Hello, I've recently got into music production and I wanted to turn my closet into a little home studio however, I do not know much about acoustics and I quickly realized cheap foam panels wouldn't cut it. If someone could please help me out with panel types and placement for my closet that would be greatly appreciated.

So I run an Airbnb, and I want to find ways to reduce the noise my neighbours hear from my backyard. The backyard is at least 50% patio tiles [quite sure i cant reduce whats there, as I dont own the house]

Most of the backyard is open area, with a fence 6ft tall, detached house - only sharing backyard fence with them.

The current sound echos so even quiet noise seems loud.

I just want my guests to have quiet enjoyment without bothering the neighbours to much.

We have a sitting area with umbrella and a hot tub in the backyard, with plans to create some sort of perola/gazebo to give additional guest privacy and reduce how much noise escapes, but not sure how well it'll accomplish the second part.

No parties aren't allowed, guests have quiet hours from 11pm, [will probably reduce it to 10 based on neighbours feedback].

Please skip all the "just dont have an airbnb" or other unhelpful critiques - I just want to bother the neighbours less and would appreciate any advice on how to do so.

My budget is non-existent, but for the longevity of business this is absolutely something I should adress sooner rather than later.

Um, please don't be too too harsh on me (a little is fine it cant be helped) I'm just winging it in a position I can't leave and am just trying to educate myself to improve neighbours relations and satisfy guests

I’ve got an acoustician coming to treat my living room this week and realised it’s a rare chance to learn from someone who does this every day.

Rather than just watching panels go on the walls, I’d like to understand why each decision gets made.

If you had an acoustician in your room for a couple of hours, what would you ask?

Is there anything you wish you’d known before treating your own room?

Or anything you think people commonly misunderstand about room treatment?

Happy to report back afterwards with what I learn if people are interested.

I've been working on this for a few years, ever since releasing gostringsynth in 2022 (a FDTD synth you play from your terminal). It's all inspired by the work I did during my Masters in Acoustics and Music Tech at Edinburgh back in 2009. I work in biomedical engineering (ultrasonics) now but it's all pretty similar!

It's a VST/AU plugin for macOS, Windows and Linux, made with JUCE. You can download it free here: https://www.differentinstruments.com (and also see a nice slow-mo animation of the FDTD scheme on the website).

Hey guys,

I'm building a vocal recording studio out of an old concrete cellar. It will predominately be used for tracking loud/heavily projected vocals (both singing & distorted/metal style).

I was hoping for some insight on how best to line the room acoustically and where roughly to position the mic for vocal tracking given the odd shape of the room.

I have a massive supply of carpet tiles, many of which still have acoustic foam glued on from my last tracking room (see pics). My plan initially was just to stagger these tiles like a chessboard on every wall (including the ceiling), covering about 50% of the room (besides the floor/stairs which I've already done).

I had also thought about fixing the tiles to sit roughly an inch off the walls/ceiling to help dissipate the sound a bit more (keeping it sound-proof as possible is also a concern with neighbors etc).

In terms of soundproofing, given the two vents, I've also mounted one wooden sound-trap/baffle-box to the inside wall next to the stairs (where air is pulled in through), and another outside the cellar over the opposite vent where air is pulled out via an external fan.

Hopefully my photos/diagram make sense, any advice would be greatly appreciated. The entire room is underground besides where the roof is raised with the two exposed vents.

Cheers 🙏

NOTE:

The external baffle w/ fan has been installed on the other vent, but as of posting I don't have a photo handy (can add another time if need).

I also understand I might need some bass/corner traps, as well potentially covering some walls differently than others depending where the mic is placed. I'm not very knowledgeable with this sort of stuff though, hence would really appreciate some advice!

Has anyone used these for some simple podcast or vocal range absorption? I just want to redo some slap.

I have a few Gik panels up in the back but wondering where else in the room I should put some. I have two subwoofers in the front left and right corners, so bass traps might be in the way. Thoughts on panels behind the two front loud speakers? Ceiling is only 8’ tall so clouds may or may not work. It’s not a great room, but it’s what I have to work with.

Was also thinking of putting in a heavy curtain that can close over the bay window for hi-fi listening sessions.

