Turning a Bedroom Space into a Music Studio

Written by: Foam Factory, Inc.

Many musicians have roommates and neighbors and live in housing with limited space. These factors often hinder musicians’ abilities to practice their craft and hone their skills. Since consistent practice is critical for developing musical talents, it’s invaluable to have a readily available space in which to work. With a few additions and adjustments, it’s possible to turn a bedroom into a music studio that will keep a musician and those who live around him or her happy.

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Hanging acoustic foam panels around the room is a great first step. There are quite a few options to consider. The budget and specific needs of the musician will dictate which kind of acoustic foam is the best choice.  Eggcrate foam is available in two different sizes, and while both are inexpensive and effective, the larger size provides higher sound deadening quality. This foam can be optimized by covering it with acoustical cloth.

Wedge and pyramid foam are both economical options that come in different sizes to adjust to the level of sound proofing required. The smaller versions are most appropriate for mid to high frequency ranges, while the medium size is more effective against standing waves and flutter echoes. These foam sheets are great for small and medium-sized rooms. The larger versions of these sound proofing foam products provide maximum sound absorption and are appropriate for bigger spaces.

Acoustic spade, grid, and wave foam are more expensive, yet are also more visually appealing and higher quality. Spade foam has high echo-absorbing capabilities and clarifying qualities. Due to its appearance, this foam can be arranged to create two different patterns. Grid foam helps in the absorption of bouncing waves and creates better sound quality within the room. Its design showcases a tiled appearance. Wave foam provides echo-absorption and sound clarification while creating a flowing design inside the music studio.

While these various forms of sound deadening foam can raise the quality of sound within the studio as well as helping to absorb echoes and bouncing waves, they all will be most effective when combined with other products. The addition of drop ceiling tiles will enhance the room’s form and function and comes in either a smooth or textured pattern. Since low frequency waves can be difficult to stop, putting up bass absorbers in each corner of a room can significantly increase the quality of sound proofing in a studio. Broadband absorbers can also help deaden low frequencies.

Use Acoustic Foam to Minimize Echo

Written by Foam Factory, Inc.

An effective noise control system is essential to having a quiet environment and to improve the comfort of your room and house. A proper acoustic system would also help to minimize echo during your band practices, while you record or play your musical instrument. It would also prevent the sound from seeping through the walls and potentially getting to your neighbours. A good way of preventing the escape of sound through walls, flooring and rooms is to use sound deafening foam panels. These panels would be able to tremendously reduce the impact of vibration, sounds and echoes.

Sound deadening foams is found in different shapes each having a different property. Some examples of these foams are wave foam, acoustic spade foam or the grid foam. Some foam insulation boards do not need the opening of walls. They can just be hung to walls to be effective. Some people choose to cover them in fabric for aesthetic reasons. These foams work by increasing the air resistance. This has the effect of attenuating sound waves. The energy created from the sound waves is transformed into heat and dispersed.

This method of sound absorption performs in quite a different way than regular soundproofing. The use of acoustic foams would prevent the propagation of mid to high frequencies. For lower sound frequencies, considerably thick foams would be required. Foams placed in orders of a room for soundproofing are called corner bass traps and are effective for these frequencies.

Carlo Badalamenti has started his career in the foam industry in 1980. Foam Factory Inc. provides high quality acoustic foam panels in various shapes and sizes.

Setting Up a Home Theater System

Imagine the experience of a theater in your home. That’s the power of a comfortable couch, a good entertainment center and some powerful A/V equipment. Learn how to put your brand new HD TV to good use, or how to maximize the effectiveness of your sound with these important tips on home theater setup.

Optimal Viewing Distance

You might not realize this, but you can instantly improve the picture quality of your television by making sure that you are placing your couch at the proper distance away from the screen. There are all kinds of articles about this very topic, but you can use one simple formula to get the results you desire. Just take the diagonal screen measurement, then multiply that number by two. That will give you a rough estimate of the number of inches away from your television that you should be seated.

Speaker Placement

There are plenty of tools online to help you determine where would be best to place your speakers. Home entertainment systems that are hooked up to computers, for example, will usually have some interactive guide to follow. You should have a central speaker, which you may want to line with sound proofing foam to control noise levels, and speakers at the left and right sides. The side speakers should also be at the same height, which is usually just above where ear level would be.

Bass Management

Bass doesn’t travel in any one direction like sound does. It can seemingly come from all over. For a secluded area, this is fine. For those living in apartment or tract housing, this presents a problem for neighbors. The best solution is to use acoustic foam panels in your theater room to try and dampen some of that sound. The panels will absorb bass and leave less to reverberate through your home or your neighbor’s walls.

You can also adjust the cross over frequency to something lower like 80hz. This determines when sound will travel to speakers, and when it will go to the subwoofer, which drastically decreases unwanted bass. Just be careful when applying these settings to a surround sound system from the subwoofer. In these cases, turn the subwoofer crossover to “off” and adjust the sound through your receiver.

Final Thoughts

Home theater setups are undeniably cool, but they often need the right amount of tweaking to get the desired effect.
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Carlo Badalamenti writes on behalf of Canada Foam by Mail. Find out how to sound proof a room with acoustic foam panels when you shop online with Canada Foam by Mail.

Musician Of This Age

Article byCarlo Badalamenti

                Being a musician is one of the most fulfilling professions one can take up because you will be able to create art from nothing – art that can be enjoyed by the public and will then be immortalized into the vast library of musical history in this world. The fact that you will be able to make a career out of creating music with the use of a collection of instruments is an art form in itself, but is sadly underrated in society today. Some of the classical musicians from years past such as Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are slowly losing their fame among the youth nowadays and is being overrun by more modern music such as hip-hop and dubstep. One of the reasons of the decline of classical music can be closely related to proportional decrease in the artists that wish to take up classes in learning how to play such instruments.

It is understandable why this is becoming more apparent; it has become more stressful and taxing to take up an instrument to play. This can be caused by many reasons but all of which are mainly attributed to the surroundings of the person. It may be harder to create music when your surroundings are not really constructed to produce the best acoustic quality to give your music justice. It would always be best to own a studio with sound proofing foam but then these are very pricey and are hard to come by.

Canada Foam by Mail is one of the leading companies in creating custom cushions in Canada mostly specializing in manufacturing the acoustic foam.

Acoustic Foam Panels

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It is important to know what products to place in your music room or studio for acoustical treatment. Acoustic treatment when defined, in the context of a music studio, generally deals with the acoustic quality of the room when you are considering the listener’s point of view. If you compare a control room that has been designed using the correct acoustic treatment and an untreated room, you will find that the control room will be able to produce a more accurate recording.  It is good to consider these things to get a really great quality during recording.

It is interesting to note that some people use egg boxes to make sound improvement to some aspects of a room’s acoustics by breaking up reflections from hard surfaces. Some will also make use of lightweight suspended ceilings, acoustic foam and even high density foam sheets for acoustic treatment.

Most of the time, when talking about acoustic treatment, people will associate this with soundproofing thinking that they are both the same but they are not. Soundproofing is used specifically to increase the acoustic isolation between the world outside and the studio. This is done in such a way that it cuts down on noise that goes in and out of the studio. The best way to soundproof a studio is make use of products like foams that were built specifically for this purpose. One example of that would be a sound deadening foam, which can greatly excel audio system in a music studio.

Companies like Canada foam by mail offers many products that will cater to acoustic treatment and soundproofing needs like acoustic foam panels.