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Post by drumsound on Dec 11, 2023 23:41:58 GMT -6
Hmmmm... I wonder if it's near me in Central IL. It’s either near you or me😁 Makes sense. It’s either near you or me😁 Or it could be deep in Ohio… Don't believe what they tell you. The Midwest doesn't claim Ohio. |
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Post by the other mark williams on Dec 12, 2023 12:37:22 GMT -6
It’s either near you or me😁 Makes sense. Or it could be deep in Ohio… Don't believe what they tell you. The Midwest doesn't claim Ohio. Hahaha - I love it! I know a number of Ohioans who don't claim Missouri. "It's a 'Great Plains' state!" I don't agree with them, of course... |
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Post by drumsound on Dec 12, 2023 13:23:35 GMT -6
Makes sense. Don't believe what they tell you. The Midwest doesn't claim Ohio. Hahaha - I love it! I know a number of Ohioans who don't claim Missouri. "It's a 'Great Plains' state!" I don't agree with them, of course... Ohio is a weird one for sooooo many reasons... |
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Post by Quint on Dec 12, 2023 13:28:04 GMT -6
Hahaha - I love it! I know a number of Ohioans who don't claim Missouri. "It's a 'Great Plains' state!" I don't agree with them, of course... Ohio is a weird one for sooooo many reasons... It doesn't have Florida beat. Florida = The dong of America |
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Post by drumsound on Dec 12, 2023 13:59:41 GMT -6
Ohio is a weird one for sooooo many reasons... It doesn't have Florida beat. Florida = The dong of America HEHEHE  |
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Post by Tbone81 on Dec 12, 2023 18:00:56 GMT -6
Well, I just pulled the trigger on 4 tube traps from GIK. Today is the last day of their 15% off sale. I'm planning on using them as speakers stands. I'm very interested to see how they work out. I have a peak around 200-300hz in my room that I need to even out. Hoping these will help. Report back, please! Ive been meaning to do some REW measurements with my new monitors, I’ll see if I can do a before/after post. Looks like they won’t ship til Jan 5th though  |
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Post by notneeson on Dec 12, 2023 18:50:54 GMT -6
Ive been meaning to do some REW measurements with my new monitors, I’ll see if I can do a before/after post. Looks like they won’t ship til Jan 5th though Yeah, I think GIK builds to order, I encountered that with my Alpha panels. |
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Post by bossanova on Dec 12, 2023 19:25:51 GMT -6
Let me just preface this by saying I don't have much experience in great sounding recording rooms or mixing environments, if you have, you may find this thread a boring read.
Moving on,
This journey has brought me to the conclusion that if I were to do everything over again I would prioritize acoustics.
I bought 8 for tracking, and I put them in my home bedroom studio yesterday. 4 behind the vocal tracking position facing the microphone 2 behind the mic and 2 where they could fit elsewhere in the room (which is fairly small and very crowded). I've got 8 3-4 inch DIY rockwool absorption panels on the walls in this room prior but thats it for treatment. I've built my own tubetraps but they are not nearly as space friendly as they are much thicker, dont have stands so they are harder to fit in the room and fall over quite easily - they also dont have the treble diffusion which has been huge for my vocal recording I'm finding.
Anyway the results have been very surprising to see just how much they altered the sound of my Flea 47, it really feels like having a completely different microphone. I'm not a very experienced engineer but I can hear just how much quality from my mic I was missing before the traps were inside. I have a heiserman 47T too, which if my flea had sounded like it does now, I would have never bought. I still love the Hesierman 47T and will keep it but its made that much of a difference for me to where I finally hear what I've wanted to hear from my mic and now I couldn't be happier.