Thank you

Credit https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTSEDX1Sm/

Hey everybody,

Quick question that might be hard to answer due to the circumstances of the question but figured I’d ask anyway. I am living on the top floor of my apartment complex and long story short, I have a golf simulator in my apartment.

My question is about how much noise my neighbors are hearing every time the club impacts the golf ball. I measured the db’s and the following is what I got and how far away I captured the sound from:

Max db - 81.7
Peak db - 87.5

Not sure what the difference is but figured I’d include both since it measured both. This was recorded in the same room as my simulator setup (circled in red in photo attached) approximately 10-15 feet away. The device picking up the noise was set up directly against the apartment wall that my neighbors and I share (black circle in attached picture is where the device was placed/sound was recorded and is the same wall that is shared with apartment neighbors). I don’t really hear any noise coming from them leading me to believe the walls are decently thick/insulated. I think I heard the faint noise of a vacuum one time if that helps.

I also recorded how the impact sounded from my master bedroom (green circle in photo attached). The master bedroom shares no walls with any neighbor (corner unit) just the people below me would be my only concern. If I have to move it in there then I can, but that’s a last resort. Those results are below:

Max db - 56.6
Peak db - 61.3

Here is my question that may be hard to answer, but any estimation would help, how loud do you think the golf club impacting the ball would be from their side of the wall? I don’t want to annoy them with my setup but would like to keep it up if possible. Thank you in advance for any insight as I have no clue how sound works/travels and such.

​

Thanks for the ideas on my previous post, especially the suggestion to use the areas behind the partition walls for storage and to move the DJ setup more toward the center of the room.

This is the revised layout:

Black rectangle: DJ booth

Red: two possible speaker positions

Blue: small seating/chill area

Yellow: storage/utility areas

The entire left wall is windows, but I could install thick curtains

The speakers and subwoofer have not been purchased yet

My main question is speaker direction: should the speakers face toward me at the DJ booth, or should they face the opposite wall and play into the rest of the room?

I’ll mostly listen alone while DJing, but occasionally there may be a few other people in the room. I’m therefore looking for a reasonable compromise between good sound at the booth and decent coverage for the room.

Where would you place the subwoofer with this layout? Between the speakers, beside the booth, against a wall, or would you test different positions using the subwoofer crawl?

Does this revised setup make more sense, or would you still arrange it differently?

Hello everyone , im desperately in need of some help.
Im an autistic (level 2) with a lot of sound senstivity.
My bedroom is above the kitchen unfortunately - and there is a lot of sound transmission from the marble countertops . And utensils work.

Please advise me how i can do insulation/soundproofing .
I would prefer treatment of the kitchen.

This speaker sounds insanely muffled whenever it’s active, and it’s been tested with multiple brand new speakers and they all have the same outcome. Is there something I can change on the amplifier or something? System is set for high quality audio because these are all high fidelity speakers. I think it’s amplifying it back into this hollow big backbox and i have no idea what to do.

Hi all, I know there’s plenty of posts of similar things in the subreddit but i couldnt quite find an answer to match my situation. Im renting in the UK for reference.

Ive just moved into an old terraced (i think brick?) flat, and the connecting wall with our neighbours kitchen is right behind our bed, there is no option to move the bed at all due to the layout of the room.

For the most part, they are fairly quiet and respectful, we are just on different schedules. I have chronic fatigue and insomnia to go with it so I often need to sleep in or nap during the day. I have tried every earplug available, cheap and expensive, and whilst they do the job it makes my ears ache to wear them all night.

Every morning at 7am I’m woken up by their breakfast making. The specific noises that bother me are them plugging in and unplugging electrics, running the tap in the sink behind our head, cupboard doors etc, and occasionally some talking. Its not at an unsociable hour, (uk councils suggest quiet between 11pm-7am) and since its a kitchen not, for example, a tv that can be turned down, I dont see what solution could be made by them being “more considerate” (and im aware that this is a personal problem so im not keen to complain or even ask them to compromise at all).

