Soundproofing...

Egg cartons will deaden a certain amount of echo, so will heavy curtains and they look better. Crumpled up bank-notes would probably do in any other country than Oz. You have plastic currency, not paper, so it may just transmit sound, without much deadening effect.

Soundproofing, on the other hand is not cheap stuff to buy, as you've already found out.

Killing echo is relatively (note that relatively!) easy compared to truly effective soundproofing. Which are you trying to do? True soundproofing -- esp to eliminate bass frequencies getting in/out -- requires double walls and floating floors separated by insulation. That stuff you put on the walls is mostly for echo absorbsion, not soundproofing.

EGG CARTONS
ROFLMAO!

That's an old wives tale. Egg cartons don't lessen anything other than the value of your property. There's egg carton foam though. Just make sure you're getting the densest foam you can get. Mattress foam doesn't cut it. You could make your own sound treatment with dense rigid fibreglass some wood and cloth but it may end up being more expensive than buying your treatment. Depending on how much you need of course.

Auralex has some good packages for small studios. This is for room treatment though and not for soundproofing. You could probably find a decent package for $500. I would do some research though. Placing these things takes a bit of uh.......math. There are some online calculators out there somewhere.

Though good room treatment is important, I think it's even more important to get decent near field monitors. Unless there is a blatant problem in the room like flutter echo or a noticeable mid boost or "suck" that is affecting your recordings, a good set of monitors will probably help you to improve your mixes. Room treatment can also cause as many problems as it solves. It's a careful balance between too dead or too live. You might also unwittingly create a frequency "hole". Which might cause you to add more mid than you need. So just make sure you get it all sorted out first before you apply the glue.

I should clarify myself as I don't want to offend anyone here. Egg cartons is an old myth that someone must have conjured from seeing egg carton foam in pictures of studios. I fell for this voodoo once. In fact I had plans to "soundproof" an entire garage with the stuff. I "had a line" on a stash of egg cartons(of course this was ALL my idea). We ran into several problems.

1: The stuff is a royal pain to put up without really quick drying glue(We used staples. You can imagine what kind of nightmare that was.)
2: The stuff is utterly useless as soundproofing and equally as useless for room treatment.
3: The stuff is a royal pain to get off the walls.

It's just one of those things you look back and laugh about.

To properly sound proof a room is very involved, very expensive and eats up a lot of the available space so forget anything that's not a large room. If all you want to do is cut the sound down a bit by sticking something on the walls then don't go spending a lot of money. Just think heavy and dense. If you don't want to take away too much space then a couple of layers of plasterboard with a small air gap behind and round the edges with minimal fixings to the wall will probably do just as well as anything you can buy for $120 per metre, maybe even better.

In short, unless you have plenty of space, expert advice and a load of money then be careful when you read the hype about any material that is supposed to keep sound out.

To properly sound proof a room is very involved, very expensive and eats up a lot of the available space so forget anything that's not a large room. If all you want to do is cut the sound down a bit by sticking something on the walls then don't go spending a lot of money. Just think heavy and dense. If you don't want to take away too much space then a couple of layers of plasterboard with a small air gap behind and round the edges with minimal fixings to the wall will probably do just as well as anything you can buy for $120 per metre, maybe even better.

In short, unless you have plenty of space, expert advice and a load of money then be careful when you read the hype about any material that is supposed to keep sound out.

Yep...space/advice/"el banco" are all lined up in a row. Two acoustical engineers have designed the project. I got the list of materials so I'm shopping for them, myself...so I can mitigate the overall costs involved (Ha!)...since me (and the carpenter-type-dude down the road from me)...can do the actual hammer swingin'.

I started with a mid-sized 3BR home...we're in the midst of gutting the BRs...and are soon up to "second walling" the interior of two of the BRs. The house has high-sloping ceilings along the centreline so that's where the arch's put the drum isolation riser, etc. We're also stretching the overall length of the building by another 4 metres. The rest of the house isl getting a modernised kitchen, new bathroom facilities, and one sleeper room with a bathroom in it that's for the engineer's quarters seeing we're off the beaten path...

I'm looking forward to the hot tub and wet bar out on the verandah. Two cabins are going up for just accomodation...with monitors fed into them.

Biggest PITA I've attempted in a long time! ESPECIALLY the roof! Geez, it rains about every other day (rainforest=duh!) so we have to put up the whole roof OVER the existing one. Roof first...now THAT's a new one on me!

THANX for all the input, everyone...but I've reconcilled myself to "just bite the bullit and pay for the stuff"!

Cat

I'm Jealous!! :)

Nice one Cat, good luck with the project. If you need any advice on the way then here's a helpful forum with expert advice.

http://forum.studiotips.com

And if you can stomach a very long and heavy going read then check out paul's build diary, he converts his garage and logs his progress with some pics. http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?t=107

8)

I'm a little jealous myself. Not jealous of getting into debt for it though. That guy at Studiotips did a pretty amazing job. Not so sure about his computer box though. It looks like a heat box. He did end up covering the fibreglass right? I guess he hadn't posted those pics yet.

