How to Acoustically Sound treat a Room under $1,000

 We are in my brand new office that is currently being built, it's not done yet.

And one of the things we've come across that we find is becoming an issue when moving into any new space is that the audio is terrible, and so today, in this article, we're gonna be talking about how to treat a room acoustically, and we have here, our good friend, Brenden Bytheway. - Guys, this room sounds terrible. - So bad. - (claps) - You hear that? - Look at this. We got blank walls, okay, we got a window. We got blank walls, we got blank walls, we got blank walls, we got blank walls, we got a flat floor, okay? Problem. - Sounds awful. And so what we're gonna be doing today is acoustically treating the entire room to show you step by step everything we would do to make this room tighten up and be great for recording audio like we're hearing right now and for mixing audio as well in post. But, before we do that, big thanks to Storyblocks for sponsoring this video. Storyblocks is a great service for when you're in need of a quick video clip for B-roll or an After Effects template or a motion background. The thing I personally love and use Storyblocks for is their title animation After Effects presets.

To quickly up the production value of one of your edits, I'll often use one of their title animation presets like the one you saw at the beginning of this video which give your edit a much more professional feel with minimal time and effort. I highly recommend looking into Storyblocks Video to up the production value of your videos and  o But let's now acoustically treat this room. We're gonna break it down to five steps that you would do to come into an empty room like this. This is a 10 by 12 room. 10-foot ceiling is a bit taller ceiling than normal, but it's pretty much a box, and a lot of you guys are dealing with rooms like this, and I'm seeing videos of you guys where your visuals look great but your audio sounds terrible. There's tons of reverb and it's annoying to listen to like what you're hearing right now, and so we're gonna show you how to make that come together nice and tight and up that audio quality of your videos as well. Brendo, quick question. I always get

asked: what should people buy to sound treat a room? - Yes. - And we're gonna try to do it as cheap as possible. - So, yeah, as cheap as possible. In an ideal world, you would get insulation and treat the actual walls themselves so they'd be soft walls, so they're treated in depth. You wanna have this gross material. Or you would get those thick panels like you see and those have insulation and with the acoustic fabric on them. But people can't afford that or they don't have time to make those things. -

So what's our cheap option? - Our cheap option is gonna be foam, so follow me. Tada! We got foam, we got three-inch foam, we got bass traps, we got one-inch foam, we got three-inch foam, we got foam, we got foam! - Here's a one-inch foam. Compare that to two-inch foam. - Two-inch foam. - Compare that to three-inch foam. And what's the difference between these? Why are we going thicker? - When you pull up Amazon or whatever, you're gonna say, well, this is the cheapest, and it's all foam, so I'm gonna get that. Here's where that's a bad idea. The thicker the foam, the deeper the frequencies that it traps. That's why these bass traps, look at this. Super thick, super dense, so the bass waves are a lot longer waves, and they will get trapped in this more than this. -

When you say trapped, you mean they're not gonna reflect? - Yes. - And reflection is what causes reverb? - Yes. - Which causes bad audio. - So, if you get a whole bunch of these one-inch foams, it will help treat the high frequencies, but what you'll do is you'll create a box buildup, and all those frequencies that you're filtering out up high, it'll start to jumble and just sound like a super boxy gross room. So you want to make it a balanced room. So a lot of people feel like, if their room is going to be sound treated, it has to be completely dead and any reflections are really bad, which is not the case. Kind of comes down to preference at that point. So the room that we're doing today, the artist does want really dead. Tano, Tanzo, Tanner Gran. So don't feel like you have to spend as much as we're doing on this room. You don't have to treat it as much. Any treatment will help and we're gonna take you through those steps so you can plan what works for your budget and your room. - All right, so step one. Some guys would say bass traps is the most important thing to do first. We're gonna start with the walls first. We're gonna grab our three-inch foam here. Again, if you can't afford thicker, you can go thinner, but ideally you're getting, I would say, at least two-inch. I wouldn't go with the one-inch. - I wouldn't get one-inch. - So at least two-inch, ideally look for three-inch-thick. It's gonna get more expensive. We'll show you links in the description where you can buy all the foam we'll be using and budget out what you can afford. Okay, now before I put the foam up, first, we're going to be running some tests so you can hear what it's gonna sound like before and after treating the room. -

