcase is a natural diffuser, with its combination of vertical items (books, CDs and so on) and the horizontal shelves themselves. Add a few people and they’re even better! In a home environment, a strategically placed sofa or two can help tame low frequency modes. Sofas, often found at the back of studio control rooms, can serve a useful function acting as bass traps. However, in your own studio, you’ll probably already have some very useful items, and it may be simply a case of repositioning them or using them in the correct way. (Image credit: Future) Cheaper, home solutionsĪcoustic treatment is big business, not least because all sorts of open spaces, offices, factories and workplaces are required to meet guidelines. Obviously in a live space things become a bit more flexible, but the same principles apply. Diffusers can be used in any remaining gaps. For bass traps, the corners (both top and bottom) are a good starting point. Typically, in a listening room you’d put broadband absorbers on the walls either side of and behind the listening position. Positioning treatment panels is a combination of practicality, purpose and science (and has been the cause of more than a few headaches). However, there are plenty of easily installed and cheap options available. To be fair, you’re unlikely to worry as much about diffusers, purely because they may have a less significant impact than a few strategically placed bass traps. These can help small spaces sound less claustrophobic. Thankfully, lots of manufacturers now make all sorts of panels and some can be quite affordable - and if you can't come up with the cash, you can always make your own.ĭiffusers are another treatment option. You may also come across far more specific devices, such as the Helmholtz Resonator, designed to remove a very narrow frequency band. Typically you’ll encounter broadband panels (which cope with low mid frequencies upwards) and bass traps (low frequencies specifically).

So as a compromise, we have to use panels that suit some frequencies better than others.ġ3 ways to improve your home studio's acoustics and make it sound better

ACOUSTICA THE MUSIC ROOM FULL

Unfortunately, producing a panel that can successfully (and evenly) absorb frequencies across a full frequency spectrum is impossible. Without a doubt, the most significant device you can add to a space is the absorption panel. But empowering though that undoubtedly is, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, so here’s some practical advice for treating your own space.

ACOUSTICA THE MUSIC ROOM TRIAL

What this inevitably means is that there’s plenty of room for trial and error and making it up as you go along. Theory is one thing, but we all know that in practice we can produce music in even the most unusual spaces. It’s the combination of these reflections that gives a space its acoustic character, and this can vary from amazing (a church) to pretty unpleasant (a tiled bathroom). Early reflections could arrive around the same time as the direct sound, sounding like a bunch of quick short delays, while others may be far more scrambled or diffused with a much longer ‘feedback’ (reverberant field). The problem is, our ears (as well as microphones) will ‘hear’ a sound source directly, and from a number of these reflections.

When it hits a surface, some of the sound energy is lost through a process of absorption (and typically converted to heat and vibration), but most of it is reflected, so that it continues its journey until it hits another surface.

So far so good, but things are complicated by the way the sound travels around a room. Average human hearing is limited to frequencies in the range 20Hz to 20kHz, but instruments and recording gear can easily operate beyond these limits. Just as with other nerve stimuli, the brain then interprets that information (eg, ‘that’s not in tune’). When you ‘hear’ the wave, it vibrates your eardrum, and this is transferred via the middle ear to the cochlea and then the auditory nerve. The wave itself has typical wave-like properties, including amplitude (loudness) and frequency (pitch). Without this (in a vacuum) it won’t get very far, and as you probably already know, in space, no one can hear you scream. A sound wave is simultaneously a longitudinal and compression wave and it needs some kind of medium to travel in, such as air or water.

Acoustica the music room