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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Baffling
  • Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 13:32:12 -0500

The basic trick/rule of thumb is that the compressed fiberglass absorbs sound such that frequency is an inverse function of thickness -- so a couple of inches is only good down to, I dunno, 500 hz or something (that's a random number I pulled out of my head) and then the thicker you go, the better it is at lower freqs, although the benefit tapers dramatically as you head below 100hz. (There are data sheets & tables of this info on the www, including some good ones buried somewhere on the Corning website. Try searching rec.audio.pro via google groups as well.)

So if you're primarily concerned about flutter echoes or the ungood kind of "roomyness" in your vocal tracks, you might do fine just making a couple of soft pillows with maybe 3 sheets (roughly 6 inches) of the compressed fiberglass board & hanging them where you need them. Or you might find that some of those reflections are coming from someplace you didn't expect (like the ceiling), but that's OK as you can move the pillows around.

Or you might get better bang for the buck by just standing further away from the wall ;-)

Or, depending on the frequency of the reflections, you might could just hang a blanket about a foot out from the wall behind you. This is one area where you can experiment all day long, since all you need is time & yourself to do the singing.

Good luck,

Ross

Baby Messy wrote:
This is great. Thank you. I think this might even be more elaborate than I require. I was going to see if I could build or attain two panels that I could put behind me when i record vocals (the main reason for this new and aching need) but these are good guts.



grady wrote:
Hmm, yeah, I think that's where I got mine as well. There are a ton of plans floating around on the web; the ones I used, which I can't currently locate, essentially have you build a big box (depending on the size of your walls, maybe 4x6 feet, as it's easiest to use multiples of the 2x4' fiberglass pieces) ~ 6" deep out of plywood (that is, plywood on the "skinny" sides, so the 4x6 foot faces are open). Staple chickenwire on one of the open sides. Load in your compressed fiberglass, and then staple chickenwire on the other open side to hold it all in place. Cover with a loose-weave burlap (or you can go with a tighter weave, like maybe those t-shirt-fabric bedsheets, and then do burlap over that, if you're worried about little fiberglass particles floating around). Screw some diagonals on the back to keep it from flopping around, and then hang the whole thing on the wall.

I have 3 of these on the walls, plus I wound up sewing the excess fiberglass boards into big fabric bags & then suspending them from the ceiling. Our room wound up deader than one might like, but that's primarily because it's so small that I can't afford to have it any live-er than it is. Either way, I didn't spend much money at all on the whole project, so you can always buy/build as much or more than you need & then not use some of it.

The other thing I built that I use all the time & really like are some small-ish (maybe 3'x4') floorstanding dividers. I got some 1x2s, some quarter-round molding, some sheetrock, some more chickenwire, some regular pink-stuff fiberglass, and some fabric. I built frames out of the 1x2s, nailed in quarter-round on all four inner faces so that the round side faces out & the flat is about 1/3rd of the way in. Lay in a sheet of sheetrock cut to fit the frame, then nail in more quarter-round to hold it securely in place. Lay some pink-stuff fiberglass down and then staple chickenwire across it to hold it in place. Cover the whole thing with fabric. Before I assembled mine I also cut some 1x2 "feet" and bolted them on 2 of the faces so that I can stand them up longway or tall-way.

These work great for just-enough-isolation to keep one amp from bleeding into another's mic. The sheetrock is dense enough to stop the mids, and the fiberglass knocks down the highs. And they're small/thin enough that I can slide them behind some furniture when they're not in use.

Of course, if you don't intend to ever record more than one instrument at a time, they'd be less useful.

Ross

david gourley wrote:
Baby Messy <bilboa AT baggins.con> put forth the notion in...news:45846a4b$0
$4919$4c368faf AT roadrunner.com:

Does anyone local sell baffling for, say, home recording? Or is there a better way?





gilbertneal.net
Specialty Products on Sunrise Ave. in Raleigh has the Manville equivalent to the Corning 703 rigid fiberglass, if you're building anything.
I got 2' x 4' pieces from there at about $8 /sheet.

david
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