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Turning a garage into a rehearsal room

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:43 pm
by sp3k
My band had to leave our old rehearsal space. So we found a decent priced garage and a band to share it with.
The problem is the garage has a terrible acoustic. There's a horrible echo, that makes the drums hurt my ears and the guitar sound like it has the bass on 11.
Do you guys have any ideas to make the place more playable?
The first idea was to put some sheets and blankets along the walls, or to cover the walls with some kind of sponge and put egg boxes over the sponge. We really don't know what we're doing.
I've seen some space where they put some kind of boxes in specific places of the walls, would that do it? like this:
http://www.suyaomusic.com/Sound%20Room%20Drums.jpg

Sorry if this is the wrong section btw, or if my english is not the best.

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:46 pm
by stewart
yeah, you want to deaden the reflections as much as possible. old carpets on the floor, foam or eggboxes on the walls... don't forget the ceiling, that'll reflect also.

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:50 pm
by chrismakesgod
We just fire loads of blankets and duvets up around the walls as best as possible. If you could put up curtain (or any rail type thing) all along the walls and drape old fabric over them it would probably work nicely.

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:40 pm
by Sloan
What your seeing on the walls there is high-density fiberglass. You can get it cheap and make your own panels that will absorb and diffuse a bit of sound. The fiberglass is recommended because it absorbs a wider band of frequencies, more mids and low mids, than common acoustical foam does.

I'm guessing the floor is concrete, it would help to put carpet over it as well. Also, anything that will keep sound from bouncing around helps, a bookshelf full of books, thick curtains on windows, soft furniture, etc...

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:40 pm
by stewart
Sloan wrote:a bookshelf full of books, thick curtains on windows, soft furniture, etc...
Image
"getting a bit too much of the upper mids, old chap. what what?"