FEATURE ACOUSTICS AND ROOM TREATMENTS Lost Ark Studios
cultural standpoint but the laws of physics mean up to 70dB of isolation, required for silence next door, involves massive walls with large air gaps between. “In a way the role of an acoustic designer is to quantify the need, assess the risk and establish a design process.”
GOING PRE-MADE While professional studio designers often have the ability to opt for specific structural features such as non-parallel walls and special ceiling geometry to alleviate acoustic issues, the amount of home- based producers and engineers working with a more limited budget has led to an increase in pre-made panels, bass traps, and entire sound booths. Companies such as
“The advent of subwoofer
‘enhancement’ is becoming a big issue with multi-room studios with fully floated
rooms and several layers of wall becoming a major design and cost issue,” he says. “Dance music is mixed for a
JON GOMM STUDIO Portable Solutions
ACOUSTIC TREATMENT becomes especially important in small spaces where standing waves can create large humps and dips in the frequency spectrum – an issue GIK Acoustics dealt with when designing treatment for English singer-songwriter Jon Gomm.
Recently described by Acoustic Magazine as one of the world’s most gifted and inspirational guitar players, Gomm creates drum sounds, bass lines, and melodies simultaneously using only an acoustic guitar. For his Leeds-based home studio, Gomm wanted an acoustic solution that was non- permanent but would help alleviate the issues he was facing. “My room is a box,” he explains. “It’s horribly boomy in the low mids, around 200hz. One wall is pretty much entirely double-glazed window, so there’s a nasty treble bounce as well.”
GIK provided a custom design of its Screen Panel, a foldable, multipurpose panel, which, when unfolded, can be used as a vocal booth, placed around drum kits or guitar amps, or to eliminate slap echo from side walls when placed in early reflection points of the room. When folded, the panel behaves like a bass trap when placed straddling corners or mounted on the front wall. It can also be folded into a ‘V’ shape and put on the back wall to help manage low-end peaks and nulls. “It’s transformed the way I work, and transformed the sound of my recordings,” adds Gomm. “And because I can reposition it easily, I can use it when I'm playing guitar which takes up more room, and close it tighter when I'm singing.”
www.jongomm.com
30 October 2013
‘club environment’ so it is often monitored with up to 20dB boost at very low frequencies. That is fine from a
Primacoustics (a division of Radial), GIK Acoustics, VocalBooth, IsoAcoustics, and Studio Spares have been riding the wave of home acoustic treatment and have seen their products being put to use in a multitude of other applications from schools and universities to broadcast, TV, and film facilities. “I think that the biggest
change has been the awareness that acoustic panels actually behave like loudspeakers only in reverse,” explains Peter Janis of Primacoustics. “In other words, if you only have a 2in speaker like the one in your laptop, you cannot expect to have great sound. “This awareness has caused people to realise that low- density foam will only absorb upper mid range and highs which is not suitable for serious music production. Advanced materials such as high-density 6lb glass wool offers a broader and more even absorption across the frequency spectrum.” Janis’ statement is backed by a number of other top manufacturers and suppliers who agree that the amount of freely available education on room treatment has led to an increase in demand for higher- density materials. Richard Venable, general manager of StudioSpares, adds that some of his top selling items are high-density acoustic tiles and
foam tile bundles. Other inventive solutions
include VocalBooth’s modular sound enclosures, which have been used extensively in higher-end home studios and were even sourced by Dolby Laboratories for use as product testing and R&D spaces. First launched at Winter
NAMM 2012, IsoAcoustic’s line of isolation stands for studio monitors are gaining popularity as well. The ISO- L8R series clean up the bass smear and increase clarity by decoupling studio monitors from supporting surfaces and responding to the monitor’s motive forces while also allowing for optimal placement and focus.
THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION Complementing the rise in pre-made acoustic treatment options has been the advent of Digital Room Correction and Analysis Software which can be used either to determine the exact treatment options needed for a room, or as a plug-in for your DAW that adjusts the output from your monitoring system to help create a flat response. IK Multimedia’s ARC
System 2 measures the frequency of a room over a spread of different locations (it lets you take from 7 to 16 different measurements) using a reference microphone and audio test tones. These measurements are then fed into a correction algorithm that can be applied to any mix with the included plug-in, placing it on your DAW master bus. While these programs have been heavily criticised by the acoustic elite (some go as far as to call them ‘smoke and mirrors’), a more accepted application for this technology is room analysis software, which measures the acoustic properties of your space so that manufacturers and suppliers can advise the best option for acoustic treatment. “One of the biggest
developments in recent years has been the increase in software and user guides on
www.audiomedia.com
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