I have come up with a few solutions but i just want to run them past people with actual knowledge so i know if im spending my money in the right place.
For reference, I’m aware the sound will not completely go away, and that its part of flat living. Upstairs footsteps dont wake me up, seagulls outside dont disturb me, so id just like to dampen the kitchen noises slightly so they disturb me less if possible, whilst also looking decent enough so i can enjoy my bedroom space. Needs to be renter friendly also but i have a bit of leeway with hanging things and some basic diy experience.

1. Sound dampening curtains intended for traffic:
   Using a tension rod to hang soundproofing curtains (brand recs would be great), or just the thickest curtains possible. Using small nails or pins to reduce the amount of gaps around the edges, possibly chanelling the sound to go up and out of the curtains at the top so at least the noise isnt behind our heads. I imagine the curtains have to cover the entire wall floor to ceiling. Theres also room with this option to add extra “ugly” layers behind, like a soundproofing blanket, but ive heard mixed reviews about their efficiency.

2. A hanging woven wall tapestry that hangs mostly behind the bedframe just to muffle the noise directly behind the headboard. Perhaps also lined with a soundproofing blanket.

If anyone has any other suggestions id be grateful. Please be as specific as possible as i have been struggling to understand a lot of the information ive been reading, all a bit overwhelming! Thanks :)

Where would you place two speakers in this awkward DJ/music room?

I’m turning this space into a DJ/music room and can’t decide where to place my two speakers.

Black at the back: DJ booth

Red: possible speaker positions

Blue: small seating/chill area

Yellow: utility/storage area

Green: sleeping area

Black in the side room: production desk

I’ll mostly be listening alone at the DJ booth, but occasionally I’d like the room to work for a few people during a small session.

Would you place the 2 speakers:

In front of the DJ booth, facing me?

Behind me, firing into the room?

Further forward for better coverage?

Near the seating area, possibly wall-mounted?

The entire left wall is a row of windows, which obviously isn’t ideal acoustically. I could put up thick curtains, though.

Does the general layout make sense, or would you flip the whole setup and use the opposite end of the room? I know two speakers won’t sound perfect everywhere—I’m just looking for the best compromise between decent monitoring at the booth and enjoyable sound throughout the room.

I have two speakers and a subwoofer and will probably be listening both at the monitor and on the bed... I also have no idea how any of this work I just want nice music

Hey folks

I have a quick question and figured this would be a good place to ask. If it is not feel free to redirect me elsewhere.

I lease a recording studio in a commercial building. Due to a long series of frustrating yet slightly hilarious events, a bronze sculptor has moved into a unit on the floor above me. Without getting into the details, we were both somewhat misled by building management about the nature of this building. He is super cool and we are largely working around one anothers schedules, but I digress. Sound leakage is, as you may guess, a major issue during the inevitable periods when we are both working.

Something that I found quite interesting is that the screeching of his tools is far louder in our live room than control room despite it being further away. This is due to the steel beam running through our room straight up into the above hallway immediately adjacent to the sculptors studio. The shaking of his tools travels right down this beam and disperses into our live room. I was chatting with the contractor for the building and floated the idea of wrapping this beam in rubber or a different soft material to dampen the reverberations emanating from it. He said that he had never done this before but imagined that it would be at least somewhat effective, and that if I did some research and found an affordable material to wrap the beam in he could do it on the buildings dime.

So here I am - what do you all think might be a feasible solution here? The portion of the beam in our room is roughly 12" x 10" x 8' tall.

I understand this won't be a perfect solution. The building is taking a few other measures (rockwool in his unit and throughout the exposed stairwell where much of the sound is traveling) and ultimately the real solution is to stay friendly with this dude, buy him lunch every once in a while and ask him to chill for a bit if I've got an important client rolling through. But even a small improvement would go a long way here.

Thanks

Edit: Forgot to include this as it may be pertinent to the necessary thickness of material. The problem area is the shrill noise from scraping/shaping tools. To my ear its a lot in the 1k-4khz range, not much low frequency sound is emitted from this beam at all really.

Foam acoustics product that are not explicitly rated as being fire resistant have no purpose whatsoever in your studio, bedroom, basement, dog kennel, stored under your bed for a future project, or anywhere else. They are gasoline. Quite literally, they are made from petroleum.

