Rockwool (again, sorry)

pinksoir

I really need to treat my room, I can't stand it any more. There is horrible resonance from the bass, especially evident on the frequency around B to B flat. I also want to make a pair of first reflection panels and one for overhead.

The room is 242cm tall by 244cm wide by 525cm ish long. My desk faces the window which is on the shorter (244cm) wall.

What would be the best way to go about this? Should I build floor to ceiling traps? Or is that necessary?

I need to buy rockwool. Anyone know where sells it in Tallaght/Walkinstown/Crumlin? Also, how much does it cost and how long is a roll? I guess I need 6" for the traps and 4" for the panels...

Dead Man Walking

pinksoir wrote: »

I really need to treat my room, I can't stand it any more. There is horrible resonance from the bass, especially evident on the frequency around B to B flat. I also want to make a pair of first reflection panels and one for overhead.

The room is 242cm tall by 244cm wide by 525cm ish long. My desk faces the window which is on the shorter (244cm) wall.

What would be the best way to go about this? Should I build floor to ceiling traps? Or is that necessary?

I need to buy rockwool. Anyone know where sells it in Tallaght/Walkinstown/Crumlin? Also, how much does it cost and how long is a roll? I guess I need 6" for the traps and 4" for the panels...

Hey pinksoir

I just finished treating my room two weeks ago.
Here is what you should be aiming for treatment.
To treat the bass you would want to be covering the four corners from floor to ceiling. You have two options for this when using rockwool. As madtheory has mentioned in other threads you can stack two rolls of rockwool in each corner. Or you can build panels and stack them diagonally in each corner. That is what I did.

I used this vid to make the panels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyYUpkpL0gw

So by treating the corners that will be 8 panels. You will also need to treat your first reflection points, either side of you on the walls and above you on the ceiling. I used the same panels for my side walls but had to buy a separate acoustic foam for the ceiling due to the weight. You could try by making one of the panels without the wood frame for the ceiling and maybe use some sort of netting or material to keep it up there. also I have one panel directly behind me on the back wall. I also am facing the window but luckily I had a spare double mattress which fit snugly in to that area. It works more as a sound proofing measure to keep the sound in than as an absorber

I got my rockwoll from chadwicks. There is one on the greenhills road in walkinstown. You are looking for the RW3 rockwool. They come in packs of 4 at 10cm eack. I think it was about 55 or 60 euro a pack. So 3 packs is 12. They didn't have it in stock when I went in (sandyford) but I was able to pay for it and then drive out to the distributor in Park West on the Nangor road to pick it up.

The price of the wood should be around 20 euro. I got my fabric in murphysheehy just behind the georges arcade in town. It cost me 90 euro for about 16 or 20 meters.

pinksoir

Cool, cheers.

I rang B&Q and they said they were out of stock but that the 200mm stuff (2x100mm) was around 20 quid. He said that a pack would cover 5m2, so that's 2.5m tall x 2m wide if I'm not mistaken, so basically two full hight traps at 244cm (my wall height). Or am I wrong in my calculations?

I think I'll just concentrate on my immediate area for now and not do anything on the back wall as it's not really a problem area with bookcases etc.

How long is the Rockwool you got from Chadwick's? I might get away with just one pack for now if it's long enough...

Dead Man Walking

The slabs I got are 120x60x10cm. 4 to a pack, so one pack would do for 2 corners. Yeah a bookcase, with books, acts as a good sound diffuser due to the different densities of all the books. The panel that I use for the back wall I made a stand for it from some wood so it is 60cm from the ground and 60com from the ceiling, I have it in front of a wardrobe so it is handy to move it when I need to use the wardrobe.
If you are going the route of making the panels make sure that your frames are going to be the right size to fit in snugly between the floor and ceiling. Its a lot easier to shave a bit off a rockwool slab to fit for size than it is to resize the whole panel after you finished making them.

Actually just seen the height of your walls is the same as mine. Just make sure you make right size frame as even a cm over makes life difficult.

pinksoir

Thanks a million. I'll certainly make careful measurements as I go!

Did you make two panels for each corner and stack them or one full height panel? Looking at the measurements of the rockwool you got it could be done either way... it's almost the perfect height for my room but for 4cm. I don't suppose you've any pics of your room with them in?

Dead Man Walking

There is a bit of give with the rockwool, they may be a cm or two bigger. When I was fitting the fabric i pulled it a bit tighter. They should be fine for the size of you wall.
I considered making just the one whole panel like you said. I think I went for the two panel in the end in case i was ever moving it would be easier with the 'half' panels. The result will be the same either way.

