gunterm said:
The second one actually, and also I'd like to silence the computer in there also.
In my lifetime there has been a revolutionary change in how we do studios. The laws of physics haven't changed, but I guess we look through the telescope from the other end now days.
My first "primer" on studio acoustics was an NAB Engineering Handbook from the 1950 that I found in a radio station. That was the era when announcers tended to work the microphones from about 18 inches out. It you worked closer to those grand old RCA 44 and 77 models, your plosives were likely to blow the ribbon out. Not a good thing. Studio treatment back then focused not on killing, silencing and swallowing up the sound bouncing around the room but to cause it to be bounced around the room evenly as far as frequencies were concerned. There was this natural reverberation common in radio in the 1930s and 1940s and we were to manage the reverberation to make it pleasant and natural. You've seen the pictures of the studios with one wall at an angle and vertical half cylinders on one wall and horizontal cylinders on the opposite walls and then one wall would be a zig-zag saw tooth arrangement.
Fast forward 50 years and now we put sponge rubber on the walls, we build little boxes that are tuned to eliminate certain frequencies that want to boom around your studio like singing in the shower where the bathroom has tile floor and walls.
For my studio I try to do some of each. No half-cylinders on the wall but lots of vertical furniture. Tall book shelves, armouries, metal racks with baskets and tile-tubs. Place some of the furniture at angles. Locate the mic where there is not a straight wall behind it that will bounce the slap-back of my voice into the minor lobe of the hyper-cardioid pattern on the back side. What you can't soak up in the next paragraph needs to be "homogenized" with all this angled bouncing around.
The modern approach to studios is to soak-up, destroy, deaden all the wandering sound waves you can. (Then we electronically turn around and create the reverb that we think is attractive. Who was it maybe Cletus Judd used to have in his comedy routine: In the grocery store we buy lemonade with artificial lemons, and we buy furniture polish with REAL lemon juice!) We strain out the real natural reverb today and then add back in some synthetic electronic reverb!)
Several years ago someone got the idea going that tacking empty egg cartons on the wall was good for acoustics. The acoustical consultants who actually come in with instruments and measure the reverb and tune studios scientifically say the egg cartons are worthless. At a guitar store near you they are selling foam rubber by Auralex and others that you glue to the wall. It is pretty pricey and I have no knowledge how effective it is.
My next step is to get some of the ceiling tiles used in those hanging ceiling grid systems and attach them to my walls that are not behind furniture and other furnishings. On some of the walls I want to build some frames about three inches deep, get some acoustical foam/fiber glass blankets in the frames and then cover them with fabric. I read every article I can find on how to do this and various writers spec out the blanket with different terms. And where to buy it is your next puzzle.
If you have a really noisy computer, build a dog-house for it, line the inside of the dog-house with acoustical blankets and ventilate the enclosure with a couple of little fans from the computer store.
BUT... try this first: I have been amazed how noisy my studio is. I finally mounted the mic in a stand-up position around on the other side of my desk and away from the computer. Click on record, walk around the desk doing vocal exercises, pause, and let 'er rip. Pause at the end, walk back around and stop the recording. (The pause before and after are used to get a "sample" for the Restoration/Noise Reduction process in Audition.
Recently I made an interesting discovery. I dislike being too aggressive with Noise Reduction because you can end up damaging the overall sound if over done. The air conditioner/furnace fan in my house shakes the entire building at about 13 hertz. I started experimenting with the Scientific/Brick Wall filter feature. The first thing I doing with a freshly recorded track is filter out everything below 80 hertz. (If you have a really bass, ballsy voice you may want to make the cut off a bit lower. The furnace fan disappears. Most of the computer noise disappears. My studio seems to have a certain amount of "tinnitus" that occurs naturally and that disappears. And the footsteps of me walking around the desk to the mic disappear. At that point my noise level has moved from maybe -25 down to -45 or -50. That's not shabby. Using Restoration/Noise reduction gently, I get my noise level down to about -70. A little gating and noise is down to -90 in the longer pauses.
Sorry to ramble on so long but hope this is helpful. I'm looking forward to any other responses listing specific brands of acoustical blanket material that is most affordable.
