sound treating a closet / 2 inch foam or egg carton foam

i know its not the best for acoustics but im using what i have, hella blankets, pillows, and a few strips of foam. the problem is, my closet is a sliding glass door (mirrors) so i want to put foam on the inside of it, right now i have towels taped to it but i dont think they will dead the reflections enough, i also have a sleeping bag hung over a beam above me after i close the closet door inbetween me and the reflective door. but if i were to foam the door, i know i cant afford studio quality foam, and i was wondering if egg carton foam or flat foam would work better for insulation.

IE im not sound proofing it, just sound treating the room. and i will put towels or whatever down next to the sliding runners when i can get it finished and ready to record in.

right now i can barley hear any room reflections when i clap inside it, but a faint ring can be heard and i think its from the reflections of the other side of the mirror.

so which foam would you guys choose/ which foam do you use/ have had any experiences with.

im just talking cheap yellow foam, 2 or 3 inches thick.

and just in case your wondering, i have a carpet nailed to the wall, its llike a burbur kind of material area rug with a down blanket on top of that. and i just nailed towels to the walls and stuck hella blankets up above my head so the reflections from up top wouldent come down.

i know about un paralllel walls and all of that, but i just cant do that in this closet and i cant afford to double sheetrock the walls either.

any advice from your vocal booths would be great!

Egg carton would be better because of the different shapes and can naturally diffuse the sound. Though it will not sound proof your closet but the sound waves can be heard much better than flat foam.

In my case, I have alot of LPs and CDs so I stacked them informally with one section sticking out more than the other, like a library of books of different sizes on a shelf. Works lovely for me.

There's a band called Can from the 60's and they made their early albums in a room stocked with egg cartons nailed to the wall from top to bottom and their sound is distinct and hits you in the face. Tago Mago is a prime example of their work.

[quote="Ill-Green"]Egg carton would be better because of the different shapes and can naturally diffuse the sound. Though it will not sound proof your closet but the sound waves can be heard much better than flat foam.

thanks for your reply man.

^^^^ what do you mean by it will not sound proof my closet, but the sound waves can be herd much better than flat foam?

are you saying that it will be easier to hear a vocalist inside my closet from outside of it if i used egg carton foam or that it would just be an overall better choice. i know that it seems like one becuase it will diffuse the sound more because of the shape.

and i actually have a rack behind me of closet shelves. i dont remember what the kind of shelving is called, but its those makeshift shelves that you can put anywhere on a wall if you want a shelf on it.

it has two peices of metal with little rectangles (that act as hooks) running parallel to each other about 2 feet apart from eachother running down the wall, then theres theese triangle peices that hook into the rectangles and we just measured out shelves and cut them and put them in there.

but i have been stuffing lots of pillows behind it and everywhere in my shelves, and on the bottom one i have a dvd case, i have been trying to soundproof it so i just have hella blankets draped over all those shelves inbetween each one and over the dvd case and my records are sitting in a box at the very bottom on the floor also.

do you think i should use theese to diffuse the sound? i was thinking that also, but i know that the dvds would bounce the sound off of them becuase they are made of plastic, so i was just trying to insulate everything on my shelves instead. right now i have stapled towels and foot towels to the front of my shelves so they are just hanging over everything inside the shelves.

most of them have stuffed down blankets, pillows and pants to deaden the sound (hey it still works as a closet too)
the dvds and records are a little below my waist, situated behind me when im going to be recording, and as i said before i have drapes over them in the form of towels.

im checking out tago mago right now on youtube, they have a really gritty sound, but its not really the one im looking for, thanks for showing me that though, its good to hear how things turn out after they are in a room thats not very treated, or home treated.

thanks again for your reply ill-green

and one more thing, today my dad gave me one of those yoga mats/ camping mats made of very dense 1'' foam that we had laying around, do you think this would work? i was thinking it might be too dense and reflect the sound back at me even.

http://s.kmart.com/is/image/Sears/00640246000 this is a picture of the aeromat

Side by side with Auralex, only a QA muh could differentiate this shit:

Foam Factory - quality acoustic foam straight from the manufacturer
http://www.foambymail.com/soundproofing.html

The have even better deals on eBay, just search acoustic foam. I bought two lots of (56) 2" thick tiles that were 1' x 1' squared. They have a shit load of colors, three different patterns and thicknesses from 1"-4". The also sell bass traps and foam for custom flight cases.

No, I am not affiliated with these cats, just want to spread the word on some damn cheap acoustic treatment! Use the money you saved if you would've bought Auralex on records or better cables

Well when you sample something, the wave form on your screen looks like a zig-zag type of pattern, right? Thats the same type of wave that'll be travelling in the closet so egg cartons would absorb those patterns better because they are shaped like waves.

Flat foam will absorb the frequencies but other frequencies can bounce around.