We're gonna put a speaker in this corner, play a song. We'll listen to how it sounds with music playing and then, also, we'll do some speech with me and Parker. So what we're gonna be simulating is what it sounds like from this perspective which is "back-of-room" and then, right here, which is your "mixed positioning". And I understand this isn't a perfect test by any means, but it's just to give you an idea, so we'll listen to five, 10 seconds. - Yeah, and the reason we're doing this is because, when you're mixing music, what I have found, just recently when I left my basement, I had it acoustically treated to some degree, and then I moved a ton of stuff out to bring into here, and went to mix some stuff again, and all of a sudden, things sounded really reverb-y in what I was listening to. I'm like, whoa, this audio sounds way bad now. And it wasn't the audio. It was the fact that it was reflecting in my room and so you would make changes to the audio and mix it, depending on what you're hearing, but if it's not accurate, you're mixing according to your room and not according to what the sound you're actually getting from the audio. So that's why it's absolutely crucial to treat it. - Yeah, basically, you can triple the investment of your speaker price if you treat your room because what you're hearing out of your speaker and reflecting in your room is going to impact your decisions on how you finalize your music or finalize your video. - So you'd say, before upgrading to better speakers, you would upgrade the acoustically treated room first. - Yes, 100%. - Great tip. All right, test it out. (slow pop music) - What are you hearing? - There's no focus, it's

completely out of control. The bass is really floppy. There's a lot of clogginess and gross, just things going on. It doesn't represent the music, how the artist intended it to be made. - Vocal test. Check, one, two, three, four. This is how my audio sounds with the mic about three feet away. - This is how my audio sounds with the mic about one arm reach. - Mine is half an arm reach away. - Mine is one arm reach away. - My arms are bigger. - They are. - (chuckles) Okay, so now what we're gonna do is just listen how long it takes for the reverb to decay and this isn't any scientific test. It's just a ballpark, okay? Here we go (claps). One more time (claps). Okay. - 20 seconds. - About 23, pretty close. - A long time. - He's got the arms and I've got the brains. So there's a number of ways that you can mount foam. You can mount it with prayers and good vibes or you can mount it with glue and 3M stickies. The 3M stickies are the most expensive option, but in the long run, they're the cheapest, and the reason I say that is: if you pull the foam off of your wall and it has glue, it will ruin your wall and it will ruin your foam. So, not only will you have to replace the wall, you'll have to replace your foam. So 12 feet. - We're gonna try and make this symmetrical and actually look good. That's the center of the room. - You wanna know a life hack? - What? - Put tinfoil right in there. - Why? (chuckles) What are you talking about? So we just did some measurements of the desk and the desk, plus where the speakers are gonna be to the tweeter point-- - To the tweeter point is 44 inches right here. Center would be tada. One thing that I'll do is lay out across the roam to give an idea of both cosmetic and practical, how it would work to lay out. So join us as we peel apart foam. #TheMostSatisfyingVideoYou'veEverSeen (foam peels) Right? What I told Tanner originally was to do two on top of each other like this. I think these should go ceiling. - One question with the window. What do you recommend for that? Just a thick curtain? - Yes. Curtains do wonders, so in my studio, it's actually a live room, and then it has a ton of curtains in it, and so, when I record live, then I draw the curtains. It treats it super well. - Yeah, so we're not gonna do that today, but just

know we're gonna be putting a curtain up here later: a nice, thick curtain. - Would it look good to do these here? Or should we put the two-inch here and then put these three-inches over on this wall? - For filming reasons, because we're gonna be filming this way, probably put it on that end. - You got it. That's a great tip. Whatever we're saying right here, it's all really good practice and it's all really good to do, but don't feel like-- - This is the only way to do it. - Exactly, especially for a project studio, you don't have to get down to the nitty-gritty. - Keep this in mind: we're gonna be having these here, so spacing-wise, between that. - Yeah, so this is why I like to lay it out, so you can visualize like: well, this won't work, you don't have to mark everything.

