DIY semi-anechoic chamber thoughts & ideas

[ubxf]

http://www.blackbirdstudio.com/#/studios/
studio c looks interesting

 

[zebra50]

Very cool (until a client slips and loses an eye...)

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Excellent article, Rossi. Definitely a notch above all other magazines. Too bad my German is so weak.

 

[zayance]

Funny i have a video with George Massenburg doing a recording of a band inside that room,i think it was posted in brewery, top notch sound, good song too, and nice performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymg5rG16Tns

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Just like 99.9% of these videos, the shooting is a mock-up after all fixes, all edits, overdubs and mixing have been done; well, it may have been actually recorded anywhere.
Nice thing, they didn't pretend too much, as can be seen in the "fooling around" segment. Also note as the cajon player loses his headphone in the middle and has it back at the end...

 

[zayance]

No doubt about the mixing, but still possible, Massenburg nows what he's doing, and even after a lot of takes or fixes, you can still achieve that, i mean performance is what makes the sound, mics and equipment helps it but...., it's a little like those skateboard or surf videos where you only see one trick but not the 2 hours of trying (well for not very good skateboarders but still...), you're right in that sense.
I remember reading somewhere about the recording of the Buena Vista Social Club, that was recorded all at once, and it's pretty obvious when you hear the tracks, no doubt about that, you can tell the difference between live and overdub sometimes, nothing is better than live, you record all the emotion at once, and that's what is called music to my ears....

PS: As for the headphone, totally true, i mean you don't really need that on this situation anyway, well yes you need it but..., everybody is packed all together so...., and the cajon player seems very weird, he's got some weird looking face  , he was maybe drunk on the take, the kitchen seems right next door....

 

[ChuckD]

Here is an interesting DIY chamber article

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article876-page1.html


Chuck

 

[grantlack]

i've treated my 11ftx12ft bedroom with 2ftx4ft roxul mineral wool panels (the exact product escapes me, but i believe it's type IV-B?) and a ceiling of 4" auralex foam for a pretty respectable non-reflective mixing environment.  the panels have a density of 8 lbs/ft^3, which is still in the absorptive range (the denser the better for attenuating low frequencies, but only to a point.  too dense and the surface becomes reflective  :-\.)  a 'room within a room' setup may be overkill for your needs unless there considerably loud sources that you're looking to isolate yourself from, and even these may be difficult to avoid since low frequencies like to pass through just about everything.  i have yet to get my act together and officially test my room, but i've been told by people new to the room that they have the sensation of needing to 'pop' their ears due to the loss of ambient noise.  unscientific result, but satisfying for $1000ish in treatment  ;D.

as far as non-parallel walls are concerned, my extensive digging on the subject has actually brought me back to the mindset of taking a 'box' room and making it the best darn box it can be.  any enclosed space can be expected to exhibit modal ringing in some form.  though irregularly shaped rooms reduce this tendency, the irregularity makes the modes prohibitively difficult to calculate.  at least with parallel walls, the axial modes are fairly straightforward to calculate and attenuate accordingly.

since small rooms will be 'boomy' by nature and this tends to propagate in corners, loading all 12 edges of your 'box' with additional absorption will help.  with semi-rigid paneling, the 90 degree angle can be straddled to provide an air gap behind.  this may or may not be as effective as fully loading the corner space.  i admittedly still have trouble getting rid of the occasional ~125Hz freight truck noise at what i'd estimate as ~40dB, but then again i have a windowed wall that faces a highway... with a loading dock across the street  .

i'll see if i can scare up some pictures when i get home tonight, and if anyone has suggestions on testing i should probably give that a whirl too.  absorptive attenuation can be as easy or as mind-numbingly frustrating as you make it, depending on desired results.

 

[chris319]

http://www.audioxpress.com/reviews/media/tipton3042.pdf

http://www.modalshop.com/Calibration.asp?ID=7