steps for treating a room

[mbc113]

could someone please go through all the steps one should take when trying to treat a room for recording... for both live and dry rooms. i.e. taking acoustic measurements, where to buy materials, how to make acoustic materials yourself, etc.

my situation: it seems that i'm going to be stuck with a room for at least a couple of years, so i might as well put some effort into having it sound good... since right now it sounds like crap. the rooom is only 10 x 20 with fairly high ceilings... so, it's too small for a live room i figure, but it would be nice not make it totally dead in there... any tips?

[DreamwaveMusic]

There is quite a bit of information to discuss here, personally I would recommend getting a book about acoustical treatment. For some simple treatment, using some full frequency absorbtion will help you. You may also want to consider some diffusers to break up the standing waves that can then be absorbed more easily by the absorbtion materials you choose. Auralex makes all of these materials, wish i knew about some good tips on making them yourself, any tips there? diffusers can be just about anything.. just to break up the shape of the room so it is not so squared.

[clineaudio]

Well, there are short answers: Put up fuzz, the more porous the better to absorb. Anything not flat, meaning curves, recessions, "irregular" or "pokey" things (like conventional diffusion panels). Will help.

The reality of it is calculus, and lots of it.

Something to keep in mind: An absorption coefficient of 1 is the most... is that of an open window. In other words, sound enters and doesn't come back. Some auralex, etc comes close to having a coefficient of one at many, or even most frequencies with the best stff. (speech freqs being the most important, of course). But never equal at all frequencies. Specifically, foam can't really absorb low freqs, as a function of their wavelengths, hence the reason bass traps exist.

It's terribly interesting stuff, and also can get terribly heady.