Practice room acoustics.

Jayhell

This is the age old question about acoustically treating a room, but it's not for recording as much as just a general practice room. I'm not too concerned about mixing and mastering as I don't think I can hear the difference much anyway. This is just for a nice little room to crank an amp in, or pound on a drum, slap the bass around without getting to much reflection. Some back ground;

Firstly. I moved into a new house with a small flat at the back (selling point as this will become man my cave aka jam room). The floor is carpeted and the walls are bare. There probably won't be space for a drum kit, but I will be doing my day to day jams and recordings in there. I don't want to burst the bank on acoustics but would still like it to be nice sounding. No need for calculators and getting heavy technical. What would you do?

Secondly. My drummer converted his servant quarters into a practice room for the band. As I understand it's also bare with no carpet. My ears just hurt thinking about it. He plays pretty loud and once the rest of band is added I'm sure it's going to be Hell in there. We will put in a carpet of coarse, but what next? What form of absorption is recommended. Should we build some bass traps?

Any suggestions are welcome.

PeteM

Here's a thread I started some time ago.
http://www.guitarforum.co.za/recordings/my-studio/

It's all about studios but the inexpensive panels that I made can be used for a practice room as well. There is other great info from other posters.

The main thing that you want to do in a practice room is to eliminate standing waves. Carpet the floor, use panels around the room and hang "clouds" from the ceiling. Bass traps can come later if you are experiencing bass boom in the room. Hope this helps.

Jayhell

I actually saw that thread but didn't really read it. So all your panels are Rockwool covered with material. Where can one buy Rockwool?

PeteM

I'm not sure where you can buy rockwool in Jozi but you can use fibreglass (think Pink) instead. I just find rockwool easier to work with.

I have recently come across a ceiling board that is made out of rockwool and coated with a plastic finish, which means you will not need to use fabric for the fnish. I will try to find out who supplies the stuff.