In this scenario, like I said, we're gonna do more of a dead room, so we're gonna go actually floor-to-ceiling on these bass traps, but if you can't afford that or it doesn't make sense to, get some in the bottom, get some in the middle, and get some at the very top. So one thing that I do with my bass traps at home, and you don't have to do this, I actually don't have them tacked to the wall in any way. I just stack them that way. - Interesting. - [Brenden] Because I really don't care about the cosmetics. Since we're gonna be filming, it does help to tidy them up and I guess, now, we're doing the bass traps first. - Yeah, don't worry about it. - Whoa, whoa! So what we're gonna do, I didn't know when the plans were sent over that the door was in the corner, so we're actually going to adhere the two, right? We could get two there. Yeah, we'll get two up on that corner. You guys, it is night and day already. - Much different. - And nothing is even hung. So you might be thinking: this can't make that much big of a difference. - Well, let's see. - Oh, well, here we go. (slow pop music) - Perfect! Here's what we're hearing. Bass is a lot tighter, the music is a lot more defined, and I can hear a lot more of what's going on. Clarity is coming out. K, quick vocal test! - Check, one, two, three, four. This is the audio you're hearing from my voice with the microphone about two or three feet away. You know, it's interesting, as I'm hearing myself talk, I feel like I'm having to talk louder because, before, talking semi-quietly, it sounded so much louder. Check, one, two, three, four. This is how my audio sounds with the mic about three feet away. - Well, and what's funny about an untreated room is you have to keep yelling over yourself 'cause it just keeps building up. So yeah, the more you treat a room, the actually quieter that you can start talking. - That is nice. - Perfect, moving on to the walls. So five feet is there and, if these are six feet, then that leaves us four feet on each side. So, if we put a foot panel, foot panel, foot, then that would look and sound really great. So we'll start with our middle one. - Let me grab you a ladder. - So we're gonna get a ladder and we're gonna start at the top, so while Parker's grabbing the ladder, let me show

you the trick with these 3M things. Okay, so look at this. So this is hard Velcro, right? So what we're gonna do, we're gonna stick them together first. Now, since this piece is so light and small, I'm only gonna use one. So you peel off here, really push on that thing. You want that thing on there, okay? We're going to peel this off, we're gonna push it on here as tight as we can. We're gonna just really tap that in. So, again, we're really gonna push this on. Make sure it's super nice and tight. K, so Parker wants to start with just two. Great, he's an economical man, I love it. So we're gonna make sure that's lined up, we make sure we like it, and we're gonna peel off these little things. All right, so we're really gonna massage this into the wall. Don't be afraid to push on the foam. It will take its shape back. So, now, we're going to get, yep, Parker knows what's up. We're going to put this here. Look at that, one done! So, now, we've got our wall stuff up, we've got our bass traps, we have these three-inch-thick and was it three feet long? - Three feet long. - Three-feet-long, three-inch-thick. We've got one over there, we've got these here, those there. bass traps up in that corner with the door 'cause we can't really fill it out there, and then we threw some of these two-inch-thick 1x1's here. And then, of course, right here, we're doing what we can. All right

and then we have this big window. So this is our music test with nothing on the ceilings, no rug, no furniture, ready? (slow pop music) To me, it sounds a lot tighter, it's a lot cleaner. Again, the same kind of things. It's just getting more and more defined and it sounds like music rather than a big wash. - Get us some vocal tests. - Vocal tests! - This is my voice talking about two or three feet away. Test, one, two, three. Definitely tightened up quite a bit. Check, one, two, three, four, this is-- Check, one, two, three, four, this is-- Vocals are feeling and sounding a lot better to me. We're still hearing a little bit of (claps). Right up here, you hear that-- - Let me-- - Yeah, yeah, please. (claps) - You hear that go-- (claps) - It's kinda springy and tinging-sounding. So what we're gonna do is we're getting a lot of stuff in this corner, these blank spots up there a little bit. But the biggest thing that we're getting is these bouncing right here, and so we're going to stick some treatment up in there. - So this is going on our ceiling, these are 2x4's, these are giant guys. They're not as pretty.

