[image165]

Hi. Does anyone know of any sound absorbing wall art panels? Basically what I'm looking for is a big square panel, that looks like a piece of modern art, that I can fix on a wall, to soften the acoustics in a bright room. AND, I want it to be affordable. Does such a product exist?

[mattym]

if you have the time and ability you can make your own, wicks wall slab and some wood, and some thin white material to paint on, as long as the material allows air through it will be acousticly acceptable to a point, or you can approach interface fabrics and see if they can supply you with anything?

Or if you want a professionally made product you can approach acoustic panel manufacturers....

check the powerbuys now and then too, click view all posts and there are a lot of panels and tiles in there....

[avanzato]

Originally Posted by image165

AND, I want it to be affordable. Does such a product exist?

What price do you class as affordable?

What I decided to do is to try canvas,canvas painting unfortunately are quite exspensive.I have a large bare wall behind me,I have some R.R.G foam from Matt (who provides exellent service BTW)for lower down,but higher up I'm going to get this woman artist to make me some canvas frame,so you dont see the wood,but you leave an airspace behind the picture to wall.The canvas will be large,with a small picture in the centre.By going direct to her I save alot of money,though still not cheap,I just provide a picture of my choice,and she paints it.

If you want something cheaper,you could try Rockwall about 2",cover it,and hang it on the wall,again leaving an air gap.

[image165]

Affordable, I'd say under £100. I was just wondering if there's any product out there, that reduces sound reflections in a room, looks good, and is cheap.

Unfortunately I don't think you can get "art" for under £100.Either make your own with Rockwall,but for far less hassle I would try some of Matts profoam and cover it yourself,that's what I'm going to do when it arrives.

[binbag]

Don't art students still work for beer?

[mattym]

Originally Posted by binbag

Don't art students still work for beer?

they do, its the panels that are not cheap!

Might seem a silly suggestion but I have read that carpet is a useful sound insulator. Not suggesting you carpet the walls but how about those large rugs.
I heard it works to a degree but its not that same of sound insulation. Tho dont want to turn your place into a hippy commune of course!

[Gary Lightfoot]

Carpet can work (foam backed) as an accoustic treatment of sorts, but it's hit and miss as you've no idea what frequencies are being absorbed and what ones are being allowed through to reflect back into the room (from the surface underneath).

Having said that, I tried it on my dedicated room due to excessive slap echo by glueing foam backed carpet on the lower half of the walls, and it worked well. Proper measuring of the room will probably show a very poor accoustic response overall I would think (as would most rooms), even though it seems to sound fine (and no doubt it can be improved upon).

I believe Mattym offers a service that allows you to calculate what products should go where in the room. It's quite a science so it helps to have some guidance to do it properly IMHO.

I've seen a spreadsheet that shows that treating the walls friom ceiling to floor is not the way to go - you need some wall surfaces to help tame some lower frequencies below 350hz IIRC.

Accoustic treatments and soundproofing are two different things, so don't think that treating the room will have much effect on noise transmission to the neighbours. You need to build new stud walls in front of the existing to begin to start addressing those issues.

Gary.

[mattym]

Thats right gary, the lower third should be left available for bass treatments, if no treatment is required its left reflective.

good article on this here on page 3
http://www.rpginc.com/news/reflections/drv4i2.pdf

[Gary Lightfoot]

Thanks for the link Matt.

More bedtime reading.

Gary.

Just an idea:

PC world, sell A4 sized sheets to print images on T-shirts. Ie design your own image or get a picture into your PC and print to this special paper. Then ( which I didn't read) you can then iron opr what ever, the image on to say cotton or linen. If you are using 2'x2' acoustic panels then you could print off a few images and arrange at will.
Just another lateral way of thinking about personalised T-shirt printing.

[binbag]

I've been mulling the idea over of getting a sheet of MDF and sticking different offcuts of wood on it, different woods, different heights in a blockboard sort of arrangement - kinda like a city viewed from above. Varished up it should look OK and from what I've read of acoustics should work as a diffuser.

