What are Bass Traps?

Introduction

Bass Traps reduce reverberation (echo) and standing low frequency waves in various spaces such as recording studios, listening rooms, or home theaters. In those spaces it is important for the room to not color the sound of a recorded track. Acoustic Bass Traps are made of either foam or fiberglass and can be purchased as natural, or fabric wrapped for lots of color options. They can easily be glued or mechanically fastened to corners in your room.

What is a Bass Trap?

Bass traps are an acoustic treatment that helps reduce low end frequency problems in a room. They are designed to help treat a room where the sound is “boomy”. This “boomy” effect happens when the corners of a room (where wall meets wall or wall meets ceiling), which are more solidly built up, reflect these low frequencies and create standing waves. The standing waves are where the distance between diagonal corners is the same as the distance between the peak and trough of a specific low frequency (or harmonic of the frequency at half, quarter length etc.).

Why are Bass Traps Important?

When mixing down a track or listening to your favorite music, you want to hear it the way it was intended, true to the instruments recorded. If your room has low frequency issues your music could sound boomy or your mixes, while sounding good in your space will sound off in other environments, headphones, or ear buds. Alternately, in a listening room or home theater you want consistent sound across the spectrum and not one low frequency that whenever it occurs gets louder than the rest of the sound.

Distilled Sounds, a local project studio, is using our AlphaSorb^® Acoustic Foam Bass Traps along with fabric wrapped acoustical panels and clouds to control sound in their mix space.

Examples of Bass Traps

As mentioned above Bass Traps come in a variety of forms and finishes:

• AlphaSorb^® Acoustic Foam Bass Trap – Natural foam in choice of 2 colors with flat or convoluted face.
• AlphaSorb^® FR701 Fabric Wrapped Bass Trap – Foam with a flat face covered in Guilford FR701 fabric facing and many color choices.
• AlphaSorb^® Anchorage Fabric Wrapped Bass Trap – Foam with a flat face covered in Guilford Anchorage fabric facing and many color choices.
• AlphaSorb^® SoundSuede™ Fabric Wrapped Bass Trap – Foam with a flat face covered in Soundsuede fabric facing and many color choices.
• AlphaSorb^® Fabric Wrapped Quick Ship Bass Trap – Fiberglass with a flat face and reverse mitered edges covered in Guilford FR701 fabric facing and 10 color choices. These include corner mounting hardware and are made to order shipping in a day or two for fast turnaround when you need it quick.

AlphaSorb^® SoundSuede™ Bass Traps in a home theater with SoundSuede™ Wall Panels.

Tips for working with Acoustical Bass Traps

1. When applying to a surface using adhesive, make sure your surface is clean and dust free before applying. Only apply the adhesive just prior to placing to avoid the adhesive skinning over and not sticking properly.
2. Placement should be where walls meet walls, walls meet ceiling or where 2 walls and the ceiling meet

Summary

Acoustical Bass Traps will help control low frequencies and smooth out the sound in your mixes, listening rooms and home theaters. Give me a call and let me help you develop a solution for your environment.