High-Performance DIY Acoustic Panels (Build Guide) 

Man, you simply don't know how to make mediocre videos do you? They're all great. Thanks for making these videos for us.

You are a godsend. Sadly I don't have all the tools and equipment, however this guide is a great jumping off point for some creative liberties. Thank you!

DIY Perks in ten years: "Living things tend to produce a lot of noise that can get quite irritating. Today, we're building a doomsday machine to end all life and, hopefully, make the world a lot more quiet."

It's a very nice look, and highly effective. A+

A side-by-side comparison between these and your first version with the towels would be awesome so we can weigh performance vs. cost of the two variants. Amazing video either way :D

Imagine how completely DIY’d this guys house is, probably hasn’t bought a piece of actual furniture ever

"Not quite as cheap as wood" Man 2 years ago were a different time :(

You can even make the process cheaper by creating rectangle ones so it skips the 3d printing part, and you can mount your favourite picture/paintings on it. Building the whole frame with glued wood also makes sense as wood is slightly softer than aluminium thus absorbing more sound, (but it can be heavier.) :) Another Idea is if you have a huge gigantic empty wall, you can make a large version of this, and turning it into a projector screen, ultimately turning your bedroom into a studio/gaming/home theater environment.

The A/B comparison at the end is very obvious and very surprising. I've made and use panels myself with rock wool and wood and know how important they really are when it comes to audio. I was skeptical about the foam-ish material that you used, but it CLEARLY worked very well. Amazing video. Thanks

I like your ideas. Couple of changes I'd add. 1: Once you know the size of the insulation you're going to put inside, adjust the size of the triangle so that you use the full width of the piece. This reduces the number of cuts you have to make and also reduces the trimmed pieces that get thrown away. 2: If you're going to 3D print the attachment ends, why not design an end that attaches the four pieces at each corner and also hold them the right distance between the front and back. then you would need only three per panel. You might even be able to design the so the aluminum angle with holes could snap in and not need screws.

Just a tip for you. If you "countersink" your holes first, then drill the holes, your finished countersink will be easier and cleaner. Your editing and production value is excellent! I've been in broadcast television for over 30 years, so I'm picky about editing and videography! Keep up the great work!

Can I suggest using composite foam for the filling? It, as the name suggests, is a composite of different densities of foam. Because every density works better in a different bandwidth, a composite is the best all-round material for general purpose sound deadening. You may also consider using a shorter spacer on one end to create a slope. This way, alle the sound that is still reflected, is reflected at an angle, reducing the effect of standing waves. Furthermore if you mount the panel at a 1cm offset from the wall, you increase the surface-area of the deadning material and almost double the effect (or ofcourse use half the panels for the same effect).

Simple tips as alternative: Rather than using 3 aluminium pieces connected by bracket, you can use 1 long aluminium l, cut one side then bend it to preferred shape, then drill a hole for standoff; the rest is pretty much same.

Do the frequency sweep sound test on these that you used on your towel panels, and see how they compare.

I really thought this video wasn’t going to be interesting but I gave it a shot since you always make high quality stuff. The end result really shows the sound difference and really makes the validity of this video worth watching and actually building some of these. Great job!

These look really great, but I'd love to see how performant they are in comparison to the $5 ones you produced with towels. In the towels video you had a really awesome scientific approach, taking the time to measure the sound absorption of different materials -- I would have loved that angle on this video to know if these are objectively better.

I am making these for the aesthetic alone! ❤❤❤ But I love the science behind it. It's my favorite thing about your videos.

Very nice Matt. One variation that comes to mind is if you made different thickness of panels with different materials. That way you can spread the range of frequencies that the panels absorb and even out the effect. Different thicknesses would also add another dimension to their appearance. Great job.

GREAT STUFF - they are gorgeous! One thing that is smart about this design is that they would also fit very well across the upper corners of a room, which is basically the place to start setting them up in order to tame bass.

i am so stoked i found your channel and have already watched half a dozen videos. killer quality, creative solutions, clear and entertaining... you've got it all

You've got such a "how its made" vibe, I love it. And I'm so glad you're posting again

i am glad i don't need to wait ages for a new video since the last one :D

Thanks for this! I had to make a quick sound studio at home for my daughter who needed to record video audition songs for music school. I didn't have time for this type of project. But, now that we are done I can go back and make several of these panels to replace the not very pretty standard foam "v" shaped squares I used. Have a great day!

