Sound Holes - Home Made Sound Deadening Panels for My Studio 

What is the orange machine in the back? Looks futuristic!

Never underestimate the impact you've had on people's mental health. I find your videos really therapeutic. I usually sit up at night prior to taking a flight (which I don't enjoy) in order to recalibrate my mental state.

The rambling, stumbling process is the best part. Everyone omits this crucial step in the manuals, and then people wonder what's going wrong when they try to follow the steps.

for some reason always assumed that table was in the kitchen 😅

I do believe a compilation video of all of Eva's "contributions" to your various projects would be a hilarious thing to watch. She always seems to have an opinion or suggestion. I think she deserves her own channel.

I'd fully support the formation of the Atomic Shrimp Ramblers Association. Your 'rambling' videos really are like an intellectual hike, with some dead-ends, a fair bit of backtracking, and a few summits that end up being much higher than they first appeared on the map, but always ending up at a destination with your mind alive, seeing things in a new way, and feeling just that little bit more positive and hopeful than when you started. I quite enjoyed this virtual ramble, and I don't think I'm the only one. There's just nothing else like them on RU-vid.

When I heard that this was going to be a long and rambling video, I said YES, score!! 😆 Those are always your best and most interesting videos I think. 🙂

I played in a band and for our rehearsal room we bought the cheapest rock wool available (much safer than glass fiber wool). We nailed 4 frames of 4 planks each and stapled some old bed sheets to hold the wool inside. We made 4 big panels and just put them against the walls - it worked absolutely great! On one corner we put 2 tall foam wedges and on another one we put the remaining wool. We put a few old rugs on the floor. The ceiling had just basic foam panels.

Hi Mike, I might be able to help with the problems you were facing with the fabric on the Penrose tiles in case you want to do something similar in the future. I do a type of sewing called English paper piecing, which involves creating a quilt from tessellated pieces of fabric folded over pieces of paper. I've actually made a fabric Penrose tiling in this way before! I'll put some links to photos showing how to fit fabric around a diamond and what those diamonds look like once tessellated in a reply to this comment, but here are the two key things which should work even for the sharper-angled diamonds. 1. Invest in fabric scissors! It will make even cutting much easier. Scissors that have been used to cut other things - even paper - are often not sharp enough to cut fabric. 2. To make it easier for the fabric to fold neatly around the diamond shape, I suggest a two-stage process. First, using the cardboard diamond as a template, cut your fabric into a similar but larger diamond. Assuming you want to stick with the poking-the-fabric-into-the-holes technique, you'll want a fabric 'border' around the cardboard diamond that's the depth of the diamond plus, probably, a centimetre or two, though it might take a bit of experimentation to figure out the right width for the border. Second, truncate the corners at the sharp ends of the diamond so you end up with a shape that's more like a very narrow hexagon. This truncation will reduce the bulkiness of the fabric at the sharp corner and make it easier to do a hospital corner. You may find it helps to do it with the other corners of the diamond too - again, probably a matter of experimentation.

Thank you Mr. Shrimp for endless hours of entertainment. I'm currently going through a rough patch and your videos have helped me to get through it

I love that you took us through the creative process; I don't consider it "fails", more evolutionary steps, it's how creation works. The mind is an amazing problem solver, if we allow it the room to explore and process; it just lights up, gets happy and goes. Sidenote: Jenny might need her scissors sharpened, you seemed to struggle cutting the fabric; or maybe they just don't like anyone touching them other than Jenny. As always, thanks for the video.

Watching your process makes me feel much better about when I'm trying to make stuff (often out of cardboard). I always thought I was just not very good at making stuff but it's clear the iterative process is valuable after all.

I always love how much you show of the trial and error of doing your projects. Seeing things that didn't quite work and how you adjusted makes it easier to approach my own projects that I'm mostly starting off with a vague idea of what I want to do. I do love the colors and the fact that you went with round shapes in the end...looks really fun against the wall.

What a wonderful idea! My only recomendation is its best to leave an air gap between the back of the panels and the wall. This not only increases the effectiveness of the panels but also helps tame even lower frequencies and stops the more muddy noise in the room. :)

The notes from editing shrimp explaining that failure is part of the process really hit me in the oof spot today. I failed but ill lick mah wounds and try again! You have no idea how those small inputs of positive reinforcement warms mah heart. Thank you for being the friend who cheers me on!

Neat! A fold out screen covered in these that you can fold away when not recording seems like it could maintain aesthetics not based around acoustics and shrink the space required to deaden. Like an instant pop-up soundbooth.

