Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 2 Theory and Background............................................................................................................................... 2 Reverberation Time ................................................................................................................................. 2 Room Modes............................................................................................................................................ 3 Method ........................................................................................................................................................ 3 Initial Condition ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Reverberation Time ............................................................................................................................. 3 Room Modes Distribution.................................................................................................................... 5 The Treatment ......................................................................................................................................... 6 Treatment for Reverberation time ...................................................................................................... 6 Tuned Panel Absorber Bass Trap .................................................................................................... 11 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 11 Reference................................................................................................................................................... 12

Introduction
In this paper, a method of converting a space into a creative audio environment is investigated. This includes calculation of reverberation time and room modes of the initial space. On the treatment section, the proposed location of the treatment is presented in the layout of the room accompanied with the expected acoustics results after the treatment. The design is based on a scenario with several requirements to simplify the process and also as a guidance of the design.

Theory and Background

Reverberation Time
Sabine Reverberation Time Reverberation time is the time needed for sound energy to decay 60dB in a particular space. It was first formulated by Wallace Clement Sabine in the late 1980s. Sabine empirical formula is:

Equation 1

Where = Reverberation time measured in second or millisecond V A = Volume of the room ( = Total area of absorption in the room (sabins) =

Norris Eyring Reverberation Time Another formula for calculation reverberation time is called Norris Eyring Reverberation formula, it is formulated as:

Equation 2

Norris Eyring Reverberation formula is more accurate then the Sabines formula for a very absorptive room. Sabine formula is accurate for a room with smaller absorption, as a rule of thumb, Sabine formula is accurate for . For the sake of simplicity of calculation, on this paper all of the calculation involving the reverberation time will be completed using Sabine Reverberation time formula.

Room Modes
One of the most common problems in employing small room for critical listening of music is the irregularities of low frequency response. This is mainly caused by the fact that at low frequency, the wavelength of the acoustics waves is comparable to the dimension of the room. Room modes can be calculated with the equation:

Equation 3

Where L, W, H = room Length, Width, and Height. x, y, z = set of positive integer (including 0) corresponds to the number of half wavelength between the surfaces. c = the speed of sound ( When two integers are zero, the mode is called axial mode and it is a one dimensional standing wave between two parallel surfaces. When one integer is zero, the mode is called tangential mode and it involves reflection from 4 surfaces parallel to the remaining one. When no integers have a zero value, the mode is called oblique mode and it involves reflection from all the surfaces. Practically the most important mode is the axial mode.

Method
Initial Condition
In this section, the initial room acoustics properties of the room are calculated. This involves the calculation of reverberation time for each frequency bands and the average RT60 for the room. First few modes will be calculated and also the critical frequency of the room. Reverberation Time The absorption coefficients for the surface of the material in the initial rooms are Materials Plasterboard 12mm Gypsum Plasterboard 12mm in suspended ceiling grid Windows (Float Glass) wood flooring on joist Frequencies 500Hz 1kHz 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.18 0.12 0.1 0.07

125Hz 0.29 0.15 0.35 0.15

250Hz 0.1 0.11 0.25 0.11

2kHz 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.06

4kHz 0.09 0.08 0.04 0.07

Table 1 (data from Howard and Angus 2006:290 and http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/pages/Coefficient%20Chart.htm)

And the calculations of the open window areas for each frequency bands are Materials Plasterboard 12mm paneling on studs Plasterboard 12mm in suspended ceiling grid Windows (Float Glass) wood flooring on joist Total open Window Area (m2) And the results are Area (m2) 53.18 25.86 6.00 25.86 frequency 500 1k 2.66 2.13 1.03 1.08 2.59 7.36 1.03 0.72 1.81 5.69

125 15.42 3.88 2.10 3.88 25.28

Table 2

250 5.32 2.84 1.50 2.84 12.51

2k 3.72 1.81 0.42 1.55 7.50

4k 4.79 2.07 0.24 1.81 8.91

Figure 1

The result from Figure 1 shows that there is a relatively big difference between the reverberation time for each frequency band. Fierstein (in long, 2006: 753) shows a graphic of suggested reverberation time as a function of room volume. For this particular imaginary space ( ) the suggested reverberation time is around 200 - 300ms. From the initial reverberation time calculation, it is necessary to reduce the room reverberation time across all the frequency bands especially around the 1kHz area. Howard and Angus (2006: 297) suggested that the ideal reverberation time characteristic for a control room is flat across the spectrum. Thus the treatment design on the next section will refer to this data.