Honestly that audio test was amazing for showing why they're necessary, that was an awesome improvement!

Matt's wife must either adore him for his mad DIY skills or be a bit exasperated by all of his (amazing!) projects!

Thank you Matt for all the good content and instruction Showing us that we are all capable of doing it

You have learned sooooo much since the old towl panel video! Looks great, and sounds wayyyyy better! Also worth noting that echos are most notable with standing waves, and you live in a 3D space. Either hang some treatment from the ceiling, or put some carpeting with padding beneath to cut down on the top-to-bottom sound as well as the side to side. Also, putting them on adjacent walls instead of opposite walls (or a few on each wall) is also more effective than putting a bunch on 2 parallel walls.

As an audio engineer, definitely appreciate this. I watched some other video of yours and was wondering how good your audio quality is as compared to some other youtubers

Excellent! My wife and I were talking about acoustic panels hidden behind artwork. This is a great starting point. Thank you!

"So you might need friend to --" Me : *Stop cutting aluminium* Me : ah.. damn it. Friend. That one material i don't have. well, i guess that's it then for this project.

4:35 "so you might need a friend -" next episode "how to make a friend"

this is so great to see! my dad is an upholsterer, so I just swung by his place and picked up a bunch of his offcuts and made these myself!

Perfect timing for this video to come out. Just moved into a house and its super echoy.

Always feel happy when watching your tutorials. Infact you are amazing keep it up!

Welcome back! Sorry to hear about the loss of video on the previous project, but always glad to see your video's pop up on my feed, they are always well done and good to watch!

I'm still doing towels like you showed us in your DIY Acoustic Panels video. I like them and I ended up wrapping a nice sleek black cloth around them to finish them off.

Amazing solution, I love your design. Thank you for sharing your amazing story. God bless you and your family

Any acoustically absorptive material is going to emphasize the lower frequencies of your voice by nature of the fact that it absorbs higher frequencies much more efficiently, affecting the relative balance of low and high frequencies that you hear. Great video!

Just watched a vid that made these out of several layers of cotton towels and it worked brilliantly. You can use an electric carving knife for accurate cuts in foam as well. That is what sculptors do.

just what I was looking for, I'm moving to a new office and I needed this.. great videos mate.

Love your projects! Gives me lots of ideas for things I want to do for my house :)

As one DIYer to another: Your work looks so clean. Your video production is wonderful too. My house is ALSO rigged with a ton of DIY stuff, but as my friend has said "you've ghetto rigged everything you can, homie. " Thanks for the inspiration, I'm going to try to "clean up my act."

Thank you for the inspiration! I tried to follow a made a few triangles. The worst thing was to get all the components from e-shop(s). I also decided to go for triangles with length of a=500 mm so I need to additionally cut ALU profiles. Also facing was kind of tricky for me, but the more I created the more I was skilled. Thank you again!

Just want to tell you, you inspired me, and have had a a towel hanging on my wall a year now. i skipped all of your building stuff, and just have an exact cut to lenght pole as long as your towel figure a way to keep the towel nicely on it, Then hang a towel on the wall. it works and gets you 80% there with 20% effort. (as per the rule) it is a nice patterned grey towel, did have to buy that thing, the pole i had allready, just stole it from a cleaning supplies. its amazing how much it cut the echo of the room, and i get why people hang rugs on their walls.

I wanted to be able to experiment easily for the space I was working in. So, I used bed sheets (clean and washed) to spray glue the foam "v" squares onto the sheets. Then I mounted the sheets with the attached foam squares on the walls around the space. I believe it helped quite a bit because they also have a little space between the foam and the walls to catch the sound passing through twice as several have mentioned here.

making them triangles is a stroke of genius in itself, thats probably one of the biggest reasons this works so well

That is another really neat and useful project. The difference, at the end, was quite incredible.

Matt, you have the best patreon rewards I swear, giving us your blueprints, files/pdf instructions to then build at home. awesome!

