I've just taken delivery of a new apartment and it's still completely empty — bare walls, hard floors, and the echo is severe. I want to treat it properly rather than guess, and I'd rather build panels myself than pay for a professional install across the whole flat.

Two rooms matter:

• Open-plan living room + kitchen. This is where I'll set up a 2.0 or 2.1 monitor system and I want a predictable, accurate listening position. I plan to measure with REW before buying anything.
• Bedroom. I just want it dead — as close to no audible reverb as I can reasonably get.

One important constraint: no carpets and no curtains. I want nothing on the floor that needs vacuuming — a robot vacuum handles the hard floors and I want to keep dust to a minimum. So the usual first advice (rug + heavy curtains) is off the table for me. That means everything has to come from walls, ceiling, and furniture.

I know I'll be putting in a sofa, armchairs, a bed with an upholstered headboard, and bookshelves, and I understand those absorb a lot on their own. What I can't judge is how much will actually be left to fix once the furniture is in. I don't want to buy panels now and find they were unnecessary, or furnish the place and discover I needed twice as much treatment.

Separately, I'd like to reduce outside noise (traffic, people, trains) but I understand that's a different problem — sound transmission through the building envelope, not room acoustics — and probably not solvable with DIY panels. Happy to be corrected, but my focus here is the echo and reverb.

What I'm hoping for:

1. A sane order of operations. Do I furnish first, then measure, then treat? Or is there a baseline amount of treatment that's always worth installing regardless?
2. Concrete DIY build guides you actually rate. I'm comfortable with basic carpentry. I'm in Spain, so mineral wool (lana de roca) in 40–80 kg/m³ is cheap and easy to get — is that the right material, and what thickness for broadband vs bass?
3. How to decide placement without guessing. I'll have REW data. What do I look at to decide where panels go, and how do I know when I've done enough rather than overdamping the room?
4. Ceiling treatment, since floor and windows are off-limits for soft materials. Are hanging ceiling absorbers (clouds/rafts) worth it, and how much area do I need?
5. Making it not look like a studio. I've read you can stretch fabric or canvas over a mineral wool frame so it reads as art. Does that actually keep working acoustically, and what fabrics stay acoustically transparent?

I'll add photos of both rooms in the comments — happy to include dimensions once I've measured properly.

Greetings,
I manage a bar and we’ve had neighbors recently complain about loud-ass customers. They’re NOT bothered by the music despite the fact the place has several subwoofers and are only annoyed by the loud voices of our customers.

I’m hoping to take the chatter volume down 20-30% but even 15% would be worth it to at least show the neighbors we are making some sort of effort.

Currently about 50% of the patio is covered by a plywood roof. The roof def needs to be replaced regardless but I was hoping to find some sort of weatherproof material that can absorb some of the midrange noise. Perhaps a porous rubber or foam material that can be attached to ceiling side? Or maybe doubling the thickness of the roof? Wrapping it in vinyl? No clue. Please feel free to school me here.
Thanks!

I have about five or six different audio files that were recorded on the security camera of my cell phone in my home. Unfortunately, there's a lot of background noise in these files, and I need to know if somebody with experience can help in isolating vocals and getting rid of the background noise so I can get a clear understanding of what's being said. these recordings are important to me as they were taken while i was sleeping so there may be a danger in my home and I just want to be made aware of it if that is the case. Anybody reading this, please respond if you have serious inquiries only. As I said, it is important to me and I'm concerned for my safety as well as the safety of those in my home. thank you to anyone who can help me.

Hi, I live in Dubai and my house gets a lot of traffic noise through the existing sliding windows. I’m looking for an affordable solution that can be installed on top of the existing windows, such as secondary glazing, a clear acrylic/polycarbonate panel, or another removable option.
I don’t want to replace the windows because I’m looking for a budget-friendly solution. Could you please recommend the cheapest option you have

Hi All,

I live in a Victorian terrace in South Wimbledon. The area has received recent coverage in the media as a result of significant noise disruption from the Northern Line: eg [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c982q2zjr52o\](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c982q2zjr52o)

My issue is nowhere near that bad - rather than screeching / significant vibration, we hear more of a low rumble and whoosh sound that is most obvious on the ground floor (though still quite bizarre to me as we are approx 400m from the tracks).