All in all the vocal sounds so much tighter, focused, less smeary in the high end, less smeary in the low end, less sibilant/harsh, yet cuts through the mix better. So its gotten me a vocal sound that is unachievable by any other means IME. A 40,000$ u67 just will not get you there. Only acoustics will get you that great vocal sound (assuming you're already working with a good mic). Which of course I didn't know, I thought 8 3-4 inch panels would be decent enough and since I didn't hear any flutter echo in my vocals I thought "the room is probably fine, the problem is I just dont know what magic pixie dust milkshake Manny Marroquin is drinking in the morning to get his vocal sounding perfect with only 2 plug-ins, but one day I'll know!" Or when I had a hunch the vocal could be clearer in the high-end yet it sounded too bright already? "It must be the Flea, okay I'll buy a heiserman." No. Wrong. How to mix vocals? Acoustics. Best plug-in for vocals? Owens Corning, Acoustics.
Anyway I'm happy to have them and will be purchasing 6 more to have 14 total for a very capable mobile tracking situation. ASC tube traps just happened to be the right fit for me, I don't doubt DIY's are great I have made my own that I will be using for my future mixing environment but for tracking I really enjoy these cause theyre super durable, look nice and with the treble diffusion side I don't get too dead of a sound. I had some money to spend and the build quality/treble diffusion/look-aesthetic of the ASC's appealed to me so I took the dive. I recommend them. And I recommend anyone looking into any piece of gear right now (if they're like me and are still chasing that sound in their head) to give a second glance to their recording environment and see if there's improvement to be had there first because the difference I'm hearing now is actually worth the money.
Since the tube traps are supposed to be built to 48” tall at max, did you have them raised to mic height in this case (recording the vocal), or did you get those positive improvements/results just from having them around the vocal position on the ground? |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Dec 12, 2023 21:20:55 GMT -6
Makes sense. Don't believe what they tell you. The Midwest doesn't claim Ohio. Hahaha - I love it! I know a number of Ohioans who don't claim Missouri. "It's a 'Great Plains' state!" I don't agree with them, of course... They’re just jealous we have a Kelsey Brother. |
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Post by OtisGreying on Jan 26, 2024 3:17:26 GMT -6
Let me just preface this by saying I don't have much experience in great sounding recording rooms or mixing environments, if you have, you may find this thread a boring read.
Moving on,
This journey has brought me to the conclusion that if I were to do everything over again I would prioritize acoustics.
I bought 8 for tracking, and I put them in my home bedroom studio yesterday. 4 behind the vocal tracking position facing the microphone 2 behind the mic and 2 where they could fit elsewhere in the room (which is fairly small and very crowded). I've got 8 3-4 inch DIY rockwool absorption panels on the walls in this room prior but thats it for treatment. I've built my own tubetraps but they are not nearly as space friendly as they are much thicker, dont have stands so they are harder to fit in the room and fall over quite easily - they also dont have the treble diffusion which has been huge for my vocal recording I'm finding.
Anyway the results have been very surprising to see just how much they altered the sound of my Flea 47, it really feels like having a completely different microphone. I'm not a very experienced engineer but I can hear just how much quality from my mic I was missing before the traps were inside. I have a heiserman 47T too, which if my flea had sounded like it does now, I would have never bought. I still love the Hesierman 47T and will keep it but its made that much of a difference for me to where I finally hear what I've wanted to hear from my mic and now I couldn't be happier.
All in all the vocal sounds so much tighter, focused, less smeary in the high end, less smeary in the low end, less sibilant/harsh, yet cuts through the mix better. So its gotten me a vocal sound that is unachievable by any other means IME. A 40,000$ u67 just will not get you there. Only acoustics will get you that great vocal sound (assuming you're already working with a good mic). Which of course I didn't know, I thought 8 3-4 inch panels would be decent enough and since I didn't hear any flutter echo in my vocals I thought "the room is probably fine, the problem is I just dont know what magic pixie dust milkshake Manny Marroquin is drinking in the morning to get his vocal sounding perfect with only 2 plug-ins, but one day I'll know!" Or when I had a hunch the vocal could be clearer in the high-end yet it sounded too bright already? "It must be the Flea, okay I'll buy a heiserman." No. Wrong. How to mix vocals? Acoustics. Best plug-in for vocals? Owens Corning, Acoustics.
