Medium sized rooms such as those used for teach dance and self-defense are often constructed from highly reflective surface materials such as brick, concrete cinderblock and sheetrock. They usually have highly durable floors finishes such as hard word or tile and more often than not, have glass on at least one wall in the form of windows for parent viewing or mirrors for participants to see themselves in action. These combine to create 'the perfect acoustic storm'. Sound echoes from all directions like a whirlwind. The horrendous echo causes the musical beat to be completely distorted, instructor commands are confused, yelling by the coach or students is amplified only to worsen, and for the parents sitting on the sideline, an excruciating experience that is best described as an endurance test! Good news is that turning this 'echo chamber' into a 'functional classroom' actually quite easy!

Step 1 produce a scale drawing of your room
To control sound, Broadway acoustic panels are distributed around the room in strategic areas. The more panels you put up, the more sound you will absorb. But before you start ordering your panels, you need to figure out where you can put them so that you can order the correct size panels to do the job. For instance, if you have a mirrored wall, hanging panels on the mirrors is out of the question. And you can't cover air vents either!

The best approach is to draw out a plan of your room, the floor size and then each of the four walls to determine what available space you can use. You also have to consider what the room is being used for. If the room is also being used for ball sports, you have to consider the repercussions of kids using panels as targets. This means you may have to cover them with a protective steel mesh. [link] To make things easy, the following table shows several typical room sizes and how much acoustic coverage you will need to tame the room. These calculations were derived from the Acoustic Calculator on our web site. After you have gone through this exercise, you can use the calculator to more precisely match your specific room requirements. For now, simply select the room size that closest matches your room size.

Typical room sizes Budget Light Normal
A. 16'x 20' x 12' (ceiling) 150 sq/ft 200 sq/ft 250 sq/ft
B. 20' x 24' x 14' 200sq/ft 250 sq/ft 300 sq/ft
C. 24' x 32 x 14'
D. 24' x 50' x 16'

Let's assume your room is room B. This means that you need at least 200 square feet of material to begin to tame your room while using between 25 sq/ft and 300 sq/ft will do more. The point here is simple: you cannot go too far wrong! Look at the size of your room and how much coverage you can afford. The more you put up, the more control over the echo you will achieve.

Step 2 Strategic panel placemen… start with corners!
The first place you want to treat is any available 90º corner joint such as a wall-to-wall corner or ceiling-to-wall corner. Walls and ceilings act as waveguides that cause sound to collect in corners. Corner joints also present a huge acoustical advantage as sound reflecting off - say a mirrored wall - into the adjacent corner wall that is treated will capture both the direct sound and the reflected sound before it can expand outwards back into the room. Corners are the acoustician's best friend! Because you only have to treat one of the joining surfaces, you get double the performance for free! Try to use at least 24" wide panels or more in corners and cover the seam if you can. Room esthetics are important and keeping panels our of harms should also considered. Just use good old common sense.

Step 3 Treating opposite walls
What causes echo in the first place? Sound is projected and reflected off of various surfaces causing a repeating effect. Long repeating echoes are caused by parallel surfaces such as two walls or the floor and ceiling. The next logical target is to look at the wall surfaces to see if you have large areas that can be treated. More good news: You do not have to cover the wall from floor to ceiling. All you do is space the Broadway panels in these areas to create an architecturally pleasing effect. The spacing will be determined by how many panels you have left in your budget.

Step 3Treating your ceiling
Treating the ceiling can sometimes be easy and sometimes be impossible. For instance, if you have large wood beams traveling across the ceiling, these can be highly effective at controlling sound as they can be turned into corners and your advantage! If you have steel I-beams with space overhead, you can install acoustic baffles [link] which are basically hanging panels that act as corners. These are highly effective at controlling ambiance and a great choice in very large rooms.

On the opposite end, you may have a low ceiling with a painted or spackled finish which would make placing panels on the ceiling impossible. In these cases, the best results are achieved by treating the upper wall surfaces around the ceiling to capture those corner reflections.

Step 4 Evaluating your design
Once you have determined how many Broadway panels you can afford and have distributed the panels in corners and on large available surfaces, you now have to go back and make sure that you have applied Murphy's Law to the equation. What can go wrong will. So this is you preventative maintenance check list:

1. Try to avoid placing panels where people can touch them because they will. This means that will get dirty more quickly or can be damaged. Just use good common sense.

2. Is your design attractive? Sound is omnidirectional. This means that once your room is excited, sound will echo in every direction. So why not try to make your panel placement look nice? The ears will not care but your eyes will thank you!

3. What is the room being used for? If it is sometimes used as a gymnasium for inside hockey, basketball, volleyball, soccer… your panels will become targets. Consider adding a steel mesh on top to protect them. This is easily done and will not affect the performance of the panels.

Step 5 Panel selection and installation
Broadway panels are available in a variety of sizes and thicknesses. This selection makes it easy to adapt to most rooms. For voice, 1" think panels are the standard. For music, you should consider using 2" thick panels as they will help control more of the sound in the mid-range. Most designers employ a mix of the two for these types of rooms. As for size, larger panels are quicker to mount while smaller panels can give you greater distribution. Once again a mix is best. Keep in mind that Broadway panels come in set box sizes. To maximize your budget, always plan to use full boxes.

Mounting panels is easily done using Primacoustic Surface Impalers. These devices feature protruding 'barbs' on which the panels are hung. Once you have determined where your panels will go, mark the area and screw the appropriate number of impalers to the wall to hold the panel. Add a generous dab of construction adhesive on the impaler so that your Broadway panels will be well secured. If this is a permanent installation and anticipate abuse, running a bead around the perimeter of the panel and the an X across the corners is recommended.

Step 6 Evaluating the outcome
Acoustic sound control is easy. The more panels you put up the more sound you will absorb. If you have a limited budget and must take a precautious approach, don't fret. You can always add more Broadway panels as budget dollars become available. Just follow these simple instructions. Once your panels are installed, go into your room and listen. Clap your hands once. If you hear long, widely spaced echoes then you probably need to add more panels on the larger surfaces. If you hear tightly spaced echoes or more or a reverberant effect, then you sound look at adding more treatment in those corners.