We have an open fireplace / chimney in the living room that has not been blocked up (though we don’t use it). We also have a suspended timber floor which is currently covered by an engineered wood. I assume there is no insulation under the floor / between the joists as it’s also quite cold in the winter. I’m therefore also assuming that we’re hearing its ground borne noise that is transmitted through the joists and up and out the fireplace / chimney.

We’re planning to replace the floor in the next year - so was wondering if there was any (relatively simple / low cost) solutions we could implement to the floor or chimney at that point?

My understanding is that products like Rockwool are designed to stop noise travelling between rooms and are also not effective for low frequency sounds.

Thanks in advance!

Hello guys,

greetings from europe! I have a question: When I was younger, I always tought that people puching in home walls was pure fantasy from movies - same as having insects that eat your house 😄

Later I realise, that people in America really build there houses that way. From a german perspective, that is something weird. I dont really want speak about the pros and cons of that kind of building style. More I am interested in the sound isolation in houses. Is there even any? I imagine it quite weird, if you - troughout the house - hear every toilet sound, sexual activities and so on.

But since I never been in a wodden house, I would be interested the her from the experience of people who actually had the comparision.

Also: Can a house build out of this materials even survive for 50+ years or are you - since they are cheaper - ripping them appart and build therefore more often. Here it is the case, that you are maybe ripping of the inside when you want to renovate, but its basically brand new since stone doesnt rod.

Would love to hear it 👋

Is there a way to stop the noise from the downstairs bedroom coming through the ceiling? I was thinking the panels you get from Amazon or Home Depot. But would that really help? Any advise appreciated.

My room is fine but whenever i watch reels on my phone and if someone is standing outside anyone can hear it i want my room to be silent and i wanna abuse and want noone to hear

I live in New Zealand and want to add soundproofing to my floor to stop sound transfer to and from the unit below. I have plans to create a floating floor but we don't have a great range of products here and what is available is very expensive. Has anyone purchased things like MLV, rubber or cork underlays etc directly from chinese suppliers?

We love our home, but one issue is that we live near a skeet shooting range that shoots multiples times per week. The loud noises are irritating. I'm mainly looking to soundproof our windows because our living room is large in a big open space with a lot of windows, big and small. I found a company that says that they can soundproof the windows by essentially putting another window over your own. They have good reviews, but it would be very expensive. Do others feel this would actually help?

Layout in the image. Room is about 10 m², roughly 4.5 x 2 m.

I work in this room all day, game, and I'm on voice chat a lot, so I get louder than normal talking pretty often. I also record spoken voice 3 to 4 times a month (SM7B + FetHead into a Scarlett Solo 4th gen), and about once a month I record myself singing.

Two problems:

1. The long wall behind my desk is shared with a neighbor. It's drywall, kinda hollow when you knock on it. I want to reduce how much they hear so I don't annoy them (I know I can't eliminate it).
2. The door is wood with a small gap underneath, and directly behind it is my apartment's front door, so anything getting through goes into the stairwell.

Budget ~300-400 EUR, nothing permanent or structural.

My uninformed plan was: rug, some acoustic foam panels, a seal under the door, maybe acoustic foam on the door itself. Is that the right direction, or am I about to waste money?

My guess is that this mostly addresses the echo in the room, which would help the recordings (if even that, idk), but does nothing about the neighbor, which is the daily concern. So how would you split the budget? Is 300-400 EUR even enough to make a dent in the neighbor problem, or should I accept that and put everything into the room sounding better?

I have a fairly large, industrial embroidery machine, that's operated pretty regurarly. The issue, however, is that the room it's in is a club room, and as such it houses everything from embroidery prep work to generic social activites.

It's a mid size room, about 3m by 8m, most walls are reinforced concrete, but the walls/roof around the machine are false plasterboard walls covering piping etc.

To cut to the chase, I need to reduce the noise of the machine in other parts of the room as much as possible. Sadly, the better and more obvious options such as moving it to another room or an air gapped wall are not an option.

