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GIK
Acoustics Presents
Acoustic Class Room
March
, 2009 - Vol 3, Issue 3
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Greetings! |
Welcome
to GIK Acoustics classroom!
From time to time we'll be sending out newsletters
to all of you to keep you up to date on a variety
of room acoustics topics. Our hope for this
newsletter is that it will help you get a better
understanding of how
acoustics work and how you can benefit by treating
your rooms. If you have any questions about
the information in this (also ideas for topics
to cover) or any other issue, please feel free
to contact us. The more YOU understand the better
YOUR listening environment will be. Also
we will be spot-lighting a room in some of the
newsletters, so if you'd like to show off your
room to the world please contact me at glenn.k@gikacoustics.com
Glenn Kuras |
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Room Case Study
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The following report was written by Frank Oesterheld.
He started with an empty room, took measurements,
then treated the room one area at a time taking measurements
at every step. Frank has been part of the
GIK Acoustics team, as the head of customer service
for the past year. For the last 20 years Frank has worked
in studios or in audio system design and is a Certified
Technology Specialist (CTS).
Room
Report
The Room:
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13'7"Wx14'4"Lx8'H
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12'Wx5'H windows on the back wall and left wall
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6'Wx7'H sliding glass door on the front wall
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6'Wx7'H French doors on the right wall
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One layer of 5/8" sheet rock over metal studs; all walls
are filled with spray insulation. 3' crawl space
beneath the room.
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Wood floors
The Equipment:
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dBX RTA-M Measurement Microphone
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Soundcraft M12 mixer (nice, clean preamps)
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One Atlas Pro Sound mic stand
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Two JBL LSR4328 monitors
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SSL XLogic converters
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Room EQ Wizard (free download)
The
Goal: The goal was simple: take
a bad room and turn it into a good one using a combination
of good positioning and acoustic treatment. When
I say, "bad", I really mean "almost as bad as you can
get". As you can see by the dimensions listed
above, the space is nearly square and while all the
glass isn't necessarily a bad thing from a low-end standpoint,
it's definitely a problem in the mid range and high
end.
The
Procedure: I took all the treatment out
of my room then shot it for a baseline reading.
After that I added acoustic treatment one area at a
time, using well-established best practices and commercially
available panels from GIK Acoustics. All panels
utilized mineral wool with densities ranging from 48kg/m3-70kg/m3
depending on the thickness of the panel.
Room Shot
1:
No treatment. Note the 25dB null at 70Hz, the
14dB null at 100Hz, the resonance at 280Hz, and the
14dB trough from 700Hz to Decay times are
too long across the board.
Room Shot
2:
Add GIK 244's floor-to-ceiling in the back corners.
The goal was to begin to stabilize the low end response
in the room and to improve decay times in a general
way.
All of the dips from 150Hz are improved by 2-4dB each.
There is some smoothing in the 700Hz-1Khz trough and
in the highs. Note the improvement in decay time.
Room
Shot 3:
Add GIK 244's floor to ceiling in the front corners
and two GIK 242's on the front wall to further soften
the sub 250Hz range and to reduce decay times some more.
Got 1dB reduction in the 70Hz null and some more reduction
in the 150-700Hz range. There is a good bit of
smoothing from 1.2Khz to 4Khz. 6Khz to 20Khz is
nearly flat. More broad improvement in decay time,
but there is specific reduction at 80Hz.
Room
Shot 4:
Add five Monster Bass traps to the back wall.
Moved the listening position back 12"; moved the speakers
7" further apart. The point on this step was to
take a serious bite out of the sub 200Hz issues.
I also suspected that covering much of that glass would
result in a good bit of high end smoothing. The
move back was a calculated risk to see if I could move
out of (or partially out of) the 70-80Hz modal issues;
it paid off.
This one took 8dB off the 70Hz peak, took 2dB off the
80Hz peak, evened out the low midrange more and evened
out the 700Hz-1Khz valley. Unfortunately there's
a new dip at 1.7Khz. Testing indicated that this
was comb filtering caused by the console. The
highs are still pretty even. There is more improvement
in decay time especially at 40Hz and 80Hz.
Room
Shot 5 (PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF SCALE):
Add four GIK 244's at the first and second reflection
points, two GIK 244's above the mix position and two
242's just ahead of the firs reflection point.
Moved the listening position back 6" more. I knew
that moving back had produced a dramatic reduction in
the 70-80Hz problems, so I decided to try moving back
a bit more to see if I could reduce it further.
Huge improvement. The 44Hz peak was reduced by
2dB or so; the dips in the 50-100Hz range have improved
by 6-8dB each. The biggest change is the radical
smoothing from 100Hz-3.4Khz, though there is still some
comb filtering from reflections off the console and
a 15Khz dip to work on. Though decay times are
still much more even than they were to start with, the
move back into the room results in a longer decay time
at 80Hz. 40Hz is still better than the first three
waterfall plots.
End
Result:The room is within 10dB of flat
from 50Hz to 22Khz at 1/12 octave smoothing. The
highest peak (80hz) is 85dB and the lowest dip (15Khz)
is at 75dB. The rest of the room is within 8dB
and the majority of it is within 6dB of flat.