Sound proofing is another story though, meaning not to disturb the neighbors or anyone in the house. Egg carton will prevent the waves from bouncing around but your wife will still bang the walls with a broom and shouting to lower that down. Sound proofing would need total reconstruction of that closet. Cheapest way would be to put two layers of sheet-rock on all four walls.

But I think with all the pillow and blankets the sound would be muffled down not to disturb others much, so thats good.

skeezee, ill check those out for sure, but they will proably have to wait till march when i will be getting steady income.

yeah, i figured something like that, i heard alot of people use half and half with acoustic treatments, so i think imma do that, ill put the egg foam on the upper half, and the thick foam on the lower half, i went to a recording school, so i feel i know at least where im trying to get with this, and i know the difference between sound proofing and sound insulating.

thanks for all the input though. i have been reading up on the double sheetrock and all that too, but ill have to get a better place to record in in the first place before i invest all the money in something like that.

LOL funny how you say "your wife" im not that old dude. haha. i love they dynamic's of the age on this forum, im 21 and im sure alot more of the experienced cats such as yourself are in their late 20's early 30's. just a guess though.

thanks alot both of you for the info.

and i acutally recorded something in it today and it sounds really dead in there already, just like i was looking for, but im just running a 4050 strait into my firewire 410 using a bf76 free plug with protools. i like to use logic to record, but i have used real 1176's before, so i feel more comfortable with it.

so once i save up enough and get an 1176 and a nice mic pre i think i will be getting alot better sounding sounds than i am right now.

on another note, does anyone know of a good transparent sounding mic pre, maybe simular to the mic pre on the avalon 737 vt compresor/mic pre combo, the yamaha ha8, or even a focusrite twintrack pro? i would need at least a dual channel one and am trying to spend 700 dollars on the mic pre max, becuase the 1176 is gonna cost so much. im looking at a single channel 1176LN with the old design, so i figured if i get that one for 2000, i can spend around 700 on a mic pre and it will come out costing about the same as the stereo paired new-looking 1176's.

im shying away from getting a 6176 becuase i dont like the more gritty tube sound on my vocals, i like them clean and neat.

ive also been looking at the black lion audio auteur pre-amp, it says its transformer-less, but i am thinking i might not like it becuase it says this on the website

"We also like classic transformer-based designs because of the characteristic they lend to the audio signal. Because of this, we added a 600 ohm M-6 silicon steel output transformer to give the audio a thick quality that's reminiscent of a prized vintage preamp. It’s the best of both worlds in our opinion. The preamp is dual channel and features phase, +48vdc phantom power, and 10dB output signal pad."

i guess i just need another breakdown of mic pres, i just used the ones i though sounded good at school and i figured that most of them that i liked didnt use tubes. so my question would be, are theese optical mic pres? is transformer-less really what im looking for??

thanks again both of you for your prompt replys.

I never went to school, though I'll begin courses in recording arts in Jan. But I read alot and prowl around music studios asking questions. And yeah, I'm in my 30's, lol!

On the pre-amps, usually transformers make a slight buzzing sound, but grounding the pre can solve that. The transformerless preamp I assume ends all that and you get clean vocals. Some would say transformers give vocals a distinct edge because of the slight warm overdrive that analog studios are known for.

As for me, I got a $50 tube preamp that gives my vocals a warm analog tone, works for what I do. But for rnb singing I have to watch and control the gain. If the girl starts to hit high notes or gets in that soulful spirit of singing loud, then I lower the gain just a bit to get it on point for the final mix.

Well good luck man, I hoped I helped. I'm not a master YET, but a jack of all trades in the art.

Peace

egg cartons dont work well and are flammable and studio foam is overpriced. If you are handy head down to your local home depot and pick up some furring strips. These are usually about $1.04 per piece. For size, preferably 1" x 2" x 8'. Create simple 2' x 4' frames out of them. Then purchase roxul AFB (acoustical fire batts). Per pack there are 6 pieces of 2" thick sheets that are 2' x 4'. This will only cost about $30 a pack. Then pick up some black fabric from your local fabric or arts and crafts store. This is usually about $3 per yard.

With this setup you will get WAY better acoustics control and dollar for dollar it is way more efficient. The best part it you can control the size of the panels so you can really treat the key areas of your setup. A nice addition is that since you are selecting your own fabric you can color code it as you please.

Ive been using these types of panels for years in my studios. The results are clear as day as soon as you hang the first couple

yeah, thats what i was thinking about the pre-amps. i guess its time to break open my recording techniques book and look at all the different kinds that they make and do some more research before purchasing one.

i got spoiled in school cause we had all this equipment we could use whenever, so im use to gettting spoiled with top of the line equipment and havent really tried much else.

i mean, they have some other equipment thats not so expensive, but why use that when i can run an 1176 through an avalon mic pre.

and thanks pound, i might have a project in the works for the next few weeks.