Anyone have any experience with Real Traps? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Wanna make a donation to my under-acoustically-treated studio?

I am looking for something that doesn't look like foam...

Ethan Winer's stuff?

IF so...

Never tried it, but the guy's got brains, is a musician (that always helps..) and sells at honest prices....
Looking forward to purchase some of his stuff, but methinks that shipping to Europe will cost me a fortune....

Cheers,

"JJ" Paul

Real Traps makes traps with industry standard 703 ridgid fiberglass. This fiberglass is way more effective than conventional studio foam. The fiberglass has better frequency range and is better at obsorbing than foam is. Initially, when we started to make our traps, we contacted Real Traps to get their thoughts on why they stopped using wood for their frames. They told us it was more of a cost thing, becuase they make their plastic frames in house. We make ours out of wood, becuase our clients like to have the option of getting them painted or stained to match their studio. We have seen no difference in frequency pickup, contrary to what they posted on their site. They use roughly 3" of fiberglass, we use 4". The more you use, the better the frequency range. They also don't use the better fiberglass for their bass traps. They use 703 fiberglass in all of their panels. To get the best frequency response, 705 needs to be used in bass traps. 705 is much denser. Their panels are around 180.00 each. Ours are priced cheaper, especially when ordering in bulk (6 or more panels).

Either way, they make great panels. Their plastic housing is also a cool alternitive to wood.

Blake, does your company do consulting and physical installation as well? I went to your website, but there was no mention of this. Where in Franklin are you located?

We Can Do Onsite Installs, Provided You Are In Our Area. As Far As Consulting Goes, We Can Recommend Appropriate Placement, But We Don't Usually Test Rooms. Please Call Me For More Info.

We are located just outside downtown franklin. Are you in the nashville area? Sorry, I missed your call earlier, please email me or feel free to call me again.

Thanks

.

Ethan's stuff is really well made. If you don't have the tools, the time or the skill to build your own, then seriously check out his mini traps and micro traps. Ethan is a great guy who is very passionate about his work. Buy with confidence!

We're just finishing doing our mulit-room complex and I'd be glad to share how the traps were made if anyone's interested.

VERY SIMPLE TO DO!!

I would be very interested, Eric!
Thanks,
Sean

Get some 703 and build the "traps" ( they're actually broadband absorbers ) yourself! Go to www.studiotips.com and check out the info there. Also, do a search on the "acoustics group" forum
( you can find a link at studio tips.com ) I've got nothing against Ethan per se, but there's no "magic" in what he's selling ( even if it might seem that way )and some of his data is questionable at best, and downright misleading at worst. Good Luck

For those of us with 8 fingers left, prefabricated traps are a very elegant solution.

Ethan is very devoted to good working ethics, and not ripping people off, while providing them with a better solution to foam treatment. He has been very helpful to our company as well as a few others that make custom studio treatment etc. Yes, there is nothing magical in what he is providing, but it is something that, until a year or two ago, was non-existent in the market. He was one of the first guys to experiment with home studio treatment with materials other than the norm. You can create these treatments yourself for a fairly inexpensive amount. But what our companies are here for are people who don't have the time, the tools, or the technical ability to make them on their own.

DP, please elaborate on this charge.

Sean, I sent you an email off-site. Once our rooms are done in the next couple weeks, I'll post final PIX. I'll let you all know when the article will be out in MIX.

Shrimp,
It's really too long a topic to go into here. All I can say is, if you're interested, go check out the www.studiotips.com acoustics group. There was a long exchange of posts between Ethan and a number of well established acousticians. Suffice it to say that there were some serious questions as to how Ethan measured
( acoustically ) or tested his "traps" and how he interpereted and presented the resulting data. Ethan never directly answered any of the questions that were raised, and insteadn responded with threats of lawsuits against anyone who who daredto "smear" his good name or that of his company. Doesn't sound like someone who's "very devoted to good working ethics, and not ripping people off, while providing them with a better solution to foam treatment" to me....'Nuff said

First off:

The panels are 180 bucks. If he wanted to rip people off, he would charge more than that.

Second, despite the company I work for bieng in direct competetion with his company, he provided me with a great amount of info concerning his design and what it offered compared to what was on the market.

