Ask HN: What's the best way to reduce echo in a space?
Those acoustic foam panels are not cool, but even if I bought them, where should I put them and why?
What looks good, improves a space's acoustics, and isn't too expensive? hello, echo = reflections of sound-waves from hard surfaces you have to hinder those reflections and try to absorb sound-waves in your room ... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_%28acoustics%29 if there is nothing in a room even "direct" noise is disturbing - especially if everybody is in a different video-chat and some people tend to speak louder than others. cheap and good looking? * hang thick/fluffy carpets onto the walls * cover other hard/flat surfaces with something fluffy ;) * put (fluffy) stuff into the room ... from plants to large stuffed animals - whatever floats your boat ;) * https://www.snoringsource.com/sound-absorbing-materials/ "professional" alternatives * sound absorbing panels * acoustic-foam material (some look like egg-boxes, but out of a black foamed synthetic material) imho this problem - echos and noise in general - is the main reason for avoiding open-plan offices like the plague ... at all costs, these are such an annoyance to everyone!! especially if you follow a "clean desk" policy, w/o "personalized" spaces and therefore w/o stuff on the desks ... ;)) just my 0.02 € In New Zealand our eggs come in trays made of pulped newspaper.
Here's a link to a photo: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d1/2d/25/d12d25728bff56b50396...
I've seen people cover their walls with such egg trays, which they said helped a lot. Heavy drapes over those ugly panels, hides the utilitarian and adds some dampening as well. Edit: forgot the where to put them part of the question which is ultimately unanswerable without know what you are doing and the details of the space including what is in the room. thanks. it's a loft space that we have just desks and a table and chairs in. lots of flat surfaces. is there any reference material you'd recommend reading? It is all essentially guess and check unless you want to learn acoustics, short of that the best you can do is search for what people have done in a similar situation. Dimensions of the room and what you are recording play a big role, reducing echos for recording a full drum kit is a very different thing than reducing echos for a single person recording narration for their youtube videos, for the former you will likely need full room treatment, for the latter just treating the wall you face or even rearranging the room may be enough. Changing mics could also do it, a highly directional dynamic pointed right at the source and up close will pick up less of the room than an omni condenser. Are you even recording or are you just trying to make you living space quieter? Recording voice overs mostly. My directional mic is picking up a good bit but maybe I'll try another one just to be sure. I've got this cheapo right now that worked pretty well on my old space - https://a.co/d/gUmdYpM That and some drapes will be what I try this weekend, maybe next weekend try to add some acoustic panels to the wall right in front of my desk or something. I appreciate it's a good bit of guess and check. I was hoping to avoid that and get to the root of it with a technical acoustics answer but I also appreciate there's people with phds in this kind of thing so something something balance. Condensers are very good at picking up room noise, dynamics work better in less than idea situations. You can try putting your back to the wall, make sure there is a good deal of space between you and any surfaces that you are facing which are likely to reflect audio, that and turning down the gain and getting closer to the mic may be enough. Since it is just your voice you can look at a spectrum analyzer to get the frequency range of your voice, look at the big peaks and search for sound treatments suited to that frequency range. This will make it much easier on you, treating a room for a small frequency range is much simpler than it is for the entire spectrum. In terms of where to put panels, breaking up the large flat areas of wall is the first thing to try. Positioning matters. You could glue the acoustic foam onto a board, add a rail for drapes etc - and then be able to move the whole assembly around to try different positions.
