- Every time we shoot a
video in our new workshop, we run up against the same problem. Every time I talk, you can
hear an echo, echo, echo, echo. Okay, it's not quite an echo. What it actually is, is reverb, and it's caused by a standing sound wave that is bouncing back and
forth inside the room. Now, it is something that
you can address in post, but as you guys can hear right now, sometimes the solution is
worse than the problem. (claps) Unless, of course,
you go right to the source. We (grunts) with the
help of Elgato (grunts) are going be deploying a literal mountain of their wave panels. These are mostly designed for streamers. But the thing is, if you've got a good,
high-quality acoustic panel, ready, Nicholas?
- Yep. - You can use it for pretty much anything. So we're gonna go one stage at a time with each of these boxes
costing about 100 US dollars, and see, do they do anything? And if they do anything,
how much do you need before you get some kind
of measurable impact? And how far can you go before
I tell you about our sponsor? Thanks, Jackery, for
sponsoring this video. From September 20th to October 11th, Jackery is celebrating
their ninth anniversary with a photo contest to
win some of their products. Click the link in the video
description to learn more. (upbeat music) In every wave panel starter set, you get everything you
need to acoustically treat about one square meter or 10
square feet of wall or ceiling. You get six of the wave panels themselves, bunch of brackets as well as joiners in case you wanna bind them together and make cool geometric
patterns on your wall, as well as instructions and everything you will
need to mount them. Before we can mount anything though, we need to get a baseline reading of the current state of the room. Now, there are two main ways
we record audio for our videos, either with a Lavalier
microphone under my shirt or with a shotgun microphone that's mounted out of the frame. And you guys can hear the
difference in how those sound. The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog. Then, in order to science
it up a little bit, we're gonna switch over
to this puppy right here. This is the UMIK-1, an omnidirectional condenser
microphone from miniDSP that is specifically designed for taking room measurements like this. The software we're gonna
use is called R-E-W or REW. We just click Measure, rename it to control no panels and start. You guys are gonna wanna plug your ears. (speaker humming) (speaker screeching) Wow, it's no wonder the
audio is so bad in here. Even with all the stuff that
we have in the room now, I mean, it was worse before, we are still seeing standing waves that are lasting as long
as about .9 of a second. That's hard to listen to. Now, the goal isn't to turn this place into an anechoic chamber. Elgato wave panels would
not be the way to do that. We just wanna cut down on reverb. So the first thing we need to know is how much actual wall and ceiling area there is in this room. So we've got 1023 times 2. That's the ceiling and the floor. And then you wanna give me
those wall measurements we got? 13, carry the 1. I don't think I have ever
carried the 1 on camera. Ah yes, there. 3530. I remembered to carry the 1,
forgot all the other basics. Why don't we target 5%
coverage and see what happens? Stage two, 10%. Stage three. I mean, that better do it. - [James] Question marks. - Profit.
