Archon
03-22-2012, 09:02 AM
Title says it all. had to write a how to paper for school and this is what ive gathered from my research. tell me how it is. enjoy(:
If you are a musician, you feel the desire to record your music professionally, but recording studios are very expensive to use. If you want studio quality sound in your recordings and a professional look to the home studio, and have $500 or more to throw around, acoustically treating your home studio with foam is a great option.
To begin this project, you will need the following tools and supplies
Tools: Supplies:
Scissors One-Five Auralex Roominator™ Kits
Paint Respirator 3 Cans of Spray Adhesive
Large Fan Large Comforter
Stereo Two Potted Plants
Measuring Tape Plastic Sheeting
Boxes
Preparing the room for treatment:
To prepare the rom for treatment, begin by taking all furniture, clothes, etc. out of the room and packing it into boxes. Next, lay down as much plastic sheeting as you need to cover the entire floor. After covering the floor, hang a plastic sheet in the doorway so fumes do not escape. Then take the fan, open a window enough so the fan will fit in, and turn the fan on. You are now ready to begin applying foam.
Deciding how much foam you need:
Before applying the foam, measure the surface area of the walls you are soundproofing. Do this by multiplying the length and the width of each individual wall together as you have measured it with the tape measure. Now you need to decide how much of the room you are going to cover. For general recording purposes, it is good to cover about 50% if the room in a checkerboard pattern, and in a vocal recording booth, it is good to cover 100% of the room. This is all personal preference, however. You can test the sound by treating the room with foam, and stopping every few minutes to play a song through your stereo to see how it sounds. When it gets to sounding perfect to your ear, you are done. One Auralex Roominator™ Kit covers 34 square feet of space. You can do the math to decide how many you should buy.
Applying the foam:
Contrary to what many think, this is the easiest part. Open up the boxes, don your paint respirator (this is very important as the fumes from the spray adhesive can harm your lungs), open up the spray glue and spray it directly onto the foam, NOT the wall. This is so you can stick the foam wherever you like, and so you do not accidentally spray too much glue onto the wall. If you spray onto the wall, you the glue can cover more area than the foam, and it leaves nasty looking yellow marks of dried glue on the wall. Place one piece of foam on the wall. To do it in a checkerboard fashion, you will then need to place a piece of foam underneath and to the right of the first piece so that the corners are just barely touching. The next piece of foam will go above and to the right of the second piece, and so on. To cover one hundred percent of the room, simply place all the foam next to each-other on the wall in a fashion that appeals to you. Stop every so often to test how the room sounds. When it sounds good to you, you are done! If the room has windows, cover them with a comforter. Add to plants to the room to get oxygen flow and keep the air in there from getting stale.
Clean up:
Clean-up is fairly easy. Open windows and keep the fan blowing for 24 hours, or the fumes from the spray adhesive will settle and the floor, walls, and everything else in the room will be very sticky. After the fan has run for 24 hours, clean up the plastic, throw away all the trash, and enjoy your new studio!
If you are a musician, you feel the desire to record your music professionally, but recording studios are very expensive to use. If you want studio quality sound in your recordings and a professional look to the home studio, and have $500 or more to throw around, acoustically treating your home studio with foam is a great option.
To begin this project, you will need the following tools and supplies
Tools: Supplies:
Scissors One-Five Auralex Roominator™ Kits
Paint Respirator 3 Cans of Spray Adhesive
Large Fan Large Comforter
Stereo Two Potted Plants
Measuring Tape Plastic Sheeting
Boxes
Preparing the room for treatment:
To prepare the rom for treatment, begin by taking all furniture, clothes, etc. out of the room and packing it into boxes. Next, lay down as much plastic sheeting as you need to cover the entire floor. After covering the floor, hang a plastic sheet in the doorway so fumes do not escape. Then take the fan, open a window enough so the fan will fit in, and turn the fan on. You are now ready to begin applying foam.
Deciding how much foam you need:
Before applying the foam, measure the surface area of the walls you are soundproofing. Do this by multiplying the length and the width of each individual wall together as you have measured it with the tape measure. Now you need to decide how much of the room you are going to cover. For general recording purposes, it is good to cover about 50% if the room in a checkerboard pattern, and in a vocal recording booth, it is good to cover 100% of the room. This is all personal preference, however. You can test the sound by treating the room with foam, and stopping every few minutes to play a song through your stereo to see how it sounds. When it gets to sounding perfect to your ear, you are done. One Auralex Roominator™ Kit covers 34 square feet of space. You can do the math to decide how many you should buy.
Applying the foam:
Contrary to what many think, this is the easiest part. Open up the boxes, don your paint respirator (this is very important as the fumes from the spray adhesive can harm your lungs), open up the spray glue and spray it directly onto the foam, NOT the wall. This is so you can stick the foam wherever you like, and so you do not accidentally spray too much glue onto the wall. If you spray onto the wall, you the glue can cover more area than the foam, and it leaves nasty looking yellow marks of dried glue on the wall. Place one piece of foam on the wall. To do it in a checkerboard fashion, you will then need to place a piece of foam underneath and to the right of the first piece so that the corners are just barely touching. The next piece of foam will go above and to the right of the second piece, and so on. To cover one hundred percent of the room, simply place all the foam next to each-other on the wall in a fashion that appeals to you. Stop every so often to test how the room sounds. When it sounds good to you, you are done! If the room has windows, cover them with a comforter. Add to plants to the room to get oxygen flow and keep the air in there from getting stale.
Clean up:
Clean-up is fairly easy. Open windows and keep the fan blowing for 24 hours, or the fumes from the spray adhesive will settle and the floor, walls, and everything else in the room will be very sticky. After the fan has run for 24 hours, clean up the plastic, throw away all the trash, and enjoy your new studio!