There are a number of permanent acoustic treatment options available to you at the build stage such as filling the gaps between the ceiling beams with rigid fibreglass and covering the ceiling with cloth instead of plaster board, or creating bass traps built into the wall but these options are both more expensive and more time consuming compared to the treatments detailed below.

The overall challenge was to create a great mixing environment with the minimum amount of expenditure, easily removable in the future and yet aesthetically pleasing. Weighing up all of the options we decided to make bass traps, wall mounted absorbers and a diffusor.

The first challenge was finding the materials, most websites dedicated to this subject are based in the US and recommend using Owens Corning 703 / 705 rigid fibre glass. Unfortunately this is not readily available in the UK and it took literally days of research to find a product that matched these specifications. For the acoustic panels Rockwool RWA45, 2″ thick (50mm) and for the bass traps, Rockwool RW5, 4″ thick (100mm). The 45 is fairly easy to get hold of but I had some trouble finding the RW5, eventually tracking some down at Sheffield Insulation. Since then we have also found out that Knauf RS45 and RS100 are equivalent products. Both brands have almost identical properties to Owens Cornering 703 and 705 and Ethan Winer (acoustics expert, see links at the bottom of this page) confirmed that they are more than adequate.

The RWA45 came in at 9 slabs for approximately £20 and the RW5 was around £18 for a pack of only 2 slabs. In order to treat 3 corners in the room we purchased 3 packs of the RW5. Other materials required were muslin (a cheap fabric) to cover both sides of each panel / trap and wood to make the frames, it is cheap enough to pick up a pack of 1″x 2″ for the absorbers and 1″ x 4″ for the bass traps from a common builders merchant such as Wickes. On the tool front only a saw, tape measure and a staple gun are required.

The first step is to Build the frames to the required size.

Next, staple a straight edge of muslin along the back of the frame. Wrap it around the edge of the frame, pull it tight across the front of the panel, wrap it around the opposite edge of the frame and staple at the back again.

You can now drop your measured and cut fibreglass into the frame and pull the muslin tight across the back of it, again stapling along the back edge. If all has gone to plan it should look like this, with all of the staples hidden around the back.

The RW5 and frames for the bass traps look like this.

We used exactly the same procedure to build them, however they are measured to fit tightly between the floor and ceiling when stacked on top of each other.

Next up was the diffusor. The plans for this are here:  www.pmerecords.com/diffusor.cfm

Chris Page, one half of MIDI09, he’s not just a pretty face.…

The studio dimensions are 20′ by 10′ with a height of around 8′. Using the 38% rule http://www.realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm as a starting point for the listening position we placed the speakers to form an equilateral triangle with the listening point, ensuring they were not equidistant from the floor and ceiling. We then fitted the acoustic panels around the listening point to reduce early reflections. They are mounted to the walls leaving a gap of 2″ between the panel and the wall. Using the plan I drew up during the build (see first part of article) it was easy to locate the joists behind the plaster board to ensure a solid fixing.

There is a wall on one side of the listening position and a window on the other but provided a panel is hung on both sides this negates the difference.

The same distance was also maintained when hanging panels from the ceiling.

Next the remaining absorbers were mounted on the wall and ceiling and some of the left over RW5 was used to create a make shift bass trap. Finally the diffusor was mounted using some heavy duty bolts.

Word of warning, the diffusor weighs a ton, so be sure you have fitted it to a strong wall.

When all of the treatment was theoretically in place, measurements were taken with the ETF software to make fine adjustments and finally the ARC system was set up to make any fine equalisation adjustments to the system to ensure the listening point provides the most accurate representation of a mix as possible. The stereo imaging is excellent and the bottom end is very tight.

If you have any questions about either article, please ask. We can save you a lot of time researching and are only to happy to help.

A couple of great sites to check for info are:

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/postlist/Board/24/page/1
http://www.realtraps.com/

Ethan Winer is the genius behind both of these and what he doesn’t know about acoustics isn’t worth knowing. He also has various videos on youtube.