Sound Foam Installation tips needed

[Ty Ford]

Hello Ian and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum,

Why use a lave for VO?

All foam makes for a dead room. You need a combination of foam and/or compressed fiberglass panels and other diffusion to break up the sound waves,

Where are the monitors?

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ian Smith]

This is our filming studio, not my editing suite, so there are no monitors in the room. We are also unable to purchase more accessories. I completely understand that this makes limitations for us.

My questions is simply, where can I put the sound foam blocks? The last thing I want to do is install what little we have to work with and later figure out that I’m not even hitting any proper locations.

My plan is to install two “blocks”, one on each side wall directly left and right of the talent wearing the lavaliere mic. Each block contains 16 1’x1′ foam squares, making a 4’x4′ block.

Then, I want to take the extra sound foam and put them in the corner areas where it’s most likely sound is bouncing back.

If I can just hit the primary locations with the materials I have to work with, I really think it will do some damage.

One more question: Should I make the pattern into a large square on the wall, or turn the entire block making a diamond on the walls? Does it matter?

Thank you for your advice!

Ian

[Ty Ford]

Ian,

I don’t know how to respond to your post. Even though you’ve provided a diagram of the space, I couldn’t tell you the best places to put individual pieces of foam without being there.

Foam, by itself, is usually not the answer. It absorbs a disproportionate amount of high frequencies.

The correct approach is a combination of absorption and diffusion, in the right spots. If you’re only doing spoken word, trapping the corners is probably a waste of time.

All hard, parallel surfaces are problematic. walls, floors, ceilings, etc. The time-honored approach is to make sure that one of two parallel surface is treated, but there’s a lot more that goes in to getting good acoustics. Basic room dimensions themselves can have a significant effect on the generation of standing waves that can muck up your sound. This is not something to be experimented with if money is on the line. You need someone who can give proper solution, otherwise you are courting disappointment, to say the least.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Terry Mikkelsen]

Check out Auralex:
https://www.auralex.com/aoc/

They have a room calculator. Obviously, they want you to buy their stuff, but it should give you some rough ideas. Only your ears will be the best judge. Get yourself a few pieces hung (like your side walls that you suggested for first reflections), then get an assistant to move various pieces to your liking.

Square or diamond should not have much effect, so do whichever looks good to you in that place (but don’t let pretty pictures override your ears).

The ceiling, even though will eventually get lighting, should get some attention. A super cheap solution is to build rectangular frames and fill with roll insulation. Staple a cheap fabric cover top. Then when you get lights, just drill and screw right through your custom sound panels. Just hang the lights low enough to not cause a fire.

Finally, diffusion is justly suggested. Auralex will probably show some in their “calculations”. You can make them yourself though. Simply 2″x2″ various length pieces of wood tightly fitted together in a random pattern. Stain or paint any color you wish, not going to harm anything.

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