Taming club house acoustics using hanging carpets?

[bolehnggak]

Hi,

I'm a drummer and also recording engineer, still learning though.

We are often play our gigs regularly in a country club's hall in my town. Basicly the venue were offered free for us to play, and we can organise the gig the way we wanted, so it's considered as our band's 'own' concert hall.
But the problem is the acoustic of the room. It's quite big, but I figured if I bring in portable gobos it would help to tame them. but it would be quite an effort, especially we had to carry those big gobos, the transportation and everything.

I'm thinking of using carpets or household rugs, and then placing them on some spots, hanging them from the ceiling like curtains, leave some space from the walls.

Will it improve the sound, acousticly?

Cause bringing carpets and rugs is much easier for us, we have some rugs from each member of the band to bring to the gig, using each member's car.

Any inputs are appreciated.
Thanks.

[Soundman2020]

Probably wont help much. Carpet is selective absorption, and only affects highs, not lows. So you'll end up with a muddy, "honky" sound, rather unpleasant. You'd also need an awful lot of carpet to even get to that stage, for a room as big as a hall. I run a lot of live sound in places with really lousy acoustics, and over the years I've learned quite a few tricks for setting up the sound system that help a lot in reducing the effects of poor hall acoustics. But a discussion of live sound techniques is a little outside the scope of this forum (off-topic) so if you want you can PM me for that, and I'll pass on some advice and rules of thumb that might allow you to play decently in that room without doing any treatment at all.

If you still want to add acoustic treatment to that hall, it can be done but it wont be cheap or easy, and I'd suggest you talk to someone like John, Andre or Rod, who have experience in that kind of thing. You'd probably need to do a proper acoustic analysis of the hall first, to figure out where the problems are, then treat them. But since its not your hall, that kind of investment might not be justifiable.


- Stuart -

[orangenumerik]

Soundman, your description of "the carpet behaviour" is true but only if it is layed on a floor. Having limp "barirers" spaced from a hard surfaces would probably do something in the lower spectrum. But that said, i would't do it either... i just wanna be picky

[AVare]

Stuart and Eric have given you great advice already. One more thing to consider is that big walls need big treatment. No matter what you do, will have to a lot of it to get enough area covered. More details starting with size are required to give useful advice.

Andre

[bolehnggak]

Thanks for all answers!

I'm trying to get a rough layout of the hall, it's a country club's multipurpose hall, the shape is irregular, hope that I'll get it soon to show you, and get opinions and suggestions.

I'll inform you soon as I got the drawing.

Thanks.

[Soundman2020]

Soundman, your description of "the carpet behaviour" is true but only if it is layed on a floor. Having limp "barirers" spaced from a hard surfaces would probably do something in the lower spectrum. But that said, i would't do it either... i just wanna be picky

I agree, Eric, for sure! I like "picky"! That's me, too! So no offense taken at all.

But you'd need pretty thick, heavy carpet, and a huge amount of it, to make much of a difference, I reckon. Maybe really thick pile carpet would do the trick, but your average kind of thin home or office carpeting isn't going to accomplish a lot, even if it is hung at strategic quarter wavelength distances from walls based on careful analysis. It just doesn't have enough density or thickness to do much. I guess if you hung several layers all together it might have an effect. Maybe hanging dozens of full panels of 4" 703 from the ceiling would do something useful, but even then I wouldn't expect miraculous results. A hall like that probably needs several different kinds of treatment in different locations, not just hanging absorption.

But yeah, you are right: Hang enough carpet in good locations and it might have an effect. My issue with that is that it would be unpredictable, unless the carpet manufacturer has published acoustic specs on that specific carpet. So it might work on the lows too, but who knows if it would do what you wanted it to do?

But I'm interested in seeing the size, shape and layout of the hall, to see if there is anything that can be done reasonably. I'm intrigued!


- Stuart -

[Ro]

Hai bolehnggak,

What surprises me is that you've been a member of this forum sinces 2003 and have a bunch of posts on your name already... and still considering carpet on the walls?

Funny, I just posted a reaction (10 min ago) on exaclty the same question on a dutch forum... some-one was determined that carpet on the walls is THE solution to prevent room reverbs... I advised him to get insulation materials instead for just a few bucks more than a piece of carpet. hope he bites..