Bass traps are an indispensable tool every recording studio must have (and does). They’re also something that’s easy to install at home to vastly improve the acoustic response of your own room. Today you’ll learn everything you need to know about these acoustic panels in plain language so you can apply the info and get right back to work…

Bass traps in particular, but the entirety of the acoustic treatment rabbit hole, are extremely interesting. If you look around online you’ll see just how many people are completely obsessed with the topic.

That was me for the longest time. The thrill is over once you finish your own build, but the benefits last forever. And let me tell you, it’s impossible to over-emphasize how much a difference even the slightest amount of acoustic treatment makes.

Let’s jump straight in. We’ll cover exactly what these are, how they work, where and how to install them, how you can build them on the cheap, where you can buy them, and then a “super secret” trick from experienced mix engineers that blow traditional bass traps out of the water.

the info and get right back to work…

Bass traps in particular, but the entirety of the acoustic treatment rabbit hole, are extremely interesting. If you look around online you’ll see just how many people are completely obsessed with the topic.

That was me for the longest time. The thrill is over once you finish your own build, but the benefits last forever. And let me tell you, it’s impossible to over-emphasize how much a difference even the slightest amount of acoustic treatment makes.

Let’s jump straight in. We’ll cover exactly what these are, how they work, where and how to install them, how you can build them on the cheap, where you can buy them, and then a “super secret” trick from experienced mix engineers that blow traditional bass traps out of the water.

What is a Bass Trap?

A bass trap is a type of acoustic treatment panel that helps reduce problems in the low-end of the frequency response of a room.

These are a sub-set of acoustic treatment designed specifically to target the bass frequencies, because the others aren’t capable. The reason is that the others aren’t thick enough, dense enough, and aren’t placed in the strategic positions in the room to target bass.

The specific issues that these traps solve is that, due to the wavelength of lower frequency sounds, they pass through other panels and remain unaffected. This leads to a build up of lower frequencies in the room, causing recordings to sound muddy and boomy.

How do Bass Traps Work?

These work just like any other absorption panel works. They’re created from high-density insulation that is compacted into rectangles (instead of soft and fluffy). When sound waves enter the panels, they vibrate all of the countless fiberglass fibers.

When sound waves pass by and vibrate the fibers due to friction, they have to use up some of their energy. For a sound wave, losing energy means losing volume. The sound energy is translated into physical vibrations which is then dissipated into the room as tiny amounts of heat.

To get a little more technical, bass traps have a higher gas flow resistivity, meaning they provide more resistance to the flow of air (which is what sound waves are) because they have more fibers crammed in to a smaller area due to being denser and thicker.

Why Do I Need Bass Traps & Other Panels?

The goal of acoustic treatment is to first flatten the frequency response to remove as much influence from the room as possible. After that, if needed, the response can be tuned to reduce dips and peaks further.

Regular acoustic treatment panels are typically thinner (2 inches in thickness) and are positioned in specific places in your room to stop reflections in the mid-range and upper frequencies. They’re placed in the first reflection zones mainly and then are scattered throughout the room in general.

These are called absorption panels. They’re sometimes called broadband panels because they cover most of the frequency band from bottom to top, but they don’t reach very deep into the bass region, which is why we also need bass traps (4 inches in thickness).

Cloud panels exist for the same reason but help stop reflections between the floor and ceiling. There are also diffusors that, instead of absorbing the energy from sound waves, they scatter that energy so it’s too weak to make as much of an impact.

There’s also Helmholtz resonators that are tuned to vibrate at a certain frequency to improve dips in the room’s response. These are your main types of panels and all provide a benefit when combined together.

The goal is to stop reflections, stop resonances from room modes (dips and peaks in various frequencies at weird spots in the room), stop flutter echoes, reverb, phase cancellation, and other problems.

What’s important to realize is cheap foam panels don’t do much for you at all besides stop high frequency reflections. They aren’t dense enough to handle even low-mid frequencies, let alone any bass. You need real panels. I’ll explain the difference deeply below.

Where Do I Install Bass Traps?

Now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty. To understand where to install these panels, you need to understand where and why bass builds up in the room. Because the bass wavelengths are so long they pass through the thinner and less dense panels scattered about the room.

Keeping the discussion very basic, bass waves survive and build up in the longest distances in the rooms due to their longer wavelengths. This means that the distances between corner to corner and the front wall and back wall are the biggest culprits.

The question that’s always asked is “if I only have one bass trap, where should I put it?” What people are trying to ask is which areas in the room are the highest priority places to put these bass-targeting panels first. The priority is:

• Floor-to-ceiling corners
• Center of front wall
• Center of back wall
• All other corners

By corner, we mean any 90-degree angle where one wall meets another. That can be the front wall meeting the ceiling or a side wall or the floor, for instance. The floor-to-ceiling corners (the four corners of the room) are the highest priority.

Whether you’re treating a mastering room for mixing, a home theater, a recording studio, or even a big gymnasium, you’ll find that these tedious but wonderful panels make all the difference.

The core reason, especially when recording and mixing music, is that when there’s too much low-end in a room, you have to use an equalizer to remove it, and you end up having to reduce in volume parts of the instrument or vocals you recorded too. It’s better to not let it slip into the recording at all.

where You Can Buy Bass Traps

Deconik With 29 years of experience working in this type of panels, considering the urgent need of artists and art lovers to equip the studio space and solve the critical acoustic conditions of their place, by reducing the steps and costs of the production line process and acoustic foams with lower density, with The purpose of increasing your purchasing power has begun to produce and market. We are always trying to provide the best services and be by your side in any situation. Get exclusive advice, professionalize your studio and get started.