Anyway I'm happy to have them and will be purchasing 6 more to have 14 total for a very capable mobile tracking situation. ASC tube traps just happened to be the right fit for me, I don't doubt DIY's are great I have made my own that I will be using for my future mixing environment but for tracking I really enjoy these cause theyre super durable, look nice and with the treble diffusion side I don't get too dead of a sound. I had some money to spend and the build quality/treble diffusion/look-aesthetic of the ASC's appealed to me so I took the dive. I recommend them. And I recommend anyone looking into any piece of gear right now (if they're like me and are still chasing that sound in their head) to give a second glance to their recording environment and see if there's improvement to be had there first because the difference I'm hearing now is actually worth the money.
Since the tube traps are supposed to be built to 48” tall at max, did you have them raised to mic height in this case (recording the vocal), or did you get those positive improvements/results just from having them around the vocal position on the ground? Sorry for the confusion but I meant Studio Traps, with the stands. Those are the ones I have. So I put them as high as the mic. Since doing this I've also moved my DIY tube traps (3ft owens corning pipe insulation tubes) into my room and fitted them in nooks and crevasses where they fit, the vocal sound to my ear has just gotten better and better. There's like 22 tubes (14 diy 3ft'ers, 8 ASC) in my room now, only thing that I don't have for my recording spot is a ceiling cloud but my vocals are sounding really solid to my ear. |
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Post by Tbone81 on Jan 26, 2024 14:19:41 GMT -6
So my GIK tube traps were just delivered…they’re massive lol, so much so that I wasn’t able to use them as monitor stands and had to place them in a slightly different location then anticipated.
They look great and the built quality is top notch. When I get to it I’ll be shooting another Sonarworks profile, I’ll post the before/after when I do.
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Post by OtisGreying on Feb 4, 2024 18:42:00 GMT -6
Just as an update I'd like to continue to be a fanboy for the tube traps, not necessarily ASC, but my DIY tube traps are really working wonders now as far as making life so much easier and getting better recorded sounds. I think the amount in my room is finally allowing for my recordings to be LEAN in the low mids and upper lows so my recorded material is starting to really shine. For anyone wondering a 3ft batt of pipe insulation owens corning is like 40$, wrap it in some fabric, I've placed them on my ceiling by literally cutting up some black blanket into strips and using 3 strips pinned into the ceiling/side walls of my studio and they are sturdy and haven't flinched. You can pretty much get a bedroom full of tubes done for around 1,000$ and it will dramatically change the recorded material IF you commit and put enough of them in the studio. I've got 15 DIY 3 footers and 8 ASC studio traps around my recording and listening position. If you make them with cool colorful fabric and take the time to set it up nicely, it makes the room vibey and not like a mess which was also very important to me even though the only person in here other than me is my girlfriend ha.
Using porous absorber calculator I've seen that about 6 inches of porous insulation material will get you close to the low frequencies, but if its 6 inches in the form of tubes, because of the air inside of the tubes it starts to really reach down there, which I believe is what I'm starting to hear and its sounding really great. Another reason I prefer tubes is just how much easier it is to place them rather than dealing with constructing wood frames for regular square batts.
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Post by tkaitkai on Feb 4, 2024 19:01:33 GMT -6
I think the amount in my room is finally allowing for my recordings to be LEAN in the low mids and upper lows so my recorded material is starting to really shine This is one of the most amazing aspects of recording with tube traps. They effortlessly clean up the low mids. It’s really frustrating because it’s not a massive night and day difference, but once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. There’s a honky 700hz resonance in anything I record in my room, and it goes away when I use these things. It’s like they just iron out the frequency spectrum and make everything sound more balanced. |
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Post by bikescene on Feb 4, 2024 19:43:53 GMT -6
This post just reminded me that I should probably buy some more fiberglass pipe insulation to make some more traps.
I get the 10” pipe diameter sized ones online from Zoro, which offers free shipping over $50. And they constantly mail me 15-20% coupons to entice me to order more.
