- On this channel in countless videos now,
I've hammered home. the point that your audio matters
arguably having good audio quality is more important
than having good video quality.
We've looked at many different dynamic
and condenser microphones, XLR interfaces
and even software solutions to hopefully improve the quality
of your sound.
But one thing that I always mentioned is the actual space,
the environment that you're streaming or creating content
in plays one of the biggest factors
in the sound that your microphone picks up.
So in this video, we're going to be talking
about acoustic treatment for your setup
which aims to reduce the reverberation
and echo of your voice.
And we'll be testing three different solutions
and seeing no, listening to how much difference they make.
And I would know I've owned and used many
of these different types of treatment in my time
as a content creator from the cheap stuff that you can buy
from Amazon that I originally had
in my old studio set up all the way up
to more expensive panels that I purchased for my new studio.
And today Elgato have introduced their new wave panels
which aim to fit somewhere in the middle.
Now full disclosure. I purchased two of these sets
of panels with my own money.
Those are the cheap AmazonBasics foam panels
and the expensive ones that I have up currently
from GIK acoustics.
Elgato did send me their Wave Panels ahead of release
for review, but no money changed hands Elgato gets no input
on the production of this video
and they don't get to see it before it goes live.
This video does have a sponsor though, and that is
the Melon live streaming app.
Also it's worth sticking around to the end of the video
because I'll be sharing some bonus tips and tricks
for anyone looking to improve the acoustics of their setup
for free.
Let's go.
(upbeat music)
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You can easily invite guests
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They don't even need an account and you can, of course
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lower thirds and colors or backgrounds.
You can even stream
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To get started with Mellon
simply visit the link down in the description.
So I think it's important to distinguish
between sound absorption and sound installation.
Sound absorption is what all
of these panels are designed to do.
And they actually absorb the sound waves and stop them
from reflecting or echoing back into your microphone.
What they are designed to do is to reduce the noise
from sounds coming from outside of your room.
So if that's the problem you're looking to solve
you'll need to look for sound insulation products
not sound absorption products.
So let's start with price.
The cheap foam that you can get from places
like Amazon typically costs between 30 and $50
for a pack of around 12 to 24 different squares
or around $2 per square.
For the pack I got,
each square measures just under 10 by 10 inches
with a thickness of just 0.4 inches at the base
of each pyramid.
Elgato's new wave panels come in a kit
of six larger hexagonal panels for a hundred dollars
which works out at just under $17 per panel.
These are 19 inches wide and 16 inches tall
with a thickness of 1.85 inches.
Finally, the professional treatment that I got
from GIK acoustics cost me
around $500 for six panels or $65 per panel.
And they're much larger still at 24 inches wide
48 inches and 2.6 inches deep.
Next, let's talk about mounting these
to your wall.
For the foam squares,
they don't typically come with a way
of mounting them to the wall, but quite often recommended is
either sticky tabs or like an adhesive spay both
of which I've had some really awful experiences with.
In my old studio, I went with the recommended sticky tabs.
Now, though they stayed in place fine.
But when I actually came
to removing them about six months later, they also stripped
off some of the paint when I removed them.
And I've heard countless other horror stories
of people that have used adhesive sprays
and really ruined their walls when they come
to remove these foam panels.
So instead, what I would recommend doing
for these foam panels is mounting them
to something thin and lightweight like cardboard
and then mounting the cardboard to your wall
using some command strips
or something that can be easily removed
without damaging the wall.
Elgato's Wave Panels, not only come with the foam
but also some plastic frames that are used
to Mount the panels to a wall and clips to connect multiple
of these frames together in any arrangement.
Also included are two different mounting options
of either screws with roll plugs for non smooth walls
or adhesive strips for smooth walls,
which similar to command strips can be removed
without damage or marks.
The GIK acoustics panels come with picture wire.
So you just need to install a picture hook
and then hang them from that hook.
They're not solid.
So they're really quite surprisingly lightweight.
The final thing that we'll look at before jumping
into the test is the materials and design used
as these should really make the notable differences
in the amount of reverberation removed.
The Foam Panels that I got from Amazon
might describe themselves as Thick High Density foam
but in reality, these panels are pretty flimsy and very
very easy to compress.
If they were high density and thick, as they promised
they wouldn't be able to pack 24
of these into a package about this big.
