How To Make DIY Sound Absorption Panels

 Make Your Own Sound Absorption Panels

I've been having serious issues with acoustics, and all in all, I've been having some serious issues in this room. It's odd-shaped. It's really short, and the reverberation in here is awful. So I really have to take care of that low end and I'm sure that you do too. I made these panels for about $20 apiece. 12 panels in total. Now, online, you can get them from anywhere between 75 and $125. Which is a little bit out of my budget for a home studio. So, what I did is what you're doing right now, and searched for some DIY ways to make them. I came up with this little tweak that helped me cut some costs down even more. I found that the biggest cost that I needed to cut was the fabric, not the wood, not the insulation bats, but the fabric. For the number of panels that I needed, I was having issues keeping that cost down and for the amount of fabric that I needed, I would have spent almost $200 in just fabric. That being said, let me show you some more of the supplies you'll need to make these. 

Too Long To Read? I wrap insulation bats in a body pillowcase! Watch The Video 

Transcript

Materials For DIY Acoustic Panels

Materials:

Rockwool Safe & Sound Insulation: The first, and most important, thing you'll need is to purchase some rock wool safe and sound insulation bats. These come in 16 and 24 inches widths. I used the 16-inch wide bat because I found it easier to handle. The 16 and the 24-inch bats will come in at 47 inches long. So keep that in mind when you're making your dimensions.

Wood: Now, the type of wood you're going to need is solely your preference. I use 2x4s because I had some laying around…but I did have to buy more. If you can find 1x4x8s that might be a little easier to work with.

Hooks and Screws: Another thing that you'll need are some hooks to mount these things on the wall. You also might want to pick up some wires just in case you have to adjust them on the wall to hit studs or place them where you need them.

Body Pillowcase: The last thing, and the thing that cut down my costs so much, was getting the fabric. Anything I found was at least $5 a yard, and for the number of panels I need, it wasn't going to work out. I might as well just buy pre-made ones. So the idea that I came up with was actually wrapping the frame of the sound absorption panel in a body pillowcase and just sliding the thing right in. A cotton polyester blend made it pretty tough and breathable. So, I didn't have to pay for yards and yards of fabric. I bought $10 body pillowcases, two in a pack, and just slide the frame right in there, and you're good to go. 

How To Assemble DIY Acoustic Panels

The first thing you want to do is pre-cut all the pieces of wood that you're going to need. You'll need two pieces of wood per panel. Like I said earlier, I used 2x4s. After you have your wood cut, you're actually just going to lay the insulation bat out and wrap that bad boy in the body pillowcase. Just shimmy it right on down until it's completely in there. You want to shake the bat down into the pillowcase.

Make sure that it’s even on one side because you're going to take your longest piece of wood and just slide it inside the body pillow. You want to make sure there's some room there. The purpose is to wedge that insulation bat in between two pieces of wood. Keep it straight as you can, because you don't want this thing wobbling around, and once you put the end pieces on, you want it to be as square as possible. 

Now you're going to take your other long piece of wood, whichever size you decide to cut, mine were 45 inches, and slide it up the other side. This thing gets wedged in tight. So you're gonna have to work it, straightening the fabric as you go. A cotton polyester blend, so they're pretty tough and breathable. So the insulation can do its work while I can actually still manhandle the fabric. 

Once you have both pieces of wood in there, just straighten the fabric out as best as you can and try to get the woods square Smooth out any insulation that may have ruffled underneath that body pillow. Now you're just going to zip up the body pillow you could finish right here. You could finish just by throwing insulation in the pillowcase and pinning it to a wall and it's going to absorb sound. 

But for aesthetics in the studio, you may want to finish out the frame. Next, you want to dry fit the end pieces to this. In my case, these were 17-inch 2x4s. Make it as nice as you can before you start screwing these things in. Now in some designs, you could probably put the end pieces inside of the body pillow. I chose to put them on the outside because I wasn't sure if I was going to stand on them up or mount them on the wall. Also, I just liked the look of it.

The last thing you got to do is just screw these pieces of wood and make sure they're squared up. Get it nice and tight. Make sure that fabric is tucked inside there and screw that piece of wood on. It should Square itself up even more and tighter. 
And that's basically it! You have your panel and it's done. I did add some finishing oil to the wood because it was going to be on the outside. It was only $9 a bottle, and you’re not going to use the whole bottle. I built 12 panels and used about a quarter of the bottle.

Lastly, I drilled pilot holes into the exposed pieces of wood and then screwed these hooks on there, which made it easy to hook to the wall once I found a stud, and I even have one in my ceiling to make a cloud. Now, if you're going to use 2x4’s I strongly suggest making sure you hit a stud with at least one full side of the absorption panels because they do get heavy. If you used 1x4 wood it won't be as bad, and you might be able to do it with sheet rock anchors.

Things I’d Do Differently

I definitely would use the 1x4x8 wood. It would have been a lot easier to maneuver the wood inside the body pillowcase. So keep that in mind. Make sure you cut your wood straight. If you don't cut this stuff straight then you're going to have a bad time. It makes it very difficult to line things up. And make it look and stand and mount correctly. You have to get it right. 

Another thing if you're making one to put on your ceiling to make a cloud, have someone help you! All I was doing was spinning around in a chair putting holes in my sheetrock rock. 

Another thing that's going to make it a lot easier for you is to get actual wood screws. Don't use the screws you have laying around the house. The screws I used didn't even need to have pilot holes. It just jammed right in there… good to go. 

And the very last thing is making sure you have your placement right. Make sure you plan out where you're putting these panels because already I want to move some. They’re not exactly where I want them. The sound is right but the look is bothering me, and it's fixable.

I hope this info helped you out and helps you cut some costs getting the right sound in your home studio!