I'll try with taking a few photos now and upload them

pinksoir

That's my thinking too. Half size would definitely be easier to fit in the back of the car. I'm renting so won't be here forever...

Looking forward to the pics.

Dead Man Walking

Since my room is so small, I wasn't able to get a full zoom out so the pics are fairly ropey I brought the separate panel I made a stand for into the other room for a better shot.

pinksoir

They look great. Good job! Looks like you have a similar situation as me with the window.

Thanks for that, really helps me visualise what I've to do. They certainly don't look too difficult/involved to put together. Have you found they make much of a difference?

Dead Man Walking

Well the window in the pic is from the room next door. I just took the panel in there for a clearer shot. In my studio room the kinky leopard rug is covering a mattress which is blocking the window to the garden. The window is facing me as i sit in front of my monitors. Its best to have the monitors facing towards the longest side of your room. That is, facing your monitors, the two walls to your left and right are longer than the walls in front and behind you.

I noticed a huge difference, especially when i put up the first reflection points. Before you treat your room, listen a lot as you clap your hands in different parts of the room. you will hear the sound coming back off the walls. Once I put up the two side panels there was a huge difference. Because I hadn't put anything on the ceiling when I moved forward and clapped my hands between my desk and the ceiling above I was still getting echos. Once I put the pyramid foam on the ceiling that was gone.
It is actually surreal now when I talk in the room I can just hear my voice right in front of my face. Anyone that comes into the room notices this straight away.

pinksoir

Good stuff. That's exactly what I need, a nice dead room.

pinksoir

Consequently, where did you get your foam from?

Dead Man Walking

I got it from thoman. Its just cheap stuff for 20 euro. Probably would have been better if I had of found a way of getting another panel up there. But noticed a big difference on the high end of a clap once i put it up.

http://www.thomann.de/ie/the_takustik_sap80_pyramidenschaum.htm

pinksoir

Ah, good stuff.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

note :

if your voice just dies in front of your face then the room is TOO dead

you need to have SOME reflection , = a little bit of liveleiness as most people do not listen in totaally deadrooms

you will find your upper mids and top end is too absorbed and your mixes will suffer.

i had to pull out alot of absorbers due to this ,

ie i have no cloud , a have a more relective back wall etc - take it from me - dont go fully dead.

Dead Man Walking

hey Dadumtish

So would you recommend taking down the cloud? before I put it up I was still getting some, what I can only describe as, mechanical reverb, at the front half of my room where I sit. The back absorber I have is on a stand so it is handy enough to take in and out. The back wall of the room is wardrobe doors.

When I clap in the room now I don't get any 'bouncing' reverb, but the clap doesn't seem to just die as much as my voice would. my voice doest seem to travel more than 18inches, but thats just eyeballing it from my ears :eek::pac:

Tbh listening on my monitors to music I know the last few days I've been pretty happy with the sound. It does seem more localized to the monitors than from before.

I'm going to try the whole REW test over the next few days if I can figure out how to do it.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

if it sounds choked / dead or like thier is no life in the room - its too much .

you need to hear some bit of life .

pinksoir

Cool. I'm gonna just try the bass traps and the first reflections absorbers first. I may use foam instead of rockwool for the FRs though. I found this dude on ebay, any opinions on the stuff he's selling?

http://stores.ebay.ie/Hyped-Up-Acoustics?_trksid=p4340.l2563

Cheers for your help dudes.

CrimsonSounds

I have a combination of GIK and self build traps - about 20 in total with custom corner traps aswell. The GIK use the Owens Corning 705 and 703. It's very costly to get the Owens Corning in Europe, and as a result rockwool is called the "owens corning equivalent". Rockwool comes in the RW3 and RW5 variety - I think it's 50kg per cubic Metre, and 100kg for the RW5. IrishInsulation in the Parkwest does the sheets of RW3 for around 95 quid for 24 slabs. When you do the maths, get some studs and screws from B&Q, and get some cotton fabrics in IKEA, with a staple gun you can make a bunch of traps for surprisingly small costs. The GIK traps are heavier than my self build ones - though the design inside is ultimately the same. The RW3/703 obviously have density property differences. http://www.irishinsulations.ie/inside.asp?sectionid=16

boo3000

I'd strongly recommend reading these two papers on building bass traps, they give very clear instructions on building traps as well as a great insight to the theory.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1992-11.pdf

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1992-10.pdf

PaulBrewer

The BBC stuff is great .