Like i said in my other post, there is nothing "magic" that he is doing, just using better material than foam. Everything I read and everything he says has never suggested to me otherwise.

And where are these post located at on that site you were talking about? i dont see any posts from him.

.

I won't speak for DP, but i found the following thread interesting.

Note that my knowledge of acoustics is book-based, and though i could dazzle someone that knows nothing about acoustics, in reality i know little more than nothing. My control room also sounds like pea soup in a blender...

Because of that, i could not possibly take a side in the debate. It is interesting reading, though....

Recording.Org Studio and Control Room Acoustics

Wow!! This sounds like two guys who really don't like each other too much!

WOW.....

I just spent an hour reading that.......

Let me let all of you know, that is the first time I have read that. Here's my conclusion:

EVERYONE THERE IS PSYCO!

lol, no not really.

OK:

DP: is this the conversation you were talking about? Seems like a different one.

The first thing i noticed was that Ethan seemed to be the only one in the group that had actually tried 703 or 705. Everyone else was content to bash it, but they never have actually used it.

There was a lot of below the belt shots going on back and forth. A good amount of them were directed at Ethan, but he was dishing a good amount out there himself.

THIS IS BAD BUSINESS.

So in a way, i think there is a side to him that I have never interacted with before.

Alot of things were said about his products: let me try and clear some up because our design is very similar to his:

1.) There is no magic to what we are offering, just a better alternitive to foam products.

2.) Traps are not a new idea, but the use of rigid fiberglass is. It was actually created for acoustic purposes. Originally developed for ceiling tiles, rigid fiberglass is a well developed product that has been tested for specific uses including studios.

3.) Rooms smaller than 1500 cu ft can be treated and made to sound very pleasing. My personal B mix room is below the 1500 mark and when I treated it, all was well, down to about 60-65 Hz.

I am never going to say that treatment can cure any size room, because that is false. ANY room somewhere, at some frequency, will have some problem. That's life, and you learn the quirks of a room and move on.

All we are trying to do is provide people with a great alternitive to foam. Acoustics math junkie or not, when you put them in a room and run a mix with them, you are going to hear way better results than with foam. Not because of what our companies do, but because of what Owens-Corning did.

I hope that this clears things up a little.

I read that whole debate on the acoustics site - for months. Basically you have side one with people who insist on scientific support for everything; there's nothing wrong with that. Then you have side two (Ethan) who makes claims such as "there is a null at all frequencies at a 1/4 wavelength... blah blah blah" I'm with Zumbido - if it works, it's good - There is no question in my mind that Ethan and the side opposite are knowledgeable when it comes to acoustics. They also claimed that Ethan was on their site with the idea to sell his products and didn't support his claims the way they thought he should.

As far as panels are concerned- anyone can make them. Everyone on the acoustics site did agree on the following:
1. All small rooms have problems. 2. Start in the corners with panels made from Owens Corning 703 or 704 compressed rigid fiberglass. This is broad band treatment. Go from floor to ceiling. filling the space behind with loose fiberglass. 3. The corners where the walls meet the ceiling can be treated the same way as the corners. 4. These panels should be covered with cloth but don't need wooden frames. I also learned that OC 703 is expensive and that Roxul RXL-40 is basically the same stuff but a fraction of the price. I think it would be far cheaper to make them - I've got the stuff ordered to do just that. Just my observations.
ceb

Look guy's, I'm not looking to trash Ethan or his "traps". I stated very simply that he does nothing that you can't do yourself very easily, and that his data that supports his claims is sketchy. Yhea the "debate" got pretty nasty at times, but I can honestly say that Eric's side of the argument was based on science, and Ethans was based on emotion and smoke and mirrors - he never actually answered any of the questions asked of him. Regards

I didn't get any of that that from what I read in the thread (not that I 'get' anything).

Blake,
If you really read through those posts for an hour, and came away with the idea that Ehtan Winer was the only person there with any experience with 703 or 705 or any of the Roxul products, then you need to go back and read it again.