No matter what you're making, it always ends up super wholesome and entertaining. Don't worry about changing yourself for your followers, just do what you love.

A rare glimpse at the new studio

2:36 Buddy, I'm here specifically for the "long and rambling" You seem to be a fairly wise man with widespread knowledge in tons of various things. That's more valuable than I can even imagine, and your "ramblings" teach quite a bit, and are appreciated greatly

For decades we used Egg flats . We would get them in stacks of hundreds for 5$ , or we would get them free from the farmers market stalls at the days end, after a month of weekends asking and getting we would have enough to do the whole room . I would also save up Packing material, doing so now, from all the junk i buy online.. Foam, Styrofoam and everything else . I do have to say, this idea of yours is pretty good mate . Cheers .

As a sewist, I was cringing at your fabric covering choices until you did the gathering and I was like, "YES! YOU FIGURED IT OUT!" Good job you. :)

I like seeing full trial and error for a project, so I can understand the thought process behind it. It can be useful for other stuff

Nice to see that you include mistakes and dead ends. The design and implementation process usually goes through a few iterations before the end product is realized. Good Job Mr. Shrimp.

I know it would be very hard but I would love to see one HUGE circle for the ceiling

About sound engineering I don't understand a single thing. But that looks beautiful. Great job!

On brand for the diy projects you've done in the past. Very upholstery style job on the sound deadening; noticable difference between sound checks. Certainly worth showing, never know who might be struggling to sound deaden on a shoestring budget, and that's always worth thinking about. Appreciate the inclusion of what didn't work, it's a learning experience that someone else might not have to go through! This was interesting, thank you for posting!

Wonderful results. This reminded me of a friends garage where we held band rehearsals - it was a concrete garage completely covered, from floor to ceiling, in large cardboard egg cartons. It was really ugly before we painted them but they really did an amazing job to be honest. The shape is actually really good for soundproofing so maybe you can use some form of them for the corners of the room. Looking forward the next update. EDIT: The cartons had circular slots for eggs. There are some that have square ones, but I believe they have worse acoustics because of that.

seeing these makes me think if you made them to the size of an embroidery ring you could embroidered designs onto the fabric before you wrap it onto the tiles

One thing I've learned from watching woodworking channels, is that for repeating tasks that involve cutting, drilling or shaping, you always want a jig. Squares, strips, complicated geometric shapes, anything that repeats, or anything that you want consistensy with. A simple cutting jig can speed up the process tremendously, while also increasing the precision. A jig is, or at least should be, quick to make. It doesn't have to be beautiful or even well made, it just needs to constrain the right parameters for whatever job you want to do. And if it is so shoddy that it falls apart as soon as you're done, that just saves you the job of disassembly. When creating the circular pieces, you could maybe chain together the strips with masking tape, before you start spiraling them up. I imagine that could save you some time and finagling. I really like the concept of "end-grain" cardboard for sound deadening. I might start saving up cardboard boxes now.

While you were coving the rhombuses in fabric, it made me think of bookbinding, and how you specifically cut angles into the corners of cover material when covering... the cover. Haha. But the way it's done, eliminates bulk and makes sure that the edges line up perfect and smooth and you have no trouble with wrinkles and whatnot. If you've never looked into bookbinding, it's one of my favorite hobbies, and I think learning to enrobe a hard cover (look into case binding, that's one of the more common ones that involves a hard cover so you'll get good instruction on the methods) may help in future iteration of this.

My day gets better when I get to relax to your videos, Mr. AtomicShrimp. I love you!

The long videos are no problem. Always a good time when Atomic Shrimp uploads, then i can listen and watch while I'm working. I appreciate it!

I enjoyed the journey of creative revisions & turnarounds to happy completion! The many hours of craft you put in! I would be hypnotised by the colourful array of dots - like an art installation, a sensory play room.

Love love love going through the thought process! I adore failures, life and the creative process is enriched by them ❤️

This channel is amazing. True variety but with the same charismatic and calm host leading us through.

I LOVE the waffling videos! I could listen and learn from you all day everyday

I love how the walk on the beach and the ammonite led to the inspiration for the tiles. Eureka! Happy New Year!

Hope you and Jenny and the rest of your family have a happy new year,here's a reward for most wholesome channel 🏆

Never apologize for a long rambling craft video, this is extremely my favorite thing.

I really haven't been following much for almost a year or even more. I can't believe your channel got so big. I'm happy for you

They look fantastic! Very pleasing combination of colours.

