Where to place acoustic panels for spoken voice recording?

[Tomás Mulcahy]

Yes they will hold up those foam panels but as James said they won't work as well as the duvets. Most likely it will sound worse because they have less LF absorption than the duvets. Ideally, build the classic Rockwool RW3 panels.

[Peevy]

My first experiment is to get the panels up in a way which won't damage the walls.
I'm going for Command Strips.
Anyone tried this method?

You could use the tried and tested Soundonsound method which is to stick a CD to the top of the back of the tiles, then you can hang the tiles from a hook on the wall (or small panel pin nails)

(The panels hang by using the hole in the CD)

If you use small panel pins, they won’t cause hardly any damage. Or use command hooks attached to the wall (more expensive!).

[Thurrafork]

Even though panel pins would only cause minimal wall damage, I think I'm going to go with Command Strips - especially if I'm likely to find that these panels are less effective than my current duvet mess.

On that subject, I know the duvets would be better at absorbing lower frequencies than the acoustic panels, but I am only recording spoken voice - nothing goes terribly low - am I really likely to find the duvets better?

Thanks

[Tomás Mulcahy]

Yes. Duvets simply have greater absorption. You could record white noise and/or sin wave sweeps into your vocal mic with each set up to compare.

[Thurrafork]

Right!

Now I'm considering abandoning the foam, and just building a pvc pipe frame to support my duvets with slightly more elegance!
Anyone done anything like this?
I've seen a few youtube vids about it, but I often wondered if some kind of unpleasant resonance might somehow build in all that piping.

What do you reckon?

[Drew Stephenson]

If you're thinking of building, it's probably worth rethinking building some broadband traps using rockwool.
They really are pretty straightforward to make, can look very tidy, are very effective, and can be moved into any future room you use.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Now I'm considering abandoning the foam, and just building a pvc pipe frame to support my duvets with slightly more elegance!

If you don't want to fix anything to the wall, build a simple three-sided wooden frame to sit in the alcove from the desk or floor and support the foam on the frame. The frame will space the foam from the wall and extend the absorption bandwidth to a lower frequency, too.

I often wondered if some kind of unpleasant resonance might somehow build in all that piping.

Yes, and especially if you leave the ends open. Seal the ends and/or stuff some foam in to damp and resonances.

[RichardT]

If you're thinking of building, it's probably worth rethinking building some broadband traps using rockwool.
They really are pretty straightforward to make, can look very tidy, are very effective, and can be moved into any future room you use.

I think this is exactly right!