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Post by OtisGreying on Feb 4, 2024 19:48:37 GMT -6
I think the amount in my room is finally allowing for my recordings to be LEAN in the low mids and upper lows so my recorded material is starting to really shine This is one of the most amazing aspects of recording with tube traps. They effortlessly clean up the low mids. It’s really frustrating because it’s not a massive night and day difference, but once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. There’s a honky 700hz resonance in anything I record in my room, and it goes away when I use these things. It’s like they just iron out the frequency spectrum and make everything sound more balanced. 100%, I've had so many issues with 200-400hz areas in the past and I have not had to pull for any EQ to carve in those areas after introducing the tubes. Even with 4 inch wall panels you dont get very much absorption down into that area. I'm recording in a bedroom so things would get boxy in here, now they just sound dry and balanced, not dead and muffled but actually balanced. |
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Post by ontravelling on Feb 5, 2024 3:01:52 GMT -6
For anyone wondering a 3ft batt of pipe insulation owens corning is like 40$, wrap it in some fabric, I've placed them on my ceiling by literally cutting up some black blanket into strips and using 3 strips pinned into the ceiling/side walls of my studio and they are sturdy and haven't flinched. You can pretty much get a bedroom full of tubes done for around 1,000$ and it will dramatically change the recorded material IF you commit and put enough of them in the studio. I've got 15 DIY 3 footers and 8 ASC studio traps around my recording and listening position. If you make them with cool colorful fabric and take the time to set it up nicely, it makes the room vibey and not like a mess which was also very important to me even though the only person in here other than me is my girlfriend ha. Using porous absorber calculator I've seen that about 6 inches of porous insulation material will get you close to the low frequencies, but if its 6 inches in the form of tubes, because of the air inside of the tubes it starts to really reach down there, which I believe is what I'm starting to hear and its sounding really great. I'm super interested in this. Do you have any pics of how you've set them up? Also, what is the insulation wall thickness your prefer for these? I'm on Zoro having a look and want to make sure I'm not getting ones that may be too thin. I'm not seeing any that are 6" thick, unless I'm just reading these specs wrong. |
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Post by OtisGreying on Feb 5, 2024 4:07:05 GMT -6
For anyone wondering a 3ft batt of pipe insulation owens corning is like 40$, wrap it in some fabric, I've placed them on my ceiling by literally cutting up some black blanket into strips and using 3 strips pinned into the ceiling/side walls of my studio and they are sturdy and haven't flinched. You can pretty much get a bedroom full of tubes done for around 1,000$ and it will dramatically change the recorded material IF you commit and put enough of them in the studio. I've got 15 DIY 3 footers and 8 ASC studio traps around my recording and listening position. If you make them with cool colorful fabric and take the time to set it up nicely, it makes the room vibey and not like a mess which was also very important to me even though the only person in here other than me is my girlfriend ha. Using porous absorber calculator I've seen that about 6 inches of porous insulation material will get you close to the low frequencies, but if its 6 inches in the form of tubes, because of the air inside of the tubes it starts to really reach down there, which I believe is what I'm starting to hear and its sounding really great. I'm super interested in this. Do you have any pics of how you've set them up? Also, what is the insulation wall thickness your prefer for these? I'm on Zoro having a look and want to make sure I'm not getting ones that may be too thin. I'm not seeing any that are 6" thick, unless I'm just reading these specs wrong. I have 2 inch thickness and the inner diameter of the tubes are about 6 inches, so the full diameter is 10 inches each. But if what you're looking at is 6 inch inner diameter you're looking at the right thing. Eric Valentine's instructions are the ones I followed which he has all over youtube |
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Post by ontravelling on Feb 6, 2024 6:21:58 GMT -6
Thanks so much!