That's why we're putting them on the ceiling. But we're gonna put one right here, up in between those lights, and we're gonna cut a third in half and put them either side of this. - There and there, yep. So the thing about the ceiling ones is you're gonna need a lot more of the stickies because gravity is fighting against you. - Let's scoot this way a little bit. - Um. I would ask that you don't do that, please, thank you. - (laughs) - No care for my stuff, look at this. Now we're

crushing Mic Mogami. - Ugh! - All right, all right. K, one egg crate is up. This is (chews) acoustic ASMR. (chews) Looky, here is the chew (chews). So yeah, okay, so let's point this mic at the ceiling, how we had them, now let's take a listen to that clap. Parker, clap for us. - (claps) Much tighter. (claps) Up there is where you're hearing it? (claps) - Mm-hmm, but it's way less. So we could get one guy here, one guy here, so we'll go one here and one there. Maybe let's get one above the door just to match this guy over here and then I think we're set. (slow pop music) So yeah, just like every other test, it just has got tighter, more defined. This room could be a lot more perfect.

It's almost a perfect box which is terrible. But we did the best we could, and it already sounds that much better. - Check, one, two, three, four. This is my audio with the mic about two feet away. Check, one, two, three, four, this is-- Check, one, two, three, four, this is-- Test, one, two, three. I love it, that is night and day. Last step: now we're just gonna throw down carpet, thicken the ground a little bit. So, if you guys have hardwood, like cement or wood or something, that's gonna be super reflective, so you'll definitely need a carpet. This is already carpet, but it's a very thin commercial-grade carpet. - Again, the biggest thing that we're looking for here is mass, so if there's mass in a room, that's going to absorb sound in some fashion. So, if you have a thick rug, it'll absorb the sound in some way, so it's not just cosmetics.

So, for being a studio, yep, so this guy is about an inch, inch and a half. It's really fuzzy and nice, got on Amazon. (claps) - I like it. - See that? So we don't have our mics in here right now 'cause we needed to bring in the rug, but that really helps. - It did. - Like it's shocking how much that helps (claps). - Desk is in. - Here's what we're wanting to do. We want to create a triangle. So we've got the Yamaha HS8 sub on this desk and we've got some, I believe these are Auralex monitor pad, stand, isolation thingies. So what we're gonna do is try and create a equilateral triangle between speaker distance on the tweeters and also facing the head, so basically, what that means is we wanna measure here to here, which looks like we're at 40 inches and then here, which would put our head, if the person were to scoot in, with that, measure up to 40 pretty much. So job well done. So yeah, essentially, what that does is that helps you get a very equal image on your speakers, so you wanna have them shooting a little bit right behind your ear. Gauge the look, make sure they're even, which these look like they are. In a normal scenario, if we had a longer room, what we'd wanna do is pull the desk back from the wall to give these speakers a little bit of room to breathe. But, because we don't have a super deep room, this is gonna have to do. - So that's pretty much the basics of sound treating a room. All in all, I did the math, we have about $700 to $800 worth of acoustic foam. More than half of that is the fact that we lined the entire top-to-bottom ten-feet ceilings with the bass traps, so that was about $400, $500, just the bass traps. So, not including all the bass traps, extensive bass traps, you're looking at maybe $300 or $400 worth of acoustic foam. We'll compare right now. Cut to a shout at the beginning. Be great for recording audio like we're hearing right now and for mixing audio as well in post. - And now what you're hearing with it acoustically treated, so that's gonna make it so that Tanner, who's gonna be using this desk, he's gonna be recording a lot of vocals and so, now, he's gonna be able to have a lot cleaner vocal so that he can be mixing a much better-sounding vocal that doesn't already have reverb built into it. These are important things, guys, to be able to get clean audio and to be able to edit clean audio and, Brendo, any last thoughts? - Take it more serious. - I would absolutely agree. I'm shocked by how many successful YouTubers are out there or successful artists, successfulfilmmakers, that don't take the time to acoustically treat.

I mean, if you're on set somewhere and you're run-and-gun, obviously, you can only do so much, but if you have the ability, if it's your own studio, your own office, take 10 minutes and take $300, $400, to acoustically treat your room. And we've given you a lot of awesome tips today to do that. Well, that's it, guys. To check out more about audio, it's half of the viewing experience, people, check out that audio guide: a filmmaker's guide to audio. Brendo teaches a whole course on this stuff for filmmakers. Check out Brendo's course. It'll be a link in the description to check out more about becoming a pro at capturing and editing audio. Also, make sure to check out Full-time Filmmaker to learn more filmmaking tips and tricks like this. And don't forget to subscribe to my channel and to Brendo's channel at That Audio Guy, and if you have any further questions, please let me know.