I liked the idea of using layers of old towels as they can be sourced from charity shops so win win

Me: "I'm going to buil-" DIY Perks: "Use a 3D Printer." Me: "F**k"

By far the best tutorial on DIY panels! Thank you!

I am so happy i found your videos. Seriously motivating me to do my own acoustics, eventhough I have NO clue how to get into it. Haha! Keep it up, great ideas, and great video!

They would work MUCH better mounted 1 to 2 inches from the wall and angles away from parallel to the wall in random patternt. The wall spacing add adsorption becaus the sound goes through twice, once in and again on the way out. The wall spacing would also lower the frequencies controlled by about a half octace or so. The randomized angles helps to scatter (diffuse )the reflections for a smoother reverb across the whole space.

My first guess was, "There's towels in there!" 😅

Lovely to see you back again, Matt. Your approach is such understated excellence. Thank you. Just one thing: I so often see you brush the aluminium swarf with your fingers, like when you countersunk the screws... Having badly cut my fingers doing the same thing, I hate seeing you do it on your videos... Just my 2c. In any case, thanks again!

Exactly what am searching right now.. and got perfect and affordable modern diy accoustic... am really happy...

you could add some standoffs so that there is about a 15-20mm gap between the panel and the wall, and add RGB LED strips to the back for some indirect lighting.

The aluminium triangles are very neat indeed, and all in all this is a great video. I would, however, suggest figuring out exactly what insulation material to use beforehand (personally I think house insulation is better than foam, but that's just me) and its exact size per sheet. Then making the triangles an exact fraction of that so that you can use 100% of the insulation without waste bits. Some DIY panel makers make their panels larger and rectangular - in exactly the size to fit a single insulation panel, because that's easier. Furthermore, 4 inches of thickness is required to really deal with bass frequencies, but the best way to deal with bass is something that wasn't touched on here - bass traps. Basically, take these triangles, lay them in the corner of the room with the top point into the corner, and stack them until they hit the ceiling. Obviously it would be a massive waste to do that many aluminium triangles, so a modified design that was 5 or more layers of insulation thick, and had the cover fabric on the "bottom", facing the room, would make sense. And of course, a final nitpick - an acoustic panel works better if there is an air gap between it and the wall. Putting it right up against the wall with spikes works, but designing some variation on the triangle with mounts a bit in from the edge so they could "float in space" an inch or two off the wall would be even better, and look even more interesting.

To avoid excessive "boominess" you could compliment these panels - which absorb high frequencies very well - with some matching DIY bass traps - which absorb low frequencies very well - in the corners where your walls meet the ceiling and floor. A must for any audio recording. You could even leave a few off the wall and wear them like earrings or set them on either side of your mic while recording for podcasts, tutorials, narration, etc. Great video! :)

These are some of the nicest homemade ones I have seen I have been looking for a way to dampen sound in my room and those might work

DIY Perks is not only DIY expert, but also aesthetic expert. Everything you've done looks perfect like mature product, no a DIY project

Love the idea, although I do believe there are likely easier methods of achieving a similar look without the complex methods used, such as the 3-D printed parts. I think DIY projects usually have three principles which make them worth the time; being cheap, easy to make, and quick to construct. I personally wouldn’t go to the trouble of 3-D printing a bracket to join a triangle lol

Thanks for your videos, I wait for them patiently and enjoy them every single time.

Thanks for making this guide. We have made these and they work great in our studio. We did a bit of modification and installed some RGB LED's to help with the ambience haha :)

"Hon, have you seen the new 800 thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets I just bought?"

You should produce a bunch of those 3d printed connector pieces and sell them on your page.

Thanks for your take on panels. I love the triangles, helps break up the parallel lines in the room which I believe to be sonically beneficial. Btw, rigid fiberglass aka rock wool, is one of the best materials for sound deadening. It’s amazing how many public spaces such as restaurants don’t take acoustics into consideration whatsoever. A restaurant close to me has concrete floors, and open corrugated metal roof. Even with sliding open sides, you have to yell at everyone at your table to be heard.

👍👍I love your suggestions, such as reusing materials from a second hand shop. This is super do-able! And the finished results really sound great 👍👍👍👍!

