cheap acoustic treatment.

off.the.walls

So i know some people hang blankets and all that jazz but what is the best way without spending hundreds on acoustic foam to treat the room that your recording in?

drumdrum

Funny enough, there is no "correct" answer per say. Everything in a room not related to the sound equipment will affect the sound in some way...from couches to beds, to curtains they all have an effect somehow. Obviously, some more than others of course. The "proper" sound treatment that they sell in shops is designed to manipulate the sound which is why they cost money.

For example, in my mix area, there was a fair bit of junk in the room which luckily for me, made it sound really deadened and non-echoey, so I left the junk where it is. Aint broke dont fix it and all that. Its not anechoic or anything, but then again there is little return in the room to my ears. I did buy some room treatment to put in the corners (bass diffusers) to eliminate standing waves which can really mislead your low end if you arent careful.

Your best bet would be to use Room EQ Wizard (REW) (its free!) and run a swept sine wave through your room a few times and average the results. There are tons of tutorials around on how to do this, and REW works on both pc and mac.

Once you see the results you can get a better picture on how bad / good your room is. Once done, I would also recommend a trip to this link: http://www.gikacoustics.com/room_setup.php. Its great, you put in your room data and they recommend what and where to place the sound controller pads. Obviously its a GIK site so they only consider GIK products which can be a bit pricier than making your own, but sure its convenient if nothing else!

Hope this helped...:cool:

madtheory

Another good link:
[url]Http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html[/url]