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 6, 2024 7:12:02 GMT -6
I'm super interested in this. Do you have any pics of how you've set them up? Also, what is the insulation wall thickness your prefer for these? I'm on Zoro having a look and want to make sure I'm not getting ones that may be too thin. I'm not seeing any that are 6" thick, unless I'm just reading these specs wrong. I have 2 inch thickness and the inner diameter of the tubes are about 6 inches, so the full diameter is 10 inches each. But if what you're looking at is 6 inch inner diameter you're looking at the right thing. Eric Valentine's instructions are the ones I followed which he has all over youtube So, you put pipe insulation on outside of tube? I had assumed inside ? |
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Post by OtisGreying on Feb 6, 2024 22:01:09 GMT -6
I have 2 inch thickness and the inner diameter of the tubes are about 6 inches, so the full diameter is 10 inches each. But if what you're looking at is 6 inch inner diameter you're looking at the right thing. Eric Valentine's instructions are the ones I followed which he has all over youtube So, you put pipe insulation on outside of tube? I had assumed inside ? Theres no actual tube Kcatt, just wrap the insulation (which is already in the shape of a tube when it comes) in fabric, two wood circular cutouts per side and thats it |
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 7, 2024 4:42:13 GMT -6
Thx, peeps do diy differently, so just trying to understand the builds!
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Post by nick8801 on Feb 7, 2024 4:51:05 GMT -6
I just snagged 2 of the 16 inch round 3ft tall ASC traps from a studio clear out. Still have to pick them up, but I got them well below half price. Still not super cheap, but I’m hoping they will help clean up some low end in my room. I’ll experiment with placement, but what would you guys do? Should I elevate them on stands or stools? I kind of imagined them being taller. I have one long wall in my room that only has a couple 2 inch thick panels on it. There’s also a pretty exposed part of the ceiling running into that wall, so I think that’s where I should try putting them. I also have some room behind my desk where I think they might help. I guess I’ll play around. Wish I was able to grab more but that’s all they had available.
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Post by notneeson on Feb 7, 2024 9:15:17 GMT -6
I just snagged 2 of the 16 inch round 3ft tall ASC traps from a studio clear out. Still have to pick them up, but I got them well below half price. Still not super cheap, but I’m hoping they will help clean up some low end in my room. I’ll experiment with placement, but what would you guys do? Should I elevate them on stands or stools? I kind of imagined them being taller. I have one long wall in my room that only has a couple 2 inch thick panels on it. There’s also a pretty exposed part of the ceiling running into that wall, so I think that’s where I should try putting them. I also have some room behind my desk where I think they might help. I guess I’ll play around. Wish I was able to grab more but that’s all they had available. You likely know this, but corners are a good place to start with bass trapping. |
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Post by nick8801 on Feb 7, 2024 10:07:21 GMT -6
I just snagged 2 of the 16 inch round 3ft tall ASC traps from a studio clear out. Still have to pick them up, but I got them well below half price. Still not super cheap, but I’m hoping they will help clean up some low end in my room. I’ll experiment with placement, but what would you guys do? Should I elevate them on stands or stools? I kind of imagined them being taller. I have one long wall in my room that only has a couple 2 inch thick panels on it. There’s also a pretty exposed part of the ceiling running into that wall, so I think that’s where I should try putting them. I also have some room behind my desk where I think they might help. I guess I’ll play around. Wish I was able to grab more but that’s all they had available. You likely know this, but corners are a good place to start with bass trapping. Yeah definitely...I probably could use like 4 more of these to really make an impact, but I'm hoping the 2 is worth the trouble. |
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Post by jcgriggs on Feb 7, 2024 10:32:51 GMT -6
Thx, peeps do diy differently, so just trying to understand the builds! I have seen some DIY "tube trap" designs using concrete form tubes made of cardboard. Unless these are heavily perforated, they will not work like the ASC design, which relies on the compliance of the trapped air within a tube that allows airflow (but provides resistance to it). The ASC design uses a perforated metal sheet to provide mechanical rigidity and it is perforated differently (different sized holes and spacing) to provide the difference between the absorptive and diffusive surfaces of the tube. I have seen various schemes to reproduce this in DIY devices, the simplest seems to be covering the part of the surface that is to diffuse at higher frequencies with 6 mil plastic (available as vapour barrier).
ASC used to include the patent numbers in their advertising but they have stopped (I guess since the patents have expired, having been granted in the 1980's) - if you do some digging you can find the patents on line. Then you can wade through all the legalese to get these details.
My $0.02 (Canadian Tire), John
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