As I mentioned before, at the thinnest point
these panels are only about a centimeter thick.
So since they're designed to be mounted directly to the wall
I imagine we'll still hit some reverberation
at those thinness points.
You can get these
in pretty much any color combinations you want
and you also get different sizes and variations
on this pyramid style.
Elgato's Wave Panels use two foam layers
of varying densities.
And overall, this feels a lot more high quality.
The Foam Panel sits on these plastic frames
which snap together into shape.
This offers an air pocket
behind the foam to trap additional sound waves.
On launch, you can only get the Elgato Wave Panels in black
but there are plenty of PR images coming
out today showing a blue option as well.
So hopefully Elgato start to release other colors.
So you can really customize
and hot swap these panels in and out to suit your setup.
The GIK acoustics panels differ as they aren't made out
of foam and instead feature a rigid rock mineral wall core
for better absorption, particularly of lower frequencies.
The frames are made from plywood
keeping them lightweight and similar to Elgato's panels,
they offer a big air gap for improved performance.
For reference,
these panels are roughly twice the thickness of Elgato.
So they definitely do take up more room and you can get them
in pretty much any colors you desire.
Right.
So onto the testing
now I'm going to run four different tests here
one with absolutely nothing on my walls
so you can hear what my room sounds like with no treatment.
And then one for each of the different types of panels.
Now, like I mentioned before
there's absolutely no chance I'm going to ruin another wall
by directly sticking the foam panels to the wall.
So instead, what I've done is I've cut three pieces
of cardboard to a similar size of the GIK panels.
And then I've stuck eight pieces
of the foam to each of the cardboard panels.
It goes without saying
that the Elgato panels do offer a bit more flexibility
in how you want to choose to mount them
and you can sort of design them
to seek some kind of aesthetic.
The main thing you are trying to achieve is to break
up the large flat surface
that you're most commonly talking towards.
So mounting things
around your mouth level makes the most sense
but obviously some aesthetic choices can be made here too.
I have no idea what YouTube compression is going to do
to the audio here.
So I would highly recommend sticking on some headphones.
If you really want to be able to differentiate
between the different results.
I'll also be swapping out the short SM7B
which is a notably quiet dynamic microphone
for the RODE NT1
which is a more sensitive condenser microphone,
which again should help emphasize any differences
that can be heard.
Right.
So let's run the test keep an eye
down to the bottom of the screen
which will show you exactly which test I'm running.
And I'll cut these back to back
to back so that you can isolate the differences
between the different acoustic treatment.
This is how the studio sounds
with no acoustic treatment at all.
This is how the studio sounds
with the cheap Amazon foam panels.
This is how the studio sounds
with six of Elgato's new wave panels.
This is how the studio sounds
with 12 of the Elgato Wave Panels installed.
This is how the studio sounds with the GIK acoustics panels.
This is how the studio sounds
with no acoustic treatment at all.
This is how the studio sounds
with the cheap Amazon phone panels.
This is how the studio sounds
with six of Elgato's new wave panels.
This is how the studio sounds
with 12 of the Elgato wave panels installed.
This is how the studio sounds with the GIK acoustics panels.
(narrator clapping)
Right. So let's talk about results.
So firstly, the blank walls I thought as expected
they sounded pretty awful, definitely more
noticeable when you use the camera microphone rather
than the road microphone, which just shows how much
of a difference you can make
by moving a good microphone, close to your mouth.
Next step up was the Amazon panels.
And not surprisingly really for me
these just didn't really suffice.
I'm not surprised that they didn't make much
of a difference compared to the blank walls
because I have as I said at the beginning
used them before and ended up taking them
down because I just didn't like the aesthetic.
And I didn't think they made enough
of a difference when compared to just even blank walls.
So the next step up was the Elgato Wave Panels.
And especially I think when we went from six panels
to 12 panels, I could really notice a difference.
And that's probably because I've got such a big flat
and hard wall behind me.
So I really do need that extra coverage.
Probably if I played around with the layout a little bit
I could have spaced them out and seen similar results
with less panels, but I was lucky enough to be sent 12.
So I decided to use all of them up on the wall.
Now I know not everybody is going to be able to
afford $200 to put 12 of these on your wall.
So I reached out to Elgato and actually found
out that you can buy the kits of six for a hundred dollars
but they're also going to be selling expansion packs
of two panels each for $40.