Aside from the fact the only real absorption they offer is for every piece of dust, debris, strand of hair, and odor they come in contact with, they are extraordinarily flammable.

If you have not seen the videos of what happened in Bangkok this weekend, don't. It's absolutely horrifying. That fire has claimed the lives of 33 people so far, and in an instant there was a flashover that would've made you think there was a dragon breathing fire out of the main entrance into the street.

They are still investigating the initial cause of the fire, but in looking at the before and after photos, a few things are obvious:

1. In prior photos of the venue (shown above), every possible surface that could've had foam "treatments" did. Ceilings, walls, columns, and even the front of the bar.
2. In aftermath photos, the room and structure are in surprisingly good shape all things considered. It's almost exclusively the interior treatments and finishes that went up in flames.
3. If not for the abundance of highly flammable foam treatments and the associated toxic smoke, it's highly likely this incident would've been unremarkable with no injuries. Maybe refunded cover fees and a phone call to an electrician.

As to the acoustical performance of eggcrate-style foam products, if you were to crosscheck laboratory test data on the average eggcrate "acoustic" foam, you may notice it does very little for mid-band frequencies and nothing for low frequencies. Per unit of area, it's on average about half of the absorption of fabric-wrapped fiberglass panels. Meaning, while it's very cheap to cover a lot of area with -- you can get the same performance from fabric-wrapped panels while only purchasing half as much coverage.

If I sound a tad arrogant here, I can't apologize or be kind about this. This lesson has been learned time and time again with dozens of bodies per incident to show for it. Let us not forget the Station Nightclub Fire that claimed the lives of 100 people and maimed hundreds others. Same disclaimer applies -- if you have not seen the videos from the Station Nightclub Fire -- don't, unless you are the kind of person who after reading all of this is still thinking about buying or keeping unrated, highly flammable, highly toxic foam treatments.

If you must see the Station Nightclub Fire video as evidence though, here it is.

• The fire ignited from on-stage pyro at 0:20, quickly spreading across the foam panels they had used to treat the stage area.
• 30 seconds later, there was a crowd-crush toward the exits.
• 37 seconds after ignition, the fire alarms went off.
• 75 seconds after ignition, all you can hear is the fire alarm and blood-curdling screams.
• By 100 seconds after ignition -- under 2 minutes, there was a stack of bodies 4ft deep that people were trampling over to get out (not 4ft front-to-back...4ft floor to ceiling). Many who perished never made it near the door and got stuck in the bathrooms or other areas because of the thick, toxic smoke that the foam treatments generated. They couldn't see even 6 inches in front of them.
• By the time the fire trucks showed up roughly 5 minutes after ignition, it was all over. The building was engulfed.

So imagine that you have treated your spare bedroom with these products -- and for whatever reason they ignite while you are asleep. It is highly likely by the time you wake up that the fire has already spread and created blinding smoke throughout your entire residence. If you're lucky, there may still be time for you to stumble outside if the choking superheated smoke doesn't get you first, but the odds you will have time to save loved ones or pets is quite low. You will probably succumb to the smoke and superheated gasses first.

Friends don't let friends, or even enemies, use common unrated foam products as acoustic treatments.

I recently acquired these wired 4 way speakers but i cant quite understand how i could hook it up to my setup, my question is do i need an amplifier and then hook up that amp to one of my mixers?

Hello r/Acoustics,

EDIT: I just learned about r/soundproof! This question belongs over there!

EDIT 2: I still think this belongs here because the resonance of the room is strong at 140hz.

I have a resonance issue with my downstairs neighbor. She's mildly hearing impaired, so she cranks the volume on her TV and radio. My hearing seems to be very keen. We've agreed to noise mitigation, but have not started.

The noise emanating through the floor seems to be 140hz +/- 5hz. I believe this is due to the 8' ceiling height. The room is 12' x 18'.

I'm thinking about making six 24" x 48" acoustic panels and place them on the ceiling above the television. I'll make a wooden frame, fill it with 2 to 4 inches of rock wool and cover it with fabric.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback. I am open to your critique and suggestions.

Thanks!