(all laughing) - Seven. We have one small problem. My control, I said it was
with no panels in the room. I had these ones sitting here. So nobody touch these. I wanna keep this scientific, boys. So these are off limits. This pack though, this
wasn't in here. James, hoop. - [James] Jesus! - These are a little bit finicky, but given that it's something
you're only gonna do once, not bad actually, Elgato, not bad. Full disclosure, the reason we have that
omnidirectional speaker and the reason we already
know how to use the software is because it is our intention to make our own acoustic panel product. But that doesn't mean that I'm gonna say this is anything but,
damn, looking pretty good. Of course, the performance is
ultimately what matters more. - So these aren't the thickest
acoustic panels in the world, they cause me some concern. The thinner they are, the lower the band of
frequencies they will absorb. Thinner meaning higher frequencies only. But it is two different materials. That's cool, because, you know, you've got a low density foam here and a higher density foam here. Plus, any time that sound
goes through a medium change, that's pretty good for absorption. Then the setup, you don't have to read
the instructions at all. At least I hope so, 'cause I didn't. They're really easy to clip together. And then they just friction
mount into the holes that are already on the foam. Not the most secure. I might put some adhesive in there if it was mission critical, but eh. - If I was gonna ceiling
mount it, I would. On the wall, it's probably fine. Now, what are you thinking
in terms of placement? Do we wanna put individual
panels just kind of around, do we wanna clip them together
in kind of geometric shapes and go for large flat surfaces? Are we targeting the walls, the corners? - I think that you wanna have big contiguous patches where possible. Like look between those
two blue pipes over there or right there. But then because there are
so many different gadgets and machines in here, there's some spots where
you don't have much room, just do what you can in those spots. So a mix. - Okay. The clips go in the front. Just two? Kind of flimsy, honestly. But as soon as you add a third, you've tripled the joins, so
it's quite a bit more rigid. It's still, I mean, it's
not structural, but. We're climbing it. Can you
hold this for me please? - [James] I'm just gonna climus. - Climus, Climus Sebastian. I mean, if the laser level
can't support my weight, it's not a good laser level. - But don't go on the lid. - Yeah. - Climus Stick Tips. - Yeah, there's absolutely no
reason to put the foamies on before you hang it on
the wall, so now we know. That's a tech tip. Does it look level? - [James] Yeah, it looks good. - There you are. (grunts) - [James] Just lean, just thrust. - (groans) I love you, wall. You're awesome. Now that we've seen how much space even one pack takes up on the wall, we're rethinking our strategy for laying them out a little bit. So what we're gonna try to do is in each area we wanna put panels, we're gonna put half as
many as would fit now. So that one, we're gonna
expand by adding another six. And then this one here,
we're gonna lean a little low so we can go one, two, three,
four more kind of thing, when it's time for the
second round of testing. Badoop, badoop, badoop. Ah! Badoop, badoop, badoop. I'm good. Everything's good. Quick thought, James, before we assemble a full
frame for the ceiling, why don't we just try
sticking one to the ceiling and see if this tape actually holds? - I think the frame will
hold, but what about the foam? Isn't it just gonna fall off? - Only one way to find out. Do you mind passing me just
one of those single frames? There's some right there. Oh, thanks David. - [David] Like HowToBasic. - Yeah. - [Man] There you go. - Okay. - [Man] There you go. - There you go, bud. - [Man] Stretch! - [James] The tape is on that side. - Yeah, I see it. - [Man] There's no way this works. - I am not super hopeful. - [James] I don't think
you got that one corner the closest to you. - [Man] Eh? Meh? - Ooh?
- Ooh? - Ruh-roh. - [Jake] If it falls on someone's head, are you worried about hurting them? - No, not really. - [James] Here, just "Dirty
Dancing" into my hands. - Yeah. Ooh. - [James] I guess you're
ready to double down now. - [Linus] Yeah, let's do it.
Okay, let's get the ladder. Does Elgato intend for
these to go on the ceiling? - [Nicholas] I think this
is outside their scope. - (coughs) Sorry, a little
bit (coughs) ceiling crap. - [Nicholas] You okay? - (coughs) Feels like I
inhaled a feather or something. - [Nicholas] Do you have
a water bottle here? - Unfortunately, no. My lttstore.com water bottle is not here. Otherwise I'd be fine. The idea is to distribute our 5% as though that's all we have. So we're gonna try and get some paneling on pretty much every surface. Bell over there is mounting
three above the eyewash station, for example. Now, obviously before we
roll out a bunch of these next to something like a welding station, we wanna make sure they have at least some level of fire resistance. Let's see if I can actually... - There you go. - Okay. - [Nicholas] We have a fire
extinguisher, don't worry. - Yeah, yeah, it's right there. - That's a lot of heat, wow.