So you can kind of get eight or 10
if you don't need quite as many as 12 for your wall.
I've got to be honest,
I was kind of dreading having to Mount these
on my wall and take down the old panels.
Cause I thought was going to be an absolute bore like
but it was really as simple as they make it out
in the video.
They're so lightweight that just two
of those sticky tabs that come included can hold
up a panel and then you can swap
and rotate the foam really quite easily once the frames
are mounted to the wall.
So yeah, it was a really great experience that I wanted
to point that out.
Finally, then we get onto the GIK acoustic panels
which I'd spent an eye watering amount
of money on a thankfully for me, I feel
like there was quite a notable difference even between 12
of Elgato's Wave Panels and these professional panels
and you'd hope so because they cost over double the price.
Now I will say that this was definitely more notable
on the camera microphone
and maybe less noticeable when you're talking
about having a microphone right up close to your mouth.
Especially when I swapped back to the shore
SM7B I'd expect the differences to be even smaller
but for me it professional content creator.
This is what I do as my full-time job.
It was worth the investment.
I feel like, especially as Elgato's offering wasn't
on the table, when I originally moved
into the studio and bought the professional solution.
It sounds from what you should do.
Well, you've got to decide for yourself based
on your budget and what your room layout is like.
I would probably avoid investing in the cheap Amazon stuff
because you're probably going to get six months
down the line wish you'd bought something better.
And then you've kind of wasted that 30 to $50
and probably ruined some of the paint on your wall as well.
So I would probably avoid that.
I definitely think
that the Elgato Wave Panels are a good option
and probably pretty reasonably priced.
They kind of put themselves right in the middle there
with a notable improvement over the kind
of foam panels that you get on Amazon
but still not hitting the high price points
of professional installation like I have done here
or professional for a studio at least.
It's worth pointing out here that if you're quite handy
with tools and woodwork and things like that
you could probably build some acoustic treatment similar
to these for a lot less of the price that wasn't me.
And obviously I had to get my studio set up quite quickly.
So I decided to pay for it.
But I know many creators that have built things
like this for themselves
no matter which acoustic treatment you end up going for
or even if you end up building some yourself
there are some bonus tips that I put together
for anybody looking to improve any aspect
of their stream or content creation audio.
Tip number one is if your setup is on a hard floor
such as wood or laminate
it can really be beneficial to put down a thick rug
if you have one, just anything that you can do to break
up that hard surface that's
beneath you will help reduce the reverb and echo.
Tip number two is if you are facing
or if you have a window nearby
glass is a super reflective surface as well.
So, if you can curtains
that will help reduce the reverberation
and echo of your voice
and it will also help make that lighting more consistent
for your webcam.
Tip number three is to make sure you either choose
or set your microphone up to use a cardioid pickup pattern
if you can, and make sure
that you're speaking into the right side of it.
Now, the cardioid pickup pattern is the one that looks
like an upside down heart.
And if you're speaking into the right side of it
that just gives your microphone the best chance of picking
up your voice and rejecting sounds from the back
which will be the reflections of your voice from the wall.
Tip number four is to try and move your microphone closer
to your mouth because this in turn will allow you to turn
down the gain of your microphone, which will improve
your signal to noise ratio, the signal being your voice
which is what you want to be able to hear and the noise
being everything that you don't want to be able to hear.
So reflections or keyboard sounds or fan noise
or things like that.
So you can improve that ratio by moving your microphone
closer to your mouth.
Finally, tip number five is to make use of the audio filters
that are built into software like OBS studio
or Streamlabs OBS things like noise suppression
and noise gates can make a massive difference
to the environment that you're recording in.
And the actual audio that gets sent out to your videos
or to your streams.
If you want to check out any of the products that we've
talked about or tested in this video
I will leave some affiliate links down in the description
below so you can check them out if you wish to.
Hopefully find this video helpful.
If you did, please do give it a thumbs up.
And if you're new to the gaming careers channel
have a look around
at some of the videos and consider subscribing
Catching the next one, please.
(upbeat music)
- There are a couple of things that Twitch did add,
which are good I want to talk about really quickly.
- Is that how it is though?
So I bring up all the bad points that it comes over to you
and you get to talk about the new features.
Okay. I see.
- All right you be the bad guy
- Bad cop Good cop.
- The good. Yeah exactly.
It's how we do it around.