Edit: Nevermind. I see that he has covered the fiberglass. Amazing how that two car garage got small real quick.

I went 'round and 'round with the idea of "something simple in the spare room" or Whole Hog. The main decision (YES, the bank bit is the scariest) was the money. We own the property...and it came with two houses (both need the attentions of a bulldozer)...so the major costings (structure and land) are a moot point. Our decision (bear in mind...there's a Mrs Cat!) was out of our hands seeing as "the bank" was the factor we were unsure of. $300K is what we see as fitting out the building and getting the first equipment in and set up...but this skips things like the cabins and hot tub for the time being.

We provided projections to the bank and they're happy with them. Our current income was good enough for the loan but we were paranoid of mortgaging "a dud idea". So...since I already derive an income from using someone ELSE's studio...it was easy enough for my accountant to show the bank how "our own facilities will amotise costs". We're looking for In = Out as far as it being worthwhile. Now...the bank is okay with the idea of mortgaging the bit of land with the bizz on it rather than the whole of the place where we hang our hats...if ya know what I mean?

The Plan!

Great facilities and a great place to come and stay for the artist and associated families. Horses, bushwalking, garden food, total seclusion...all 20 minutes away from the nicest beaches IN THE WORLD.(No kidding...nobody can fault Aussie beaches!) On full call...EVEN at 2/3/4 am is a fully qualified engineer. (My oldest kid is into his Bach in Digital Recording Engineering... http://www.myspace.com/vprojekt...so Mrs Cat's keen on the idea of having "her boy" around again.)

In case you're wondering...the way to keep an income "coming in" isn't too difficult, either. If you can completely "do" a jingle for someone BEFORE they are even asked if their company needs one...they either jump on it or show you the door. If they don't like it...no sweat...you just re-do the voice overs and hit a new bizz. You will GO BROKE if you have to outsource the facilities...but it's eminently feasible in your own studio. Besides, I'd say maybe 10% of the jingles I do flog have the client (or family...or girlfriend) on it somewhere. I'm guessing that they'd LOVE to park themselves out here for a long weekend...have fun...and leave with the jingle...ALL a tax deduction, too! (And...hey...I have deals cooked with all the radio and tv ad depts to let ME onsell the airslots!)

This is certainly the LONG way 'round what it is I want to do. If the mood takes me...I want to saunter in a nice studio at any hour...in my underwear...and doooo what the foooo I want tooo!

Cat

By the way Lee, thanks for that great link. That has to be the most comprehensive web site have ever seen on acoustic treatment and studio building. Greatly appreciated. I may never have the money to build a studio like that but I could sure apply some of those ideas in my home psuedo-"studio" .

Cat: You're an inspiration. I've done a jingle or two but, I've never really tried to sell them. It is something I've wanted to do for a while since it seems I'm only good for 60seconds or less. :lol:

Hueseph...yer the first on this site that I see has some experience with commercial music. Doing it right (IE: syndication) WILL make you MORE than will a couple of platinums "out there". (This is no exaggeration.) But although I've mentioned it often enough, I'm still reticent to get too far into it. After 30 years of it, I've learned all the short cuts...albeit by "the braille method". But no-one seems to care about it...mostly because it's: "Me? Pimp myself off with my guitar??? NEVER!!!

So how would this help a starving musician: September 8th I'm off to Brussels...I'll be back on the 13th. (And YES...I'm paranoid about flying on September 11th...) Besides the air fare and hotels reimbursed...I'll pocket more than most regular jobs pay in a month...and WAY more if it ever gets into syndication. It AIN'T all that tough to do!

But "soundproofing" is a weird place to get into it. Maybe if there's a REAL interest I'll start a new thread for those that are interested in "getting so close to their music they need to pay taxes"???

Cat

Maybe if there's a REAL interest I'll start a new thread for those that are interested in "getting so close to their music they need to pay taxes"???

I would thoroughly look forward to that. I hope you will have the time with all that is already on your plate. :mrgreen:

Maybe if there's a REAL interest I'll start a new thread for those that are interested in "getting so close to their music they need to pay taxes"???

I would thoroughly look forward to that. I hope you will have the time with all that is already on your plate. :mrgreen:

It might also be a good front page article...

Well...I could come up with "a few easy pointers" (NOT lessons) that are SO SIMPLE that they are always overlooked. There's a lot of crap that isn't music-associated (as far as playing goes) such as contracts, unions, royalty collections & disbursements, software conformity, tax liabilities, etcetera...which I'd certainly skip until someone really needs to know about it.

Other than that...maybe a moderator (Vic???) could hit the private email button back to me and sketch out how to go about this???

Like I said...it ain't all that hard once someone points out "the bleedin' obvious"! :idea:

Cat