Today I have had a very exciting day…. I have been sanding floors with a floor sander for the last 9 hours straight! Ok so that’s not very exciting right but at least it gave me inspiration to write this post.

While I was sanding I listened to the echoes and concluded that the acoustics of an empty house are completely shit. When you talk you can’t even hear yourself properly because the echoes off the walls and floors come straight back at you. This is exactly what we want to try and combat in a bedroom studio. Reflections are a bad thing when trying to make tunes on near field monitors. They make it hard for you to hear your tune and if not accounted for, may turn a good tune into an horrible mess.

So what can be done to treat your room acoustically?
Place any type of open-cell foam on your walls. The type that furniture upholsterers use is ideal. The thicker the foam the lower the frequency absorption will go. For instance a 5cm thick piece and you will acheive absorption at 500Hz and above. For a 2.5cm thick piece you will get absorption at 1kHz and above. The best place to put the foam is directly behind the wallspace of the speakers and on the wall behind you, the listener. Also place slabs in the corners of the room to absorb frequencies. If you think that the foam may look ugly, you could try covering it with some kind of fabric to spruce it up a bit!

Here’s an experiment for you to try. Go into your bathroom and clap yours hands. Seriously do it now. Listen to the sound echo and compare this echo to your studio. Bathrooms usually have hard flat surfaces which reflect the sound much more easily than say a bedroom full with items such as rugs, desks, chairs, curtains ect.

So now you understand a little more about room acoustics go and get some foam and start hanging it on your walls. Note: I have been informed that hanging egg cartons on your walls is a waste of time and also a fire hazard.

I recommend you go to your local dump, find old furniture, rip out the foam. cover it and hang it on your walls. This will save you a fortune as opposed to buying audio acoustic foam!

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