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What’s the Best Acoustic Treatment for My Studio?

What’s the Best Acoustic Treatment for My Studio?

The acoustics of an empty studio space leave a lot to be desired. Recordings can be ruined by the unwanted reverb caused by bad acoustics and you’ll never get a neutral sound out of your monitors in an untreated space. So, what kind of acoustic treatment, foam and other gear is best to get your studio space properly isolated and sound proofed? In this Guide, we help explain all things acoustic. If you can’t find the answer to your question here, feel free to contact us!

1. What Are Acoustics?

Whether you’re making music or playing music over speakers, the room that you’re sitting in has a big influence over the colour of the sound. The sound that your ear, or your microphone is picking up is always a combination of the direct sound (say, from the singer or your speakers) and the reflected sound waves bouncing off the walls, ceiling, floor, and any other objects in the room. The extra timbre, or sound character that these reflections add to the sound you’re listening to or recording are referred to as the acoustics.

All Studio Acoustic Treatment

2. Do I Actually Need to Improve the Acoustics of My Studio Space?

The rooms in a normal house are not generally designed for great sound and in terms of acoustics, are not ideal for recording or mixing music. Luckily, there are various kinds of acoustic panels you can get to significantly improve the acoustics of a normal room. These panels are designed to do two things:

Improve recording: If you’re recording using microphones, the acoustics of the space in which you’re recording will also be picked up. Most of the time, this results in lower quality recordings.
Neutral sounding monitor speakers: When mixing and editing recordings, you’ll be checking for details like the strength or weakness of the bass frequencies, but if the space you’re working in is reverberating with a lot of strong lower frequencies, then the bass will sound much louder than it actually is. This way, you’re not getting a clear picture of your recordings.

Note: If you want to isolate (sound proof) your space so you’re not annoying housemates or neighbours, see Question 7.

All Studio Acoustic Treatment

3. What is an Absorber?

Absorbers are designed to shorten the natural reverb of a space to reduce its intensity. Absorbers are made of a porous material like foam-rubber, rock wool or glass wool. When sound waves come into contact with absorber panels, instead of bouncing off the surface, the energy is absorbed and converted into a small amount of heat (so small, it’s unnoticeable). High frequencies are easily absorbed, while for the lower frequencies, the thicker the absorber, the better the lower frequency absorption. Note: Too much absorption can lead to unusable, dead sounding acoustics. So don’t cover all the walls in absorber panels. By using a mix of absorbers and diffusers, the acoustics will retain a bit of ‘life’.

Absorbers

4. What is a Bass Trap?

A bass trap is actually a kind of absorber that’s designed to be installed in a corner. You can easily install thick absorbers in a corner of the space without them getting in the way, and bass traps are particularly thick so that they’re able to absorb more low frequencies than standard absorbers. Low frequencies are always a problem in smaller spaces, so bass traps are definitely worth the investment, and you can never have too many.

Bass Traps

5. What is a Diffuser?

Diffusers scatter sound wave reflections. This makes a space sound bigger and more lively than it actually is. The ‘fuzzy’ sound of smaller rooms is caused by the direct sound coming from a speaker or instrument mixed with the immediate and almost identical echo or reflection bouncing off the walls. These echoes occur a fraction of a second later, leaving a drastically coloured sound. By breaking these up with diffusers and changing the direction of the reflected sound waves, this effect is reduced. Combining diffusers with absorbers maintains the acoustic energy of the space.

Diffusers

6. What is Calibration Software?

You can do a lot with absorbers, diffusers and bass traps. But if you really need the sound of your monitor speakers to be as neutral as possible, you can correct the remaining peaks and dips in the frequency spectrum using calibration software. This is designed to create a neutral sounding ‘sweet spot’ to support accurate mixing and mastering. Using this kind of correction software doesn’t magically clean up any unwanted resonance or echo in a studio space, so it can’t do the same job as absorber and diffuser panels, or bass traps.

Correction software is often a plug-in that can be used within a DAW but sometimes it’s also a standalone programme. Usually a special meter microphone for measuring the acoustics of the space comes included with calibration software, but a standard meter microphone can also be used.

Calibration Software

7. Can I Also Use Absorbers and Diffusers to Isolate the Space?

In a word, no. Absorbers and diffusers are only designed to improve the acoustics of a space. Isolating a space is a completely different story since the treatment has a different goal. The only way to make sure that none of the sound inside your studio space can be heard outside of it, is to actually build a free-standing room inside your studio space. The materials, like plasterboard, rockwool and beams can be found at a DIY shop.

Ok, but what about egg boxes? Egg boxes are very good at one thing: carrying eggs. Unfortunately, they block barely any noise so are really not a good isolation material. Also, the effect that egg boxes will have on the acoustics of a room is minimal, if you actually notice it at all.

All Studio Acoustic Treatment

8. How Many Panels Do I Need and Where Do I Put Them?

If the natural acoustics of your mixing and mastering space creates too much reverb, you can start by installing a few absorbers, and to prevent it from sounding too ‘dead’, combine the absorbers with some diffusers. To finish, add some bass traps to the corners on the side of the room where your monitors are set up, and if your budget allows for it, you might as well put bass traps in the other two corners as well, since you really can never have too many.

In the recording space, it’s more a question of personal taste. For vocals, the rule, ‘the-deader-the-better’ will usually apply. But if you’re recording a set of big-sounding rock drums, then a little natural reverb actually has a great effect. As such, it’s better to keep recording spaces more flexible by using stand mounted panels or booths that can be moved and set up as needed.

Absorbers
Bass Traps
Diffusers
Complete Packs
Installation Materials

9. What Else Can I Use to Improve the Acoustics of My Studio Space?

A reflection filter can be set up around a microphone to reduce reflections coming from behind and from the sides of the microphone. Using a reflection filter will definitely complement any acoustic treatment you have on the walls, but even if you don’t have any acoustic treatment, the recording will still be better. However, a reflection filter is no substitute for good acoustic treatment. Most studio microphones are most sensitive from the front, which is exactly where reflection filters are left open. So, the best solution is to combine a reflection filter with an absorption panel set up behind the performer.
Monitor isolation: Using pads or shelves that you can place your studio monitors on ensure that no vibrations are transferred from the speakers into the surface on which they’re placed. This helps create the most neutral monitor sound possible.

Pop filters and shockmounts are also commonly used to improve microphone recordings in a studio, but they’re not designed to improve the acoustics of a space. A shockmount makes sure that no vibrations are transferred to the microphone from the floor or if the stand is knocked, and a pop filter dampens harder vocal noises for a cleaner recording. There are also isolation screens that are used in both live and studio situations. These are placed around drum kits or guitar amps to make sure that the sound doesn’t leak too much into the microphone that’s recording the vocals, for example – when recording an entire band or ensemble.

Reflection Filters
Monitor Isolation
Pop Filters
Shockmount Buyer’s Guide
Isolation Screens

Links & More Information

Blogs & Buyer’s Guide

The Finer Points of Studio Monitor Placement
How to Record a Great-Sounding Demo
Shockmount Buyer’s Guide
Studio Monitor Buyer’s Guide