The critical frequency can be calculated with Equation 4.

Equation 4

Where,

With the dimension of our room and speed of sounds (c = 344m/s), the critical frequency of the room is, . below this frequency, the room cannot be treated as diffuse field anymore and the modal frequency will be dominant. This will cause the irregularities in the low frequency response that is also position dependant. Room Modes Distribution

Figure 2

Frequency Spacing hz % p q r Mode 28.7 1 0 0 Axial 40 28.2 0 1 0 Axial 49.2 18.6 1 1 0 Tangential 57.4 14.2 2 0 0 Axial 60 4.3 0 0 1 Axial 66.5 9.7 1 0 1 Tangential 69.9 4.8 2 1 0 Tangential 72.1 3 0 1 1 Tangential 77.6 7 1 1 1 Oblique 79.9 2.8 0 2 0 Axial
Table 3

The first few modes is listed in Table 3 as the frequency increases the modes became more dense and at some point there will be no isolated modal frequency. Above the critical frequency the room can be considered as diffuse field and so the behavior could be predicted with the RT60 calculation. Data presented in Figure 2 is in log frequency scale to give a better representation on the modes distribution in relation with a musical scale. The 1st mode is near the A#(29.1), 2nd mode is near the D#(38.09), 3rd mode is near the F#(46.2) and the 4th mode is near the A#(58.3) on the next octave. There are only 4 modes in the first octave which can be quite problematic.

The Treatment
This imaginary space will be converted into an audio related creative environment. To simplify the design process and provide more focused discussion paper, this space will be designed under the following condition: The space is used for electronic music production which involves midi composing, synthesizer programming, mixing and mastering. Acoustics instruments and vocal recording in this space is not a priority but still could be done with fair performance. As it is going to be used for mixing and mastering, a reasonably flat reverberation time curve is expected. A good low frequency response is very important, for the reason that the music created in this space requires a detail attention to bass and kick drum. Also a subwoofer or two will be present in this room A minimum acoustics treatment is expected for two reason, one is budget consideration and second is to provide more space for equipment (e.g. midi controller, rack effect processor, synthesizers, drum machines, sampler, turntable, etc)

Treatment for Reverberation time After calculating the initial reverberation time for every frequency band, next step is to propose an acoustic treatment to reduce the reverberation time. The method of calculating the budget open window area is used in this paper and the target for this space is 300ms @ 1kHz. The budget open window area is calculated as following: First, calculate the target Open Window area with Sabine equation,

Equation 5

For this room Volume and target

The required additional open window area then calculated by simply subtracting the value of the target open window area with the initial open window area, shown in Table 4 125Hz 250Hz 500Hz 1kHz 2kHz 4kHz Target Open Window Area (m2) 39.83 39.83 39.83 39.83 39.83 39.83 Total open Window Area (m2) 25.28 12.51 7.36 5.69 7.50 8.91 Additional Open Window Area (m2) 14.55 27.32 32.47 34.14 32.33 30.92
Table 4

Notice that the Target Open Window Area is same for all frequency bands. The reason for that is to obtain the same value for each frequency band. The highest required Additional Open Window Area is at the 1kHz frequency band, this is as expected because from Figure 1 it appear that the 1kHz area has the highest initial reverberation time. With this condition it seems that a large area of porous absorber will be needed. It should have enough area to absorb all the excessive reverberation and also thick enough to absorb the low frequency energy. After doing a simulation with different types of absorber (porous, resonant and perforated) and considering the layout of the space, the proposed treatment for this space is by adding three different materials to the room, which consist of: 1. Kestrel High density curtain type Coloured wool serge (data taken from the manufacturer website at www.kestrel-acoustics.com) 2. Owens Corning Fiberglass 701,Plain, density = , 2(51mm) thick (data from the manufacturer website at http://www.owenscorningcommercial.com/docs/specification/Fiberglas700Series.pdf) 3. Owens Corning Fiberglass 703,Plain, density = , 2(102mm) thick (data from http://www.bobgolds.com/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm) Materials Coloured Wool Serge High density Curtain OC Plain Fiber Glass 701, 2" thick OC Plain Fiber Glass 703, 4" thick Frequencies 500Hz 1kHz 0.49 0.75 0.98 1.02 1.24 1.08

125Hz 0.07 0.22 0.84

250Hz 0.31 0.67 1.24

2kHz 0.7 0.98 1

4kHz 0.6 1 0.97

Table 5 (all the data is from the manufacturer website or other source mentioned)

The curtain is positioned on the front part of the room covering the window area. The fiberglass material is put into a custom made timber frame with wire mesh and acoustically transparent fabric on both sides to prevent the particles from falling out into the room. The absorber module is placed directly on the walls or ceiling without airspace. Figure 3 shows the room layout and position of the treatment.


