When we joined forces with Marius, to handle the entire sonic endeavour of the full length feature film „Tabasco” by Andrius Žemaitis, it created a need to build a foley studio to record all of the sounds that will be present in the movie. It can be considered an anechoic chamber.

However, acoustic materials and panels are expensive and in the ages of grindcore sigmas, spending money on art projects seems a bit risky. That‘s when I took a look into my garbage.

And I found a solution.

This is also a tutorial on how to build acoustic absorbers as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

1. Mineral or stone wool (insulation).
Preferably in 10-20cm thickness.

2. Fabric – to wrap the panels with.
The cheapest option is a roll of the thickest agro fabric.

Make sure the fabric allows the passage of air – you should be able to blow air through it with little effort.

3. Plywood or thin planks – to build frames.

4. Nails or staples – to nail the fabric to the frame.

5. Screws – 4-6mm thickness, 60-80mm in length.

Tools:

1. Cordless drill, with a 2-3mm drill bit.

2. Something to cut wood with (hacksaw, circular saw, bla.)

3. Respirator – the insulation tends to emit a lot of dust.

4. Hammer (don‘t use the battery of your drill you lunatic).

First of all – I‘m very privileged to live in the countryside. Meaning I do have silence available.

With that, I can add that a typical cabin, outside of town, can be bought for prices below 10 000 EUR. Compare that with how much you‘d end up paying for rent in the long-term for a place in the city, that‘s insulated from road noises. Add a zero.

Re-use re-cycle re-purpose.

Second – I‘m very environmentally friendly – I always look for ways to re-use, or recycle the garbage.

Or I’m too cheap to spend money on things I already have.

Used stone wool.

What I had available was several cubic metres of used stone wool, that I haven‘t discarded, after I changed my roof insulation in my main studio, into a thicker and higher efficiency one.

Most of it was in pieces, full of dead mice, or just deteriorated beyond effective use as thermal insulation. However, it‘s still perfectly suitable to use as acoustic insulation. Though not as efficient as a fresh bag of insulation, but it‘s free and even saving my money, because I don‘t need to go anywhere to discard it.

Old furniture.

I had a full storehouse of soviet furniture – shelving, cupboards, doors, that was beginning to rot, took way too much space and I had latent plans to take circular saw and then burn it all together.

Now when we need a load of acoustic panels to cover almost 20 square metres of room, I actually ran out of them. So I even went to my neighbours, my family members, the dumpsters, bla.

It‘s soviet – meaning it‘s thick, strong and considered garbage, therefore free of charge and a great material to make frames for acoustic panels.

Scrap fabric.

Everyone has a grandma and these creatures tend to sew a lot, leaving a lot of unused fabric. If you can blow air through it – it‘s good to go.

You can use towels, bedsheets, some types of curtains, etcetera. Anything you can blow air through and if it isn‘t too nasty if you care.

I had bags of this shit, in every corner of the house.

The easiest way is the best way.

The need was a lot of acoustic absorbers. Almost a 100, to be rough.

That‘d be around 5000 euros if you buy them ready made. Our panels are 20cm thick, using wool of similar efficiency compared to what we have available in our retailers that‘s 10cm thick. You can multiply now.

But if you go on youtube and watch „how to make diy acoustic absorbers”, you‘d be bombarded with ways that are wayyyyy too difficult to do:

Making them out of metal frames, using glue and nail guns, using expensive fabric to cover it, ugh. Using old towels? Wha?

How to make a panel in 15 minutes.

1. Cut the wood into 20×40-60-120 cm measurements, (or any of your preference, matching the size of the insulation sheets is best).

Adjust the dimensions regarding on how you screw them together and take note on the thickness of the panels themselves.

Sand the edges by hand or with a bandshleifer (belt sander bla bla).

2. Drill holes in the edges for the screws (to prevent cracking the panels when screwing a thick screw).

3. Screw them together with a couple of 4-6mm thick 80mm screws.

4. Screw some triangular pieces in the back for rigidity.

5. Staple or nail some fabric in the back.

6. Squish the insulation in the panel.

7. Apply a layer of fabric in the front – done to prevent the insulation emitting a lot of toxic dust.

8. Play mahjong in your room with all the panels, until every surface is covered with them.

9-68. ???

69. Record.

An even easier way:

You can be even cheaper – skip the rigid frame entirely.

Take a couple of planks, layer them into this configuration, screw it together, use a rope to make a double X on the front of it, apply a 10cm layer of your insulation and just wrap it with the fabric available and nail it through the insulation into the planks.

I don‘t even have a drill:

You can just fucking roll the piece of insulation with fabric, tape it together and hang it in your bedroom, so noone would be able to hear you scream for whatever reason in your saved time.

The result:

We spent less than 200 euros, in my estimated guess.

Mainly, because we actually ran out of scrap and had to buy a lot of screws and energy drinks, because we had limited time to build the panels before the winter – we made them in November.

We have built almost a 100 panels of various sizes, most of which are being used in the foley studio.

There is absolutely no reverberation in the room.

And Marius is the usual inhabitant in the foley studio. Sometimes he leaves the house, to bring more of the surrounding forest inside.

That‘s why this room is used to record things, which will be stuffed into a different kind of reverb later, or has to be as dry as possible.

You can watch a live performance by 6P3S done in our Foley studio, where you‘d be able to hear how clean and clear everything sounds, particularly in the stereo field, which is the main thing that gets messed up in a reverberant room.

However – this type of room is absolutely not suitable for a post-production studio, mainly because it‘s completely dead and it‘s not a correct representation of acoustics you‘d have in a typical playback scenario.

I‘d recommend going for a LEDE (live end dead end) approach if you have the space, or partially damping your room if you don‘t.

There will be an article on how to turn the environment that most of us have, into the best scenario possible for your post-production. I‘ll need to do some tests and find some victims for the experiment.