[mattym]

Originally Posted by binbag

I've been mulling the idea over of getting a sheet of MDF and sticking different offcuts of wood on it, different woods, different heights in a blockboard sort of arrangement - kinda like a city viewed from above. Varished up it should look OK and from what I've read of acoustics should work as a diffuser.

its already done, called Skyline™ Wood ones look very cool, but are a complete PITA to make, thats why the cheap EPS version was made, ive still got the original wood prototype kicking about here somewhere...

search the web for fabrics with artistic style prints and such. there are plenty of textiles out there that could work well if you put some time into finding them (though some of them can also get quite pricey).

if your have an artist to do the work for you make sure they do it in watercolor on a light weight unprimed canvas (or cotton), or idealy work with fabric dyes. i tend to suspect alot of artist would have trouble pulling off a quality acousticly transparent artwork.

[mattym]

Originally Posted by jmnormand

search the web for fabrics with artistic style prints and such. there are plenty of textiles out there that could work well if you put some time into finding them (though some of them can also get quite pricey).

if your have an artist to do the work for you make sure they do it in watercolor on a light weight unprimed canvas (or cotton), or idealy work with fabric dyes. i tend to suspect alot of artist would have trouble pulling off a quality acousticly transparent artwork.

its do-able, acoustic paints and the like now exist, if the panel is of good enough quality absorbant material(not cushion foam or soft mineral wool)then its likely that it will still make a noticeable difference.

[Nickiniquity]

You could make a nice woden frame using 'Soundsoak' panels from here :
http://www.soundsorba.com/products.htm

The product is a fabric covered compressed mineral wool thing and works really well for controlling mid and top end refections. They're often used in broadcast edit suites and the like. I seem to remember when I last thought about getting some, it was about 80quid for a 4x8foot sheet.

Nick

[mattym]

Originally Posted by Nickiniquity

You could make a nice woden frame using 'Soundsoak' panels from here :
http://www.soundsorba.com/products.htm

The product is a fabric covered compressed mineral wool thing and works really well for controlling mid and top end refections. They're often used in broadcast edit suites and the like. I seem to remember when I last thought about getting some, it was about 80quid for a 4x8foot sheet.

Nick

The 25mm wont be that good for mid range, i cant find that one on the site, you got a direct link?

Originally Posted by binbag

I've been mulling the idea over of getting a sheet of MDF and sticking different offcuts of wood on it, different woods, different heights in a blockboard sort of arrangement - kinda like a city viewed from above. Varished up it should look OK and from what I've read of acoustics should work as a diffuser.

As Matty says, it will. It doesn't need to follow a particular pattern either, wholly random is effective (within the bound of diffusor design). The only difference is that you can not predict the scatter pattern. Two points to bear in mind though: first that it takes far more wood than you would imagine. Your offcuts pile would need to be substantial even for a 2' x 2' panel. Second, weight soon becomes an issue. Again, even a 2' x 2' panel will have considerable weight. And weight has all sorts of sub-points to bear in mind, but not least the target wall/ceiling construction (plasterboard is a common wall/ceiling material, and woeful for heavy duty fixing).

How do I know this?. Because I have a DIY 4' x 2' (approx) panel at my primary ceiling reflection point. OK, so I have a plaster/lath ceiling suspended from 12" depth joists, so fixings are rock solid, but the effort getting it there (myself!), well that's another story

[binbag]

Don't you need that density to make it work?

Would polystyrene (for example) be too light to have any effect?

[mattym]

Originally Posted by binbag

Don't you need that density to make it work?

Would polystyrene (for example) be too light to have any effect?

for a diffusor it doesnt matter what the density is as long as it is reflective. someone i know tried to make a diffusor from foam, great absorber, rubbish diffusor.

The skyline is made of polystyrene, all be it a slightly different version than the norm. Wood, plastic, grp, plaster, eps are all used to make our diffusors.