Bass Trap Location ???

[Matthew Seed]

Hi guys I am in the middle or designing my recording and mixing room. I have a quick question about bass traps, my question is do you need to put bass traps on corners not facing the listing position of the desk. I have done a quick diagram to explain what i am asking....on this diagram i have numbered the corners and its number 4 i was wanting to know if it would have any benefit, but also number 3 too.

I have 8 of the Lenard type from Auralex so its not a problem, but i dont want to over do it or waste space either.

Thank you for any help.
Matthew

PLEASE CLCIK HERE TO SEE ROOM LAYOUT

[Jack Ruston]

I would say yes, if you have the traps available, just because the more opportunities you take to prevent bass from reflecting, the more chance you have of reducing standing waves. I'd suggest that you probably can't do enough bass trapping, and if cost allows I would personally trap every vertical corner, every ceiling corner, tri-corner and if possible some of the floor corners. It's likely to be really uneven, and the more you can do to control low end reflections the better.
J

[Matthew Seed]

Hi jack, thank you for the help. So its good to put bass traps all the way to the floor in a corner. For some reason i always thought it was just top corners.
Thanks again
Matthew

[Hugh Robjohns]

As Jack says, the more the merrier -- you really can't 'over do' bass trapping.

However, the potential problem to beware is that most commercial 'bass traps' affect the higher frequencies as much (if not more than) the real bass end. So if you're not careful you could end up over-damping the midrange and upper-end, while still not truly sorting out the LF room modes.

H

[Jack Ruston]

In terms of the floor/ceiling corners etc, it does rather depend on the construction of the room as to which are more 'valuable'. It will depend on what materials are used where, but the more bass is reflecting back from a given corner (rather than passing through and heading off somewhere else) the more value there is in treating at that location, assuming limited resources. But if you think of a rectangular space in three dimensions, all other things being equal, every corner is the same acoustically - 4x wall to wall corners, 4 wall to ceiling corners, 4 wall to floor corners. And then you've got 8 tri-corners which are a really good location to trap. Now in the real world there are different materials, doors, windows and all sorts which might affect things. And really, if you can, you should hire someone to come in and take some measurements, before advising you how best to go about things in your particular environment. You could speak to Max Hodges (Studio Support Gnome on here).

J

[sixtysixmix]

Hi,

I would agree with what has been said here about "foam" bass traps only really affecting mids and highs. You will of course notice a better sound ... but its not real bass trapping. For that you need more density.

A solution I have come up with in a rented house is to stack two rolls of rockwool in the corners (2 x 120 cm wide rolls each with a 245 cm ceiling means that they just slot in with a push and stay there with no fixing). The effect has been superb ... I'm calling them the Lazy man's bass trap

As a plus, when I want to get more serious and do better trapping, I just unwrap the rockwool and start filling my DIY frames!

Hope that helps

[Hugh Robjohns]

Good solution, and one we've used in a few Studio SOS visits.

H

[Guy Johnson]

And I have four at home, pretty good traps for the money.