You’ll also need space for your audio equipment, so clear out the area you’re tuning to make room.
In addition to using furniture to diffuse sound, you should cover any windows with heavy curtains to help reduce outside noise.
Covering the entire room with the same sized foam panels is actually worse than doing nothing at all. Diffusers scatter sound waves and are useful in larger spaces. For the average home studio, they’re not worth the expense. A soft sofa and bookcase work just fine as diffusers.
For instance, if you’re on a budget, start with mounting bass trap sound absorbers at the corners where the walls meet the ceiling or floor.
For instance, if your wall is 12 feet long and 9 feet high (3. 65 by 2. 75 meters), its area is 108 square feet (10 square meters). You should cover it with 36 square feet (3. 3 square meters) of sound absorbing material. Three 4 by 3 foot (or about 1 by 1 meter) panels should do the trick.
Keep in mind corners where the walls meet the floor and ceiling are your top priority. If you can only do one thing, place rolls of insulation in the room’s corners. Look for fiberglass or foam insulation online or at your local home improvement store.
You can then cut wooden boards and glue them to the sides of your homemade panels to create frames. Then, glue or screw the frames onto your room’s corners and walls.
Measure your wall’s full length and add your panels’ lengths together. Then, subtract your panels’ total length from the wall length. Divide the difference by the number of panels you have. Suppose your walls are 10 feet (3 meters) long and you want to hang two 2 foot (0. 6 meter) panels on each wall. You have 6 feet of space left over, so you can hang the panels 2 feet away from the wall’s corners and everything will be even. Use a pencil and level so you can hang panels on a straight line.
Store-bought absorbers usually come with heavy duty adhesive or brackets. Check your product’s instructions for specific installation information.
If it’s affordable, mounting two or more flat foam panels on the ceiling is also effective. However, think of the ceiling as another wall, and make the corners your first priority if your budget is a concern. [11] X Research source
For example, you could mount panels at an angle between a wall and the ceiling. You’re trying to add asymmetry, so avoid placing angled panels between walls and ceilings directly across from each other. If they mirror each other, you won’t create any new, irregular proportions. You could also install absorbers that hang from the ceiling around the listening spot in the room. This is the spot where you’ll be listening to music or placing the recording equipment.
All rooms have modes, or modes of vibration. In basic terms, modes have to do with how a room reflects and distorts sound waves. Small, cube-shaped rooms are the worst choice for a studio but, unfortunately, they’re the only available option in most homes. A small room with roughly equal height, length, and width has poor mode distribution, which leads to a greater distortion at a specific frequency, or resonant frequency. A larger room with more varied proportions has more resonant frequencies, instead of one big peak, which means a less intense distortion. [14] X Research source
Keep in mind you’ll also be making noise that others can hear. Professional soundproofing isn’t affordable for most people, so choose the most isolated spot available.
Intense flutter echoes, or a harsh, sharp ringing, are a worst-case scenario, and is probably what you’d hear in a small, cube-shaped room. The intensity of the echoes you hear will let you know how much work you have to put into tuning your room.