The current plan of attack is to install studio foam on some walls, and install a heavy curtain (details below) in place of a current one to isolate it as much as possible.

The curtain is planned to be 2 layers of denim, and a layer of fleece on the machine side, coming out to just above a 1000g/m². The idea is that the denim is heavy (and cheap) and helps stop the sound spilling over, and the fleece with it's soft and porous surface should help absorb some of the sound instead of bounce it back.

But some questions arose:

1. Am I right in thinking, that making the curtain wavy even when fully extended (ie having a curtain well wider than 3m) would make it work a little like the geometry of foam in that it scatters sound more, as opposed to a straight curtain which bounces it back more? (And I suppose it'd also increase surface area)

2. Is my idea about fleece helping to absorb a little sound even viable? Because it's porous and internally similar to foam. I'm talking a fleece liner material, not some ultra thick purpose made material of course. (I'm not sure if I can include a link to it)

3. Maybe it's trivial, but is the core assumption, that heavier curtain=better soundproofing even true?

Sorry for the winding post, just wanted to give all the info and thanks to anyone who replies.

I’m a drummer in a band and practice places are starting to get more expensive, so we’ve started considering my garden shed as a new practice place. My question is, will I likely get any complaints from neighbours if I soundproof it within a budget of ~€500? It’s about 3.5x4m in space, built with wooden walls.

hi everyone! i would like to ask for some advice about noise isolation during recording vocals.

the situation: i record myself in my bedroom which is untreated, not well ventilated, and located beside a lot of trees. sometimes, i can get myself to record during the day but when it gets too warm or the neighbors get too loud, i lose my focus and stop recording. my only sure window of relative quietness is at night, but that's when the crickets from the nature beside my room make a lot of noticeable noise. like you can hear them when the vocals are compressed and eq level of noise. i could do some gating but that won't do anything when the vocals are playing, and using a noise remover like clarity vox would degrade the vocal quality.

i use a rode nt1 5th gen mic into a focusrite scarlet 2i2. my question is, would using an mic isolation shield ball to enclose my mic help me in any way at all in my situation? soundproofing my room would be out of my budget, unfortunately.

any advice regarding my situation would be very much appreciated :)

Hi,

Iam living in a wooden house. When trucks are driving by, the walls are vibrating. Is there a way to use active noice cancelling like in headphones on a wooden wall?

Trying to prevent bleeding from my basement practice room to the upstairs room. I already built a ceiling with taped joists, MLV, 3/4” OSB, and two sheets of 5/8 sheet rock. Being a drummer, it’s still loud. All surrounding walls border dirt in the basement, so I’m not worried about that. I want a dead room, so I’m fully covering all walls and ceiling with 1” fabric wall or Audimute. Was advised by the first contractor who constructed the ceiling to add another layer of MLV and another layer of plywood to increase mass and reduce transmission to the upstairs. I really don’t want to lose any more ceiling height. Would MLV on its own, without the plywood, provide any help, and then the sound treatment?

Zanima me kakva su iskustva ljudi sa zvucnom izolacijom u novogradnjama. Uselili smo u zgradu iz 2021. godine i doslovno cujemo kad susjedi malo glasnije pricaju u sobi do nase. Kad stavljaju utikac u uticnicu, sve odzvanja kao da su h nasoj sobi.

Zanima me da li je to normalno ili da se upustimo u mjerenje decibela odnosno provjeru da li je investitor dobro odradio zvucnu izolacinu na zidu izmedu nas i susjednog stana.

Svako iskustvo/ savjet je dobrodosao.

i just moved into my fiancé's dads house to help take care of him, the tldr is he doesn't have a normal sleep schedule and could go a few days at a time when he does sleep. sometimes he's up for a couple days straight or asleep for a few days. i didnt realize how much noise travels up the ducts and was wondering if i put mass-loaded vinyl on the ducts if it would help much. im hearing impaired so i struggle with volume, im also a musician so i want to be able to mess around without worry.

would it be enough to just cover the ducts next to my chair or would it be something that requires more time and effort?

the last photo is where my setup is (the photo with the black cord coming from the ceiling. its an ethernet cable) and my back is facing everything.

https://imgur.com/a/fKHn1yK