Figure 3 Room Floor Plan

The calculation on Table 6 showing the Additional Open Window Area comes from the added materials as part of a room treatment.

Table 6

The position of the acoustic treatment can be seen on Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5, and Figure 6, The curtain covers the window area with the dimension of The OC 703 absorber is positioned on the ceilings covering a space of Figure 4 The OC 701 absorber is divided into side absorber: Figure 5 8 and rear absorber:


Figure 4 Ceiling Plan

Figure 5 Rear Elevation


Figure 6 Side Elevation

Next step is to calculate the new reverberation time of the room after the treatment has taken place. Table 7 shows the results Initial Open Window Area (m ) Additional Open Window Area (m2) New Open Window Area (m ) new RT60 (V=74.22 m )
2 2 2

125Hz 25.28 15.53 40.81 0.29

250Hz 12.51 28.52 41.03 0.29

Table 7

Frequencies 500Hz 1kHz 7.36 33.50 40.86 0.29 5.69 34.20 39.89 0.30

2kHz 7.50 32.08 39.58 0.30

4kHz 8.91 30.79 39.70 0.30

The design proposed has successfully achieved the target reverberation time of 300ms and it is consistent across the spectrum. Notice that the bass trap is not taken into account for the reverberation time calculation. This is because the placement of the bass trap is optional and will only be done if there is an excessive low frequency response in the room. Without the bass trap, the low frequency energy in the room is already reduced by the plasterboard construction on the ceiling and walls, wood floor and also the thick fiberglass construction on the ceiling. At this point (before deciding whether or not to put the bass trap), it is recommended to done some test in the room, including impulse response measurement, sweep sine test for the frequency response and also listening test. If there is still an irregularity in the low frequency response or if the client feels that the room is sill muddy or boomy then a panel absorber tuned to the lowest mode or to the problematic low frequency can be installed.

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Tuned Panel Absorber Bass Trap One of the solution walkers (1996:8) suggest to overcome the problem caused by the irregularities of low frequency response as a result of the first few modes is to increase the modal damping factor. Quoting from Long (2006:747) a few common practices to control the low frequency energy in the rooms are: 1. Overall control through low-frequency panel absorbers principally on the rear and side walls 2. Application of deep layers of absorptive material sometimes used in conjunction with panel absorbers 3. Construction of Helmholtz resonator cavities 4. Locating the bass loudspeakers so that they do not excite the principal modes 5. Locating the main listener position so that it does not coincide with a major low frequency node In this particular imaginary room, a tuned panel absorber located in the corner of the room as in the Figure 3 is proposed. The frequency for tuned panel absorber can be predicted using (from Long, 2006:273):

Equation 6

Where m is the panel mass per unit area in

and d is the thickness of airspace behind the panel in

cm. when the airspace is filled with insulation material, the resonance frequency is reduced to

Equation 7

The airspace provided in our floor layout is about 50cm, using plywood with a density of about 600 and 1 cm thick, the panel absorber / bass trap will be tuned to the room first mode which is 28.7 Hz.

Conclusion
There are several steps in converting a space into creative audio environment. The first and most important is the design stage which involves calculation of the initial acoustics properties of the room. The second step is to propose a treatment for the given condition, the required acoustics treatment is very depends on the function of the room therefore there is no one solution that fits for all situation. To achieve the required value, a simulation with different types of materials and position have to be 11

done, this task is made easier using the concept of open window area. In the real situation, converting a room into creative audio environment is lot more complex than just the acoustics consideration. The designer has to consider other factor such as visual appearance, budget consideration and other requirement from the client.

Reference
1. Howard, D.M. and Angus, J. (2006) Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 3rd edition, Oxford: Focal Press. 2. Long, M. (2006) Architectural Acoustics, Elsevier 3. Walker, R. (1996) Room Modes and Low Frequency Responses in Small Enclosures, Tadworth: BBC Research and Development Department.

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