Room Acoustics – The first question is, what are you trying to achieve?

The first question you need to ask yourself before installing any type of acoustic treatment is: What am I trying to achieve? Generally speaking, there are two broad categories of acoustic treatment. The first is reducing the volume of harsh reflections and reverberation which are annoying to the ear in a wide range of situations.…

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Acoustic Foam – Flock coating to add some colour

Acoustic foam panels can be coloured or “flock coated” which is a soft fibre type finish similar to suede or velvet. The panels are coated in a thin layer of adhesive, statically charged and placed in a chamber where the flock is attracted to the foam. Coating has no adverse effect on acoustic performance. The…

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Vocal Booth on the cheap!

I get lots of questions about vocal booths, and the solutions are either expensive or a lot of work. If you need a quick and dirty vocal booth, this BT270-600 pressure zone trap configuration works great. The staple gun channels are what makes this possible.

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Bass traps in small rooms

Most home or project studios are located in smallish rectangular rooms, creating a real challenge in creating a relatively accurate listening space. Parallel walls reinforce and nullify harmonic frequencies, creating peaks and dips in the frequency response, particularly between 50 and 250Hz. A common mistake is the overuse of thin acoustic panels (50mm and less),…

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Lynx Aurora vs Digi 192

There has been plenty of good things written about the Lynx Aurora DA AD converter, and how it beats the pants off the Digidesign 192. After much deliberation, I had to find out myself, particularly as the Aurora 8 is a fair bit cheaper than the 192. I’ve had the Lynx for a week, and…

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Acoustic Foam: is it all the same?

Just a quick one. A common criticism of acoustic foam is that it will not absorb low frequencies. This is a very common point of view expressed on forums that is simply not true. At risk of repeating myself, the ability of acoustic foam to absorb low frequencies is related to thickness, structure and density.…

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Voiceover booth – acoustic treatment

Recently one of our customers (a radio station in South Australia) installed both the HA600-75 acoustic panel (absorber/diffuser) and the SA600-75 acoustic panel (broadband) in conjunction with some custom made acoustic treatment. The HA600-75 is ideal for this application as it retains a sense of space while absorbing problematic lower frequencies. It also exhibits remarkable…

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Bass Traps in the Bedroom

Bass traps are generally the first component of an acoustic treatment for a project studio in the bedroom.  A bit of flutter echo will mess far less with your mix or listening, than will uncontrolled low frequencies.  High frequencies will smear your imaging a bit, but low frequency dips and peaks will do your head…

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Heil PR40 Microphone – a quick review

I recently became curious about the Heil PR40, having read a number of good reviews on the web. It is a dynamic end address mic with a very wide flat frequency response from 28Hz to 18kHz. It is capable of handling very high SPL’s, which makes it a very versatile mic. At around $300 US,…

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Acoustic Foam vs Semi rigid fibreglass

I often read in forums (Gearslutz etc) ongoing arguments about polyurethane bass traps (such as ours) versus semi rigid fibreglass. It is often stated that polyurethane will not absorb low frequencies, which is absolutely false. Thin wall panels won’t absorb low frequencies but a large volume corner trap is very effective in absorbing low frequencies.…

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