- Okay, I'm convinced. It should be fine. This was one we cut up
for a different deployment over on the podcast set. So it's a sacrificial one. Ooh, it stinks. - [Nicholas] But, yeah. ♪ What could go wrong ♪ - [Nicholas] He sings this
while he's holding things over expensive equipment. - Yeah. ♪ What could go wrong ♪ They definitely work better on the wall than they do on the ceiling. Although, so far everything
we put up has stayed, but you know what's more impressive, is everything we've got up here so far is still cheaper than, yeah, this thing, this kit from Auralex. $660 for like, honestly, I'd be surprised if that
single foam type one even performs as well as this. We'll see. They're
thicker though, I think. - Not really. - Fair enough. You know what, guys, we've got 19 more panels to put up, and I don't know about you guys, but I'm already noticing
a huge difference. We're back on both my 416 as
well as my Lavalier microphone. You guys can hear the
differences between those. The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog. Now, I'm just gonna come around here and we're gonna do a second sweep. Okay, approximately 5%
coverage. And start. We retested, last time I moved away, so. (speaker humming) - Oh yeah.
- Whoa! Dang. That's actually, I mean, (claps) it's not that I can't hear the difference. I can totally hear the difference. Like I believe it, but still,
that's really impressive. 5% coverage with these things. And we went from a peak of .9 seconds at sort of around the
range of my speaking voice, all the way to about .6, .6 and change. I mean, you can tell Elgato clearly targeted
human speech frequencies because that's what this
product is designed for, because that's where we see
the biggest improvement. Right in that 400 to
approximately 1,500 hertz range. Wow, even up to around three kilohertz, it's like pretty darn good. Like does it sound better to
you if I'm hosting a video? Okay. David, we're building this computer. This is a super cool build by the way. Make sure you're subscribed
so you don't miss this one. - [David] Sounds way better. - Sounds way better?
- Yeah. - Wow, that's awesome.
Let's put up a few more. Let's get that big flat
spot there dealt with. I don't know, maybe like, you know, a strip down there and then we'll call it. Everything's been going
really well so far, but David, I just noticed something. I thought I was kind
of imagining it before, but look at this, there's some inconsistency
in the color of the foam. So if this was a major
aesthetic thing for you, just be aware. Like this one's basically
silver compared to this one, which is more like black. Do you see that?
- Yeah. - I wasn't sure until I saw
these two next to each other, like they're a little all over the place, but if you buy one pack, I would imagine they're closer at least. Without any clear objective, we kind of put some more
on until it looked nice. I think it looks pretty nice in here. And we ended up with a
total of 210 square feet, which is kind of looking
dangerously close to 69%. Hold on, let's check it. 10 divided by 3530. 5.9.
- Aw. - 5.9, one short. But that's okay. Let's go ahead and run our second, our third rather, our third sweep. Actually, wait, I forgot to do this again. The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog. All right, okay. Now let's do our sweep. I think it's actually better again. I could be wrong, I could be imagining it. That is why we have
objective measurements. We added another six boxes, giving us approximately 5.9% coverage. And let's go ahead and
start it. You guys ready? (speaker humming) Wow. Big improvement again. Check this out, guys. We just shaved off another, anywhere from .1 to .2 of a second in the range that we care about, which is kind of in here. This is honestly way
better than I expected. Like this is completely usable now. We could keep putting on panels, but honestly, I just don't
really feel like it's necessary. We can take these panels, we can treat other areas in the studio. You know what? You guys might look at
the cost of this, $2,100, and you might think, "Whoa,
that's a lot of money." And it is. But compared to what normal
acoustic treatment panels cost from specialty vendors, they
are darn freaking reasonable. Remember, this is a big room. Now, obviously you could
save a lot of money doing it yourself with rockwool or UltraTouch padding and a wooden frame. Absolutely. But considering the overall package here, I think Coursera's got,
excuse me, (coughs) Elgato has a winner on their hands. Just like our sponsor's a winner. Thanks to Skylum for
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for another video to watch, by the way, Elgato provided
panels for this one, but they actually sponsored a full Elgato streaming setup video, where we're gonna have
literally all Elgato and have a look at what the
complete package looks like. So we'll have that linked down below. - [David] Do a backflip. - "Do a backflip." Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me get right on that.
I'ma get down real careful. Oh God, oh God, oh God. No, no, I'm kidding, I'm fine. - (indistinct) Linus.
Wait did Linus say they're making LTT audio panels?
It hurt me a little bit every time he said "jumpED" instead of "jumpS"