Acoustic Foam Tiles

Acoustic foam tiles are a vital component that is needed to enhance the performance of any recording or home studio. The room acoustic treatment of using Acoustic foam is essential.

Whether you are home recording or have a larger scale professional studio acoustic foam treatment of the room has a massive effect on the quality of your recorded results. You may well have some of the the best recording / monitoring equipment that money can buy but unless the room is well acoustically treated you will not be getting the ideal results from your gear. Rarely are rehersal or recording rooms made with their acoustic properties in mind, therefore the need of acoustic foam roomtreatment is a must. Each room will have its own individual sound characteristics. Many very common acoustic problems are encountered by sound moving around a room and cause reverberation, reflections, flutter echo, slap echo, standing waves, and modal and frequency response problems. In addition sound waves whilst travelling around a room will encounter many objects and surfaces not to mention coming into contact with other sound waves bouncing around the same room. All these elements will cause the initial sound to change sometimes very dramatically, obviousley then being detrimental to the end recording unless you are very lucky. Acoustic foam is now the staple method to cut out many of the afore mentioned problems and its use has been steadily growing year on year.

Some people consider acoustic foam as an unnecessary expense in a studio, this may be due to in some part to the high prices that some brands place on their acoustic foam. It is true acoustic foam grades are manufactured at a premium cost, this is due to the reletivley very low demand for the product in comparison with standard foam grades, however the difference is not that large, other factors in the cost are the testing that needs to be done on the foam tiles to give accurate NRC data results for the evaluation and performance of the tiles and bass traps, however the main 2 reasons for the high cost of acoustic foam are 1] branding and marketing and 2] rarley is acoustic foam sold direct from the manufacturers of the tiles it is usually sold on to resellers who then put their mark up on the tiles.

When used correctly acoustic foam will make a very significant difference to the acoustics within a room, allowing your equipment and instruments to be able realize their real potential seen on the final recording. In addition to the quality of the recorded sound the acoustic treatment will also make the work environment much better. if the sound is better in the room it will be more pleasureable to work in which will have a knock on effect. Alternativley a room that is not adequately treated with acoustic foam will have a negative effect on not only the recording but also working environment. in addition this may also cause problems in the mixing and mastering of the recorded output. As well as where the music is played the room where the recording and monitoring also needs to be a controlled acoustic environment. When the monitoring room is not controlled then this room itself will tell you what you are hearing and again will affect what you record and monitor.

Ideally when treated with acoustic foam the room should enhance the recording and never detract from the final results. Acoustic treatment is all about being in control of the rooms sound, you need to be able to give some ‘liveness’ where and when it is needed this is done by adding or removing acoustic foam treatment in the room. An untreated room will be very reflective. The absence of any surfaces in the room where sound waves can be absorbed will lead to poor recording results in an uncontrolled environment. By adding acoustic foam tiles and bass traps this will enable you to alter the ‘liveness’ of the room giving you control of how the sound then responds in the room. The use of acoustic treatment will enable you to tell if what you are recording, mixing, editing or monitoring is what you want not what the room dictates.

Create the room response you want, by adding and removing acoustic treatment until you get the sound thats right for your recording. When you get it right you will be recording and monitoring with much more accuracy, using your roon as fine tuning for your sound adapting the room to the sound you want lowering or raising the liveness of a room or keeping the sound dead if needed. Being able to work in a well acoustically treated room is far more fulfilling as it elevates problems you may struggled with. Again being at ease and comfortable within your recording studio as in all workplaces will in turn encourage you to work better, this has to enhance your creativity and productivity. Acoustic foam is a cost effective way of acoustically treating a room. It is easy to use and is an effective way of treating a room and then taking control of the room determining the frequency response whilst recording giving a cleaner and far more defined result to recording and monitoring better by taking away the unwanted results that an untreated room will cause. Take control and record what you want to hear rather than having to make the best from what you have.

Acoustic foam tiles primary use is to deal with the problems of high and mid frequency issues, low frequency can also can be dealt with so some extent by absorption and can be tightened up. It is true that lower frequencies can be much harder to deal with than mid and high frequencies. Low end problems are dealt with more by the use of diffusers which are a more structural method of sound control. It is often low end build up in the corners of a room that are a typical problem, The use of acoustic foam corner bass traps will help deal with this allowing low end frequencies to be reduced. And giving a controlled bass response in the room again enhancing the end recordings.