Baffles? *Noob Question*

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hunterchristy
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Baffles? *Noob Question*

Post by hunterchristy » Sun Mar 11, 2012 1:55 pm

Long time gawker, first time poster!

So, i'm about to record a band in a garage. One point of reference is Foo Fighters' Wasting Light...haha, no. i know i'm no Butch Vig.

However, a lot of my mic choices are similar or the same to the way they engineered drums for Taylor, the space is similar, etc. However, they have these baffles behind Taylor, and right in front of the garage door.

Where do you get them? or what do you build them out of?

http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/jun11 ... oos_02.jpg

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vvv
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Post by vvv » Sun Mar 11, 2012 5:04 pm

Those look like office cubicle dividers to me.
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JWL
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Post by JWL » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:52 am

Those look like DIY gobos on wheels to me. Something like 1x4 or 1x6 framing, a solid barrier in the center or on the back (away from the camera), with absorbent material (probably rigid fiberglass) covered with cloth.

Simple enough to DIY, or there are commercial GoboTraps available.

hunterchristy
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Post by hunterchristy » Sun Apr 08, 2012 12:03 pm

yeah, i FINALLY figured out they were big ass bass traps. I ended up building some JUST in time to track drums.

The primary issue of concern was traffic bleeding through the garage door. Thusly i wanted to get SOMETHING to block/reduce this sound, which would have ribbon's up right against it.

i ended up doing a 4x4x10 box.

one side has a hard reflective surface (1/2" board), then an air gap, then another 1/2" board, then 2 layers of insulation (i will end up replacing this with OC 703 when time/money allow), then fabric. They worked out pretty well.

This is the front face, during initial set-up. However, i realized the fabric side deadened the sound TOO much, and ended up flipping them so that the reflective side was facing into the room. It still blocked outside noise great.

Image
Last edited by hunterchristy on Sun Jun 30, 2013 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Brett Siler
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Post by Brett Siler » Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:05 pm

How much does it reduce the noise?
They look good, great job!

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vxboogie
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Post by vxboogie » Mon Apr 16, 2012 5:47 am

Great job. Love the look. What fabric did you use?
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hunterchristy
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Post by hunterchristy » Thu Apr 19, 2012 7:04 pm

thanks!

yeah, they do the trick quite well! I'm sure if i had some OC in there, they'd be even better frequency-wise, but they did what i needed them to do.

i went into hobby lobby to get muslin for the face, but they had some that was the same density and weight as muslin that had a cool pattern on it, so i said "why the heck not?"

in terms of the fabric side, it KILLED reflections. it was so insane. they really worked TOO well. it sounded like the room was totally treated. so by flipping them around, i have this great big ass room sound. but this cause me to put some foam above the cymbals to cut some of those high frequencies bouncing around.

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