Zumbido,
"I visited the www.studiotips.com site. It's riddled with such poor English I left."
Puleeeezzzzzzzzzz !!!! :rolleyes: Sorry, but the internet in general is not the place to be if you're looking for proper English! Remember, www stands for World Wide Web ? At least a few of the folks over there are European so yes their English can be pretty poor. If you can find your way past that, "the facts is the facts" ( how's that for English ? )ie; the science stays the same. Your assertion that the folks at "studiotips" are-" probably a bunch of old geezers with scopes and calculators that have never ACTUALLY realized an idea or product, but are always ready to tell what they know."- is based on what ? Look up Eric Desart and have a look at some of the rooms the guy has designed/built and then re-think your silly statement. I think it's great that you built working absorbers without any acoustic knowledge, but that doesn't give you liscense to say that anyone who uses such knowledge is some kind of quack. I've done the same myself with great success and I don't know the math behind them, but, I'm not selling them, and I'm not making specific claims regarding their performance at any given frequency.

That was merely my observation. No one came out and said that they use 703 or 705 in their studio except maybe one other person I think? If you can find a quote from someone on those posts, shoot it over. I could be wrong, but i can't remember.

Look,

I'm definatley not saying that Ethan is truthful all the time, or that he is always right. What I am saying is that 703 and 705 works. That's why we sell traps using it. I have used foam as well, and the difference between the two is definatley audible, especially around 60-120 HZ.

My intention with this whole ordeal was never to say anyone is right or anyone is wrong. Everyone is going to have their own opinion. What i am saying is that we use 703 and 705 exclusivley. What it comes down to, is making your room sound the same at any place in the room, whether it be a back corner, or the sweet spot. If you can achieve that, your set.

Great traps for Bear and Bison. Not food for Rabbits and Skunk.

.

Zumbido,
"My point is that MANY know-it-alls never actually apply their 'expertise' to a physical product. "
Ok, point well taken and probably true, but as it applies to the acoustics forum, I think you're wrong. There's lots of practical knowledge there if you can get past the bad English

Blake,
I think the general concensus at the acoustics forum is that 703/705 is equal to or better than competing foam products DEPENDING on the application and implementation ( ie: 1"or 2" of 703 probably won't be better than 4" of foam, although depending on how it's mounted [airgap] you may be able to get similar results ). It's also a good deal less expensive, so for the same $$ you can get superior (at least on a quantitative basis)results. As I mentioned in my last post I have built some corner broadband absorbers as well as a couple flat panel absorbers ( you can see them in the photos of my studio in the user archives here ) and am very happy with the resullts - no I don't have any test data - all I can say is that my room sounds good( better than it did without the absorbtion ) Regards

.

DP: I'm glad we can agree on this issue now

One more note, all we ever use in our panels is 4" thick, never 2. In our bass traps we use 2" FRK, and 2" regular.

Hope this helps.

On a side note.. Blake. You're website gives me a major headache. I shouldn't have to spend so much time trying to figure out what your font says. Also, your Products link appears to be dead.

It's great what you are doing! My best wishes to you and the company. But man does my head hurt from that font.

DP-

you wrote Do you have a link to any of these rooms? If so, I'd love to see them. A quick google search with the terms "eric desart" and "studio" revealed only one hit- the recording.org site. I don't care enough to do any more looking- but if you have something handy, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,

R

In reference to the orignal question......I purchased a half dozen Real Traps and am very happy with the results. My main application was in my vocal room/booth which is a converted utility 12x5 closet. I had some two inch Sonex on the walls which took care of any flutter echo but didn't cure the low end build up in the room. I had resisted buying any of the foam corner bass traps mostly because I think they are way over priced and I decided to give Real Traps a try. I took all the Sonex down and put a single Real Trap in each corner. My low end problems are now under control and the room sounds better and slightly more "live" in a good way. I can't say they are a fix all solution with my limited experience, but in this particular situation they did the trick.

.

Thanks guys for the suggestions. The product link is dead because we have not gotten a page layout done yet to include the different lines of products we do. We are custom only, no standard units are produced. In many cases, our products are one of a kind. Some of our products have certain names they fall under, i. e., our PRO (programmers) console line. 3 categories, PRO, PRO L, and PRO XL. Basically different names for different sizes. The PRO line has a workdesk top rather than a space for a digital console. The console in the pictures section is a PRO XL.