60’s vibe. Looks so much better than I imagined. Good work 🫡

I very much enjoyed your process of coming up with solutions for different problems when they presented themselves. And what a simple yet brilliant idea to use the stitch on the back of the fabric to gather it together. It made me happy to watch this.

I just adore this channel, Atomic Shrimp is a rare gem and I'm always happy on many levels to go be a part of his journey.

Thirty seven minutes of pure meditation! Thanks for lifting my mood this morning.

I love these videos, watching you mess up and come up with smart workarounds. You are much more perseverant than me!

Hey Mr. Shrimp, this was absolutely lovely to watch, a bit different from normal videos, wholesome, real and the end product came out quite well. Good job!

The rambling is perfect. I put you on in the background and rewatch anything that sounds like it’s more interesting.

Shrimp, you are one of my favourite channels on youtube. The world is burning, but on your channel i can have a while and watch. There is no unnecessary screaming or overused meme clips from 2016 and your attitude is wonderful. When i see a long spoon on this channel, i know i can trust it. THANK YOU

I'm actually surprised at how fun this video was-your ingenuity is very refreshing and your commentary is engaging. Thanks for making my day a little bit better, Shrimp!

cool solution and i love to see all the trial and error along the way so i can think through it with you as you go and try to think of my own answers to the problems that came up

Very interesting and entertaning process with a beautiful endproduct! Well done Mr. Shrimp.

Love it Mike. The process path, like the keyboard, resounds well with me. I spent 50 years working as a technician in Broadcast TV and a TV production house. We spent many hours trying to find a simple, easy process for manufacturing sound deadening panels. I think you cracked it. I have several ideas that may help you to create the other panels, etc. for the rest of the studio. Will email rather than clutter up the YT comments. :) Happy New Year from New Zealand.

As ever thanks for your latest upload which I thoroughly enjoyed. I always appreciate the fact you take us through your process with any fails.. ifs a great analogy for life too - learning by our mistakes. All the best to you, Jenny and the AS community x

Infinite basil? No, infinite patience Mr. Shrimp. Big hug. 🤩

Happy new year to the Atomic Shrimp Household. It's always a delightful surprise to see what you have coming down the pipe for us. 😁👍👍

Ingenious! Was painful to watch at first but you got there in the end!!love the result!

Thoroughly enjoyable watching how you tackle projects. Perfect proof that mistakes are not bad if you learn from them.

I've been wanting some sort of sound killing to make my room more private from my roommates/ for them so their sound doesn't bleed in and mine doesn't bleed out as much. I work at a box factory so I have a nearly limitless supply of free corrugated paper. You've given me a great idea for a little project to try on my days off when I'm bored!

The studios I have known so far had walls and doors covered in recycled egg cartons. After mounting, the cartons were sprayed with paint from a can. It looked like murals, or rather, egg cartonals. 🎨 So I was surprised at first that you would take so much trouble to create the tiles. Would the result justify the ammount of extra work? 🤔But these cloth-covered cardboard tiles do look really neat. 👌 The visual effect is very shrimpish,🍤 they go very well with the Mr. Shrimp tablecloth. I could not say if the sound effect, or rather the effect on the sound, is so much better than egg cartons. 🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣

I am a huge fan of your rambling thought processes and experimental projects. Your content is genuinely entertaining and thought provoking and delivered in a very practical and endearing way. Happy New Year Shrimp! My mind boggles to what you will get up to in 2023 and I truly hope you hit the 'million'.

I can't tell you enough how pleased I am that i found your channel a few weeks ago. I have been binge watching a lot of your videos. You have such a great variety of topics and you make all of your videos very interesting. I am 100% going to be using a lot of the tips and ideas that I have learned from you. thank you!

Eva was trying to help! She got no no no no no no no for her kind gesture!! 😆 🤣

Brilliant, loved every part of this video! Thanks for showing all the options you went through before the final product 😃

I love the process. Watching failure, reevaluation and adaptation is more entertaining, I think.

I love the way they turned out. Great job!

Thanks for leaving the mistakes and failures in the video.👍 It's one of the reasons I like your channel.

Sincerely grateful for the decision to make it a comprehensive demonstration - trial and error and adaptation - and all of it to show that with cardboard, scrap fabric, and affordable PVA glue (needle and thread optional), such results can be achieved. Inspiring work, Mr Shrimp

This is such a great idea! I actually enjoy the uncut "rambling" of this video. It was fun to have it in the background while I worked on my own projects 😊 love the outcome of yours!

As a teacher, I so admire your perseverance and positivity throughout your trial and error process. Something I definitely try to instill in my students. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again! Much love to you and yours, Shrimp!