Note the steady reduction in decay time between 40Hz
and 200Hz throughout the process, with the exception
of the last waterfall display (note the 80Hz area).
While the move back 18" into the room reaped a significant
benefit in terms of frequency response, there was a
trade off with respect to decay time.
Frank Oesterheld, CTS
GIK Acoustics
Room Design/Customer Support
www.gikacoustics.com |
Interview with Chad Butler from Switchfoot
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We
had the pleasure to sit down with Chad Butler from the
rock band Switchfoot. Switchfoot is an American alternative
rock band from San Diego, California. The band's members
are Jon Foreman (vocals, guitar), Tim Foreman (bass
guitar, backing vocals), Chad Butler (drums, percussion),
Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals),
and Drew Shirley (guitar).
Switchfoot first gained mainstream recognition after
the inclusion of four of their songs in the 2002 movie
A Walk to Remember. This recognition led to their major
label debut, The Beautiful Letdown, which was released
in 2003. It went on to sell over 2.6 million copies
and produced the band's best-known singles, "Meant to
Live" and "Dare You to Move".
Prior to the label split, Foreman
announced in a March 17, 2007
MySpace blog that Switchfoot had
begun pre-production for a new
album, saying that "the new SF
record is underway." Later, on
October 12, 2007, Foreman also
announced that the band had begun
construction of their own studio
in their hometown of San Diego.
It was completed in the spring
of 2008, and the band began recording
their follow-up to 2006's Oh!
Gravity.
Glenn: So, Chad...you guys just got off tour.
How did that go?
Chad:
Amazing! We just went
down to Central America for the
first time, to Guatemala and Costa
Rica. Great people singing
along at the shows and good waves
too! Can't wait to go back...
Glenn: How many months
a year do you guys tour?
Chad:
12 really... we tend to go out
for a few weeks then come home
for a few and work on music.
We're constantly recording in
between live shows, it keeps us
on our toes and allows us to try
out new songs on the road.
Glenn:
What kind of touring crew do you
have?
Chad: They are
really big men, linebackers for sure! Keeping
us safe and in tune!
Glenn: What kind of
FOH gear do you travel with?
Chad: Yamaha
PM5D I think, but our FOH guy Ryan Nichols is our secret
weapon... he's the best there is.
Glenn:
You guys went double platinum
on "The Beautiful Letdown". Did
that put any pressure on the new
album to raise the bar?
Chad: Looking
at the numbers can drive you crazy, we try to leave
that to the suits and ties. For me music is about
communication, having a dialogue through songs is what
really motivates me. I am thankful we are
making the best music of our lives right now. Art and
commerce is a tricky intersection but the goal for us
has always been honest music.
Glenn: You guys are
known for your high quality song writing.
What's the process usually like? Is song writing
pretty cooperative?
Chad: Jon usually
brings us an idea on acoustic guitar and if it's an
idea that resonates with all of us we dream it up into
something larger. The amazing thing to me about
music is that the most personal songs end up being the
most universal. A song that was written at 3am
trying to figure out the meaning of life can make it's
way around the world and somehow people are singing
along with us in Guatemala!!?
Glenn: You guys just
got done building a new studio and recorded the new
album there. What's the set up like?
Chad: We are
living our dream right now, we finally have our own
place to rehearse and record. It's a simple building
we converted into a tracking room but the goal was to
make a great record while being at home as much as possible
(not to build an uber-pro studio).
Glenn: How did you
go about building and designing the acoustics of the
room?
Chad: We basically
divided up the
space into a good sized control room and a large tracking
room with 18' ceilings. We offset some angled
walls where possible and tried to use wood paneling
on many of the walls. Our control room was the
hardest part because it had a low ceiling, concrete
floors and one concrete wall. We built within
that space as economically as possible by leaving the
ceiling beams open and just staining the concrete floors.
Not really knowing what the room was going to sound
like we went with a modular GIK acoustic treatment using
tri traps in the corners, 244 and 242 panels.
Bryan Pape (Lead acoustic designer of GIK) helped us
plan where to put everything and get the most out of
our budget.
Glenn: What are the
pros and cons for working in your own space vs. a commercial
place?
Chad: The pros
are coming home from tour and being able to walk in
and hit record, everything is right where you left it.
The cons are taking out the trash and running out of
coffee.
Glenn: With the way
the room acoustics are, is it an inspiring place to
work?
Chad: I really
like the look of the panels, we went with black and
it looks like some kind of modern art installation about
negative space.
Glenn: Switchfoot is
instantly recognizable for the huge guitar sounds, the
massive drums and Jon's distinctive vocal. What's
the most important part of getting those sounds?
Chad: We have
always tried to capture the live energy we feel on stage.
That is difficult but leaving things loose helps and
keeping the human element in the performance is important.
Glenn: Got any gear
you can't live without?
Chad: My Tama
bell brass snare.
Glenn: What kind of
advice would you give to new bands that are trying to
break into the market?
Chad: Enjoy
each moment making music, enjoy each other.
Life is short live it well!
Switchfoot
http://www.switchfoot.com/ |
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Bringing Your Sound to Life.
Sincerely,
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Glenn Kuras
GIK Acoustics
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GIK
Acoustics | 3065 McCall Dr, Unit 8 | Atlanta | GA | 30340 |
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