Question #2

How much should I cover my walls with Studiofoam?

Never 100%!!! Well, almost never. If you are building an anechoic chamber or a really tight vocal booth, we can talk about 100% coverage. Any other room usually falls in the 25% to 75% range for coverage. And this is only for walls and ceiling.

Some general guidelines we've come up with over the years include:

• Control Rooms for rock, pop, rap, hip-hop, r&b, country, techno, MIDI music, etc. usually benefit from 50% to 75% coverage and mostly absorption.

• Control Rooms for jazz, art (classical), choral, acoustic, world and other forms of ensemble music usually benefit from 35% to 50% coverage. The only catch is that the Control Room be a little more ''dead'' than the main recording or ''Live Room.'' Diffusion is usually used more generously in these types of Control Rooms.

• Control Rooms where ''anything goes,'' well, either a very ''neutral'' room a la Tom Hidley would be appropriate, a ''LEDE™'' room, or even something variable to tailor the acoustics to the needs of users.

• Live Rooms will vary a lot. Some well-designed Live Rooms can get by with 20% coverage (or even less!). Most fall into the 25% to 50% range. And this is usually a healthy mix of absorption and diffusion. The most successful Live Rooms usually have some degree of variability.

• Home Theaters? Usually more dead with a diffusive ceiling. This style tends to recreate the Movie Theater experience best.

• Your room? Well, we could go on and on describing every situation we've come across. But that might just take us to the next millennium! Instead, if you would like a customized Consultation for your room, please feel free to download the Auralex Personalized Room Consultation Form. All you have to do is fill out the Form, (neatly) draw a layout of the room including as much detail as possible, and then fax it all into us at 317-842-2760. (Please, use a separate Form for each room.) Usually within a couple of business days, one of our highly-trained Technical Consultants can get back to you with a list of treatment suggestions - including amounts and suggestions for proper placement in the room.

• New!! If your room is smaller than 20'x20'x10' and your budget is less than $2,000, you should absolutely check out our new Online Consultant. The Online Consultant will determine ''good/better/best'' Roominators Kit solutions for your room based on your input. This is great if you're the ''instant gratification'' type!

In addition to the Consultation Form, the Installation Tips page is dedicated to photographs and renderings showing different patterns and layouts of our products in different rooms. While these should not be construed as specific design recommendations - we don't know exactly how these would work in your room - feel free to borrow patterns and layout concepts!