BillFitzmaurice.info

I have a gig coming up in a very live room and was thinking of adding some acoustic panels to the band area to help control reflections. Essentially the room is large antique car show room. Similar to a school gym, 96'x70' all concrete with high metal ceiling.

Has anyone one ever tried this? I realize I cannot treat the entire room(not in the budget) but I want to try to control the stage as much as possible.
Suggestion?

In most rooms of that sort unless you've got a lot of panels you're shoveling shit against the tide. The best you're likely to do is make things intelligible for the band with panels behind them, forget about making it better in the room.

Thanks Bill
That was where I was heading. Some carpet under the performers and panels at the wall the monitors face is all I can transport given the budget.

Haysus wrote:Thanks Bill
That was where I was heading. Some carpet under the performers and panels at the wall the monitors face is all I can transport given the budget.

If you're building or buying, consider making the panels white.... then you can use them as projection backdrops as well. I've seen something like this on a stage before, it looked cool.

I just built some for our practice space in my basement. They did a nice job of subduing the highs bouncing around the concrete walls. I made them 24x48" and filled them with roxul insulation and covered them with polyester batting and fabric. I bought the roxul at a local insulation shop, but this is the same stuff for reference:

http://www.atsacoustics.com/item--Roxul ... -1006.html

jswingchun wrote:I just built some for our practice space in my basement. They did a nice job of subduing the highs bouncing around the concrete walls. I made them 24x48" and filled them with roxul insulation and covered them with polyester batting and fabric. I bought the roxul at a local insulation shop, but this is the same stuff for reference:

http://www.atsacoustics.com/item--Roxul ... -1006.html

ATS Acoustics is 2 blocks from our shop. I purchased 3 2X4 3" thick black panels and built a stand to fly them back stage behind the drum riser. It made a huge difference in the scattered sound coming from the stage. It lowered our stage volume 5db as well. I would highly recommend this. I would also point your mains inward towards a focal point at the back of the room

Steve Regier wrote:

jswingchun wrote:I just built some for our practice space in my basement. They did a nice job of subduing the highs bouncing around the concrete walls. I made them 24x48" and filled them with roxul insulation and covered them with polyester batting and fabric. I bought the roxul at a local insulation shop, but this is the same stuff for reference:

http://www.atsacoustics.com/item--Roxul ... -1006.html

ATS Acoustics is 2 blocks from our shop. I purchased 3 2X4 3" thick black panels and built a stand to fly them back stage behind the drum riser. It made a huge difference in the scattered sound coming from the stage. It lowered our stage volume 5db as well. I would highly recommend this. I would also point your mains inward towards a focal point at the back of the room

I have a few ideas for flying the panels I am making. Could you share your setup? Maybe a pic?

Here is a pic of my flat pack stand proir to duratex. It is designed like an old wooden chalkboard stand thar was in every classroom in America way back when. I "knocks down" to four flat pieces of 3/4 Auraco. The top brace supports the flown panels. The bottom brace resides behind the lower part of the panels at a 45 degree angle to give regidity and not allow the panels to tilt rearward. The uprights are asymetric with the foot protuding more forward than to the rear allowing close placement to a wall and preventing tipping over on the performers since the load weight is forward of the upright center. I also made the chains on the panels long enough to fly them from the rear lighting truss if we are using them. The ATS 4" 2'x4' panels are light enough that they do not stress either the stand or the truss.

Steve Regier wrote:Here is a pic of my flat pack stand proir to duratex. It is designed like an old wooden chalkboard stand thar was in every classroom in America way back when. I "knocks down" to four flat pieces of 3/4 Auraco. The top brace supports the flown panels. The bottom brace resides behind the lower part of the panels at a 45 degree angle to give regidity and not allow the panels to tilt rearward. The uprights are asymetric with the foot protuding more forward than to the rear allowing close placement to a wall and preventing tipping over on the performers since the load weight is forward of the upright center. I also made the chains on the panels long enough to fly them from the rear lighting truss if we are using them. The ATS 4" 2'x4' panels are light enough that they do not stress either the stand or the truss.

Thanks Steve, I umm....errr... borrowed your idea. Here it is at the show. It worked as expected tamed the stage reflections perfectly. No feed back and performers could hear beautifully. The rest of the room still suffered a bit from reflections but I couldn't imagine not having these in this room. I also had 8'x20' of carpet on the stage.

The panels are 4" fire retardant from ATS in ivory (thanks Brent) which really helps reflect the LED lights.

This was a trial sort of gig for the venue, it is a car restoration/custom shop that doubles the show room as an event space. Lot's of beautiful restores of classic muscle cars some old caddy's and even had some Ferraris and Porsches lying around.

The non profit that hired us had good praises about the sound.(this was there first live band event) The owners of the venue were also impressed with the sound.

Oh ya, 4 DR200's & 2 T39's vplated corner loaded covered 6,000' with room to boot.

Haysus wrote:The panels are 4" fire retardant from ATS in ivory (thanks Brent) which really helps reflect the LED lights..

What is ATS?

Harley wrote:

Haysus wrote:The panels are 4" fire retardant from ATS in ivory (thanks Brent) which really helps reflect the LED lights..

What is ATS?

http://www.atsacoustics.com/cat--ATS-Ac ... --100.html

Along these same lines I, or rather my daughter has a problem. Practicing opera in an apartment is a real problem, volume wise. When she comes home and practices the neighbors sit on their porches and listen, so you get the idea of the problem. Here's my idea, 703 or 705 fiberglass panels much like what you guys have made, in almost an isolation booth form, that knocks down into something at least semi transportable and storable. 2" thick. If I leave the backside open so it's not quite so claustrophobic do you think I'll get enough attenuation to make a difference? Plus I need to attenuate at the top and bottom also. She's a soprano, so she's lots easier to stop than if she was a bass.

Or just a box to sit on a stand at head height to sing into. Any and all ideas welcome.

LelandCrooks wrote: Any and all ideas welcome.

A walk in closet fully lined with clothing. Win-win.

Leland the panels are the easy part , making the decision on mobile or not is the hard part. If the space is available go for the closet. If not try 2 panels in a corner then 1 behind to make a triangle . That way you can leave the 2 mounted and make one movable.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote:Win-win.

Except for my pocketbook to fill the closet.