Soundproofing vs Room Treatment: What Your Studio Needs

hey chris lippe here with the difference between sound proofing and room treating they're very different things they require very different approaches and different materials and there's tons of confusion surrounding these two terms what they mean what they actually are i recently got a chance to help build and move into a new studio so i had to go through the process of discovering how i could better isolate this space from outside elements sound proofing and i had to make sure that it sounded okay when i was singing or playing instruments treating the rooms now if you listen really carefully in the background you can actually hear a bit of an electric guitar player practicing over in another room of the house me treating this room and putting foam on the walls is not going to keep that sound out me treating this room for sounding good with acoustic treatment isn't going to keep the lawn mower on the other side of the window out that sound it's not going to keep that out nor is it going to do a very good job of keeping the sound that i produce in the studio in the studio if you've got a big drum set going and you know people are still probably going to hear it a little bit outside or in the other wall or whatever and here's what some of the confusion is fueled by if i go to sweetwater.com and i type in sound proofing you notice it says soundproofing foam i'm just going to say soundproofing and you get you get this stuff you get room systems you get this vocal mini vocal thing portable vocal booth this may have a bearing although not a very effective bearing on the sound going into your mic but it's not going to keep sounds out you're not sound proofing anything you know if we go back here we look at some of the other offerings in in this category ah now if we scroll down we see this iso booth or it's a very small thing where we're like trapping the sound these things don't really sound that good um they they trap the sound going into the mic uh they do keep stuff out but that it doesn't give you the desired open effect i'll do another video on what's the best way to capture live instruments and vocals in light of acoustic treatment it's not these small iso boxes but this right here a drum booth we're getting closer to sound proofing and a little bit of room treatment there as well this stuff complete room kits for your studio and i can see why they put it when you type in sound proofing because that's what people would would put in their their search thing this is not sound proofing this is room treatment for acoustic adjustments so that the stuff that you perform in your studio sounds right now if you're watching this video and you already understand this this difference you're probably just going uh okay well well fine but i get so many questions about this all the time i thought it was it was time to make a video on it in order to sound proof in order to keep sounds out of your studio and keep the stuff that's in your studio from getting outward this is about construction this is about building materials it's about building methods things like drop ceilings decoupling the outer structure from the inner inner structure building rooms within rooms and i got to do some of that in this space but not as much as i would if i really went all out because this is a house this is in my basement it's a home studio i didn't have an unlimited budget to spend making this place what i wanted it to be so in order to do a little bit of sound proofing i uh i built that back wall we rebuilt that back wall we made it extra thick and i put really thick foam insulation in the wall i also made sure that this big double wall had a little bit of space in between so that the sound would reach that one wall be rejected that insulation that extra thick thing would reject some of that sound but then there's some space there so we're not creating a resonance the sound that gets through that first wall doesn't resonate with the second wall so i created a little bit of a gap and you can see that back on this window how it's been designed as well this is not only to create a cool aesthetic look for the studio but there are two windows there with space in between the other thing that i did from a construction point of view here is i built the isolation booth on that side so that we had to go through an outer room to get to an inner room so i have two doors to open and close before i get into the area that i want to be extra quiet it's not the quietest isolation booth so if i really need to make sure and be courteous to the people above me and uh make sure that sound isn't bleeding in i just need to work around people's schedules but this room is way more quiet because i built this wall this wall is also a double wall in addition to having the window and then we've got the other wall and the other door so that keeps sound out of here the other thing that really is helpful when you're thinking about sound proofing is the location within the house you know where where is it you can blow insulation into a into a ceiling but if your kitchen's right above you that's going to be a problem okay so we've established that that sound proofing is construction construction-based things and things to keep in mind even when it comes to keeping sound out and keeping sound in room treatment is a lot less expensive and it's a lot easier to do and you can really go crazy with both sound proofing from a construction standpoint in room treating from a math and measurements and materials standpoint and you can even hire acousticians which is something that i'll be doing and sharing with you guys as i learn with this room eventually but initially if you want to treat your room it's about listening and using a combination of absorbing and diffusing materials so things like i have on the back wall there those wood things that you see those are diffusers they when the sound comes into the the that box it goes goes everywhere whereas the foam that you see absorbs the sound but it doesn't absorb all the sound it absorbs mainly mid frequencies and high frequencies very little low frequencies bass traps the things you see in the corners of this room help absorb low end these particular bass traps are not that great at absorbing low end they make better ones that are denser that are not just made out of foam and when you're placing all these things if you don't have the budget to hire someone or you don't go through the process of making measurements and doing all those other considerations start placing things in a non-parallel variety oriented way use your ear sing and play in your space clap shout walk around see where there are flutter echoes and reflections and start putting things up in a way that looks appealing and and that starts to make a difference in the sound and remember this nothing's going to be perfect we want to get to the point to where we we want to use our space creatively go that direction and have that perspective as you're setting up your home studio i hope this has been helpful leave comments ask questions if you would like to go deeper with me in recording and learning how to track bass and guitar and vocals and mix and work with drum loops click the link below and join my free recording course and we'll go from just talking about studio setup to really making some music together we'll see it for more

Channel: recordingrevolution

Views: 10,910

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Id: wZCvAaTZphU

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 07 2022