I am considering changing the text font to a different font. I want to keep the site white on black. I know it is hard to read, and I have heard this a few times. I am just having a very hard time finding a good font to compliment our logo font. Any suggestions?

Thanks guys


Oh and by the way, Please sign up on our message board if you visit the site. No mailers or anything like that, we just want to keep you involved with what we are doing. Thanks!

Strange.....I went to the site and couldn't find the "poor English" that you had left.

I hear ya, Man.

I can't listen to the Rolling Stones' song, "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" for that very same reason.

R Tyck,
This is Eric's website

http://www.acoustics-noise.com/

There are no photo's of his work there as far as I know, but I was able to find a few of his projects through a websearch. I'll see if I can find them again and post the links.Try this one

www.galaxystudios.com/

LH,
I'm glad that you're happy with your purchase and that the Real traps helped your room. Once again, I'd like to reiterate that it wasn't/isn't my intent to bash Real Traps or Ethan, just that if you're so inclined, they're very easy to make, and you can pay yourself with the cash you save! Then again there's alway's the eight finger theory that Glen01 was so eager to point out
Regards

Hi folks,

A customer just called to tell me about this thread, and I hope nobody minds me chiming in. I'm not here to push my products! But I saw a fair amount of misinformation that needs clarifying.

> Real Traps makes traps with industry standard 703 ridgid fiberglass. <

Actually, we use 705 exclusively. In the beginning we used a "sandwich" consisting of 2-inch 705 and 1-inch 703, but we switched a while back to 705 only. It costs more, as Blake can surely attest, but it works better at low frequencies. Note that there is more to MiniTraps than just a slab of rigid fiberglass! There's also a dual-layer membrane that enhances their low frequency performance even further by quite a bit.

> they make their plastic frames in house <

MiniTraps are built in a painted steel frame that's custom manufactured for us.

> The ones that he now manufactures as 'Real-Traps' are also 4' <

Note that MiniTraps are completely different from the wood panel traps in my original plans from Electronic Musician magazine. MiniTraps are not a smaller version of those traps.

> Ethan never directly answered any of the questions that were raised, and insteadn responded with threats of lawsuits against anyone who who daredto "smear" his good name or that of his company. <

That's so far off the mark I'm not sure where to start. There are no questions remaining to be answered. The enormous hostility Eric and some others showed toward me was totally unfounded. I asked repeatedly there "What questions?" yet nobody ever answered. If you have specific questions, either ask me here and now or please don't accuse me of being evasive.

DP, if you think Eric Desart is all about science, I'll be glad to post many links where he started fights unprovoked, behaved badly, and was told to leave by other forum members. One is going on right now in the alt.music.home-studio newsgroup. I don't know what Eric's problem is, or why he stalks me, but I want no part of it. Anyone can compare our respective credibility in the pro audio industry very easily - just go to Google and enter his name and then enter mine.

Thanks.

--Ethan

.

Ethan,
I won't be baited into an argument here. The facts speak for themselves. Regardless of your attempts to skew or erase( can you say Yahoo acoustic group ? sure ya can... )the record, it's all out there. Anyone so inclined, can do a little research and make up their own minds- I've already made up mine.

Regards

DP,

> I won't be baited into an argument here. <

That's not my intent at all. Arguing in public makes all involved look stupid. But this is the tenth time I've been accused of not answering some critical question. It's turned into a lame bad joke. So either ask me a question already - and in a civil manner so I can answer - or stop accusing me of being evasive.

--Ethan

Ethan,
The question was not and will not be asked by me. Though you claim to have answered "the question", you and I, and anyone else with knowledge of the "discussion" that followed, knows that that's not the truth. As far as I'm concerned, that "discussion" is now history, and that's where I'm going to leave it.

DP,

> The question was not and will not be asked by me. <

Yes, exactly as I expected. Accuse and run.

> you claim to have answered "the question" <

Actually, I claim there never even was any question. Only continued accusations that I failed to answer something or other.

But since you say you're now happy to drop it, so am I. Thanks.

--Ethan

Should I buy a Mac or a PC?

Hey Nick,

Long time no see! How ya doing?

> Should I buy a Mac or a PC? <

Now that's a question I can easily handle!

But you probably won't like my answer.

--Ethan