We're so glad you made it to the ritual stage of your conversion

I love that part of the process was inspiration from a day of fossil hunting. This is one the most effortlessly interesting channels on this site

Really enjoy the dots honestly. At first I couldn't hear the reverb, but the before and after made it really clear! This reminds me of a simple video game I made in college where you had to put as many disks onto a screen without overlapping them, placing them at ever increasing speeds until you lost.

very kind of Jenny to lend you her fabric scissors, I don't even let other people so much as look at mine

Love this! It’s these type of videos that are my favourite from you

I agree with everybody in wanting to see the failed attempts. I also appreciate seeing cardboard being reused. Thanks, Mr. Shrimp.

As someone with varying interests, diy and all. I love your channel. You cover many fun topics. And, you keep mistakes and errors in. More people need too show the process and experiments

Some of us very much appriciate the longness and rambliness from some of your content.

Loved it. Really enjoy watching you figure stuff out.

It made me smile to see you carefully using the fabric scissors only to cut fabric. I can't remember the number of times mum shouted at us kids for blunting her 'good' scissors. Until I had to buy my own pair I always thought she was overreacting. Now I guard mine like they're made of gold!

It was a good idea and pretty interesting to watch. Definitely big difference in the audio quality!

Remarkably effective solution for how achievable it is, I have seen quite a few novel solutions for this problem throughout the years but this is one of the most achievable ones I have seen, which in some aspect respects aesthetics and is not more expensive than premium or patented solutions. Bravo Mr Shrimp

Turned out great I love how they look!

Love it! You can get peaks with this and the fabric matters too - you get narrow filtered bands too. Sometimes fabric can act like a solid!

A beautiful result and a nice simple technique! Will have to try that for my own recording spot.

This is a really neat way of solving the problem, and also give me a bit more appreciation for why mass produced ones are priced the way they are. A great use for all those boxes!

So fun and relaxing mate, thank you for the videos

Really enjoyed following the evolution of this project and listening to your thought process along the way. Loved the fact that you ultimately found inspiration from another marine species, one which died out 66 million years ago. And I had a good chuckle at the random quote from Herman's Hermits at 11:00. Wishing you a happy and successful New Year!👍

Thank you for your videos! They are both educational and very entertaining 👍

i love your longer rambly mistake-ridden videos! i enjoy the cut down versions too, of course; regardless of length, your content has never dipped in quality or humour. and thank you for being so respectful and accommodating of things like trypophobia. it's such a simple thing, but not everyone gets it right.

I really enjoyed the video. I’m getting some inspiration for my sound issues. I have very vaulted (the living room is open to upstairs) ceilings and it is very echo-y. I appreciate the process as well.

Great stuff Mike, as someone who has never done anything video related, sound quality is something I would have zero knowledge about. Leaving in the "oops" bits just make it all more enjoyable, and somehow more of a "proper" Shrimp video. So many creators make slick, effortless looking videos, but you create a far more "everyman" feel, something any of us could follow along with.

Misatkes! Very sly. Thank you for the longer video. It's nice to see more of you Mike. Happy New Year to you all

I love it when you leave in misatkes! It's a learning curve for us all!!

Happy New Year Atomic Shrimp and family.

I think it looks and sounds great. A functional piece of art.

I'm always finding out new things on your videos and this was just another example of something that really caught my attention! I also love the colouring - whilst practical, it's pleasing to the eye (for me anyway!)

people always seem surprised that I, a man, love bright colours, very very nice to see someone else who also loves them :)

Probably like many, I found this channel by the algorithm recommending me a scambaiting video and I have gone back and rewatched the John Warosa (Barosa?) videos a few times, but this video exemplifies what has really endeared this channel to me since: its character and vibe. I was struck by two wonderful examples just in the introduction: the compassionate and thoughtful tone, and consciously talking about failures. In lots of ways and through a multitude of choices, both small and large, this channel is consistently shaped into a lovely place

Holy goodness gracious... I have a habit of watching your vids to fall asleep due to to the soothing descriptions of food in weird cans and various nature walks. This (by no fault of your's, but rather RU-vid's autoplay) kept me awake for a very ironic reason. This video is about sound dampening and I couldn't help but keep looking at it with my eyeballs because I'm triggered by the same troubleshooting you do whilst face with a logistically feasible problem. There MUST be a simple solution! With time and effort Mr. Barrister John Warosa will conquer all. Please don't tell me anything at all about Mange Trout. God Bless you Atomic Shrimp and have a Very Happy New Year at your new residence.