Can some of the industrial loft style restaurants and breweries around my area please watch this video so I can stop shouting over the cacophonous ambient noise. This stuff is great in a workshop environment, too.

If you want maximal efficiency you should have a bit of space between the wall and the panels! Cool design, keep it up!

Your example at the end is insane great video

I've just round this interesting channel and i fall in love. Home you're not leaving the channel. Above all great work

FYI: You're sacrificing significant performance by not mounting the panels off of the wall. The typical distance is roughly the thickness of the panel, so a 2" panel is mounted 2" off the wall. Also recommended is not to double up the fabric; tight-woven fabric reflects high frequencies anyway, which is why looser fabric (e.g. burlap) is commonly used. Two layers of bedsheet might not be helping you. And finally, the filler material is crucial; it is not generally recommended to use closed-cell foams or sponges; the fiberglass insulation (or similar) is much better, and specific densities in particular are recommended. Lots of info online about this.

Am I the only one that hit the like button before watching? Because you know his videos are always high quality and informative...😉

I've used convoluted acoustic foam - the “egg crate” design provides an increased surface area and better sound absorption performance - backed by higher density foam. It is cost-effective.

Excelente Gracias muchas gracias Perks, disculpa algo tarde me tocó ver este video, por fin con este link podre apoyar a todo tu ingenio, felicidades te sigo desde hace 6 años 2016.

0:37 "... and they have a huge impact on the overall sound quality, which I will be showing you later on in the video." I heard it the second you picked them up and put them on the table.

Hi Matt, great project as always! May I ask you how this pannels compare to your previous amazing towel project? Which one would rather have done (disconsidering the asthetics) for a small studio? Look forward to hearing from you. Best regards

I just hang a rug across the wall. Ditto for the floor. Creativity gave way to impatience. Works, like right now!

It's worth noting that adding too many acoustic panels can create too much absorption and take away the natural reverb of any recorded vocals/ instruments (if you're using them for a studio). I would love to see a video of you creating some D.I.Y diffusion panels as I need to update my home recording studio! I Love watching your videos, clearly spoken, well presented and your interior design is just as impressive as your creations! Amazing content. 😊

You could also make a combo, by using dual materials, so ud have the denser in the back and a softer ín the front absorbing the waves comming back

We have the same breadknife.... It comes with a whole set of matte black cooking knives :) I FEEL A CONNECTION

Well thought out design and build. Well done sir.

Nice video, man. Love the audio related stuff that you do!

If you grab a microphone and do some simple measurements you'll notice that sponge (or rather foam) has little to no effect on most frequencies in the spectrum. Especially to annoying lower ones. Rockwool is leagues better and - more importantly - consistent across the whole spectrum. Plus - foam is a mould magnet ;)

Does the effectiveness of these panels supersede the earlier “towel” version? Or are towels still the best materials to use? EDIT: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pABvTWSxOes.html

good to see you back at it again! probably the most creative guy here on youtube! keep up it, hope you grow much more than this. your work is awesome :) somebody please, give him an oscar.

Discovered this channel and I've turned old and useless items into much more useful ones! Thanks!

Hi love the vid but i kinda want to know what you think i best for absorbtion.. The sponge from this video er the towels from the other video?

Imagine combining those with some nanoleafs! 😍

I am a fan of your DIY skills as much as your vocal skills !!!

Nice, I recently thought about making some as well. I’d prob cut material then iron it before fitting it 👍 looks amazing

4:30 dem forearms though. Popeye would be jealous!

I think it would be neat to use riser screws to mount these a couple of centimeters off of the wall and embed a few RGB leds in the back of them for an optional "inverted nanoleaf" look.

Can definitely hear a difference. Your DIYs are sweet!

Thanks man, best DIY guy on YT!!!! Unfortunatelly, the 3D printing makes this more expensive than buying ready-made absorber panels made out of Basotec absorber foam :(. If you find a way to connect the aluminium profiles without the 3D printing, I'll be very thankful!!

please compare the performance between ue first towel verion and this one. i built 3 of ure towel versions. i would love to see the difference between the 2 designs

Oh come on no analysis this time? I would really like to see the difference between the towels you made last time.

Your projects are so beautiful and well crafted!

Great video! You are a very skilled and talented person!