3D Printing Sound Panels That Actually Work!

[@MandicReally]

You can download these and print them yourself for FREE here: than.gs/m/1231772 Also on Printables: www.printables.com/model/1119210-real-3d-printed-sound-panels Bambu & Prusa Mk4 sized version NOW AVAILABLE! On Thangs: than.gs/m/1231787 And Printables: www.printables.com/model/1119405-medium-3d-printed-sound-panels-bambu-prusa-mk4-ver

[@reyalPRON]

was that a shortcoated baby dachshund? what a cutiepie!

[@MandicReally]

@@reyalPRON Nori is a Dachshund Poodle mix. So short haired dachshund with a wirey / soft poodle fur thing going on. Good eye!

[@GrayeWilliams]

I've been 3D printing sound panels for a few months and found the same issue: you need absorbption as well as diffusion. With a mixture of laser cutting, 3D printing, and thinning out my t-shirt collection I've found similar results. Love what you've done here, I'm going to have to give it a try, just at a smaller final product. I'd give my left kidney for a Prusa XL for the size. Serious, Josef, my left kidney. It's be an incredible office decoration.

[@Mobile_Dom]

hey hey hey, hold up friend... wait in line, he's got my mildly pickled liver to go through first

[@hanswurstusbrachialus5213]

build the sovol multitool if you are on the need for a budget

[@Dont_Poke_The_Bear]

You know what's worse than bad audio?? When audio and video that are not property synced.

[@MandicReally]

That is a playback issue on your end. The audio in this video is recorded direct to camera and is 100% in sync on my end. In the original clips, editing software, exported video on my PC. Also when I watch it on KZbin on my TV, phone, and computer, all in sync. Some browsers are known to have audio sync issues with KZbin, I'd look into it if I were you.

[@vodkanarancs1]

I thought it was only me 😂. It's off a little bit.

[@MandicReally]

@@vodkanarancs1 Try another browser. I've checked it numerous ways, it is in sync on my end. KZbin can have sync issues from time to time.

[@mrfranco91]

Yeah, I don't see that issue so far.

[@SuperBoxxie]

Omg yes I went straight to the comments. Did seem to sync up after a bit but after seeing the start out of sync it not just feels like it's dubbed over and that ain't his own voice 😂 of course judging by the comments from The creator this is "my fault" dude really learns how to take criticism. Not everything is an attack 🤦‍♂️

[@JaeTLDR1]

This is definitely a project that shows the (size,time) limits of 3d printing. Sure you can do it but it’s dramatically cheaper and quicker to do it in wood and can subjectively look better.

[@MandicReally]

Entirely subjective though. As a creator that works with 3d printing often, I think this looks vastly better than any wood ones I've seen. The only thing I've seen close is ones that have flat wood panels laser cut and laid over them, which has no diffusion effect, and I think looks kind of cheap. I'm not saying this is an efficient system. If you just want panels that "work" then wood is absolutely superior, but I wanted something to pull double duty, look good AND work.

[@JaeTLDR1]

@ absolutely, for the average person the 3d printing at this scale is not super sustainable imo. For you this works

[@ReNeyer]

@@JaeTLDR1 Stop making assumptions. If I made these in wood I would have to buy wood tools. Meanwhile I have a larger (not Prusa XL size but large enough) printer, plenty of old t-shirts, some leftover insulation. This is a no-brainer project when the BOM of what it actually costs me is about 3 EUR per panel in "new" material and energy and I can print off one of these overnight for the next week. Yes, its probably much faster in wood, but so would be just ordering professionally made ones online.

[@McFlyOrPie]

Well, I think you have it easier with sound. Mainly because of that, super smooth, radio talk show, nature documentary, voice of yours.

[@stuart_fisher]

They look really cool. LEDs installed in the next ones maybe?

[@MandicReally]

That was a thought I had halfway through and didn't have time to implement this time. Or I was thinking about making some add-on border pieces that have LEDs in them and are modular to whatever configuration someone may setup. Something I have to play with as I have a bunch of WLED controllers here waiting for a project to integrate with. Thanks for the input!

[@thenextlayer]

Nice man! I did the same thing, but wrapped in fabric, instead of infill on the front. Yours, as usual, look much better ;) Good work. Also, CONGRATS on 50K bro!

[@BitzboxTV]

They look great as decorative pieces as well as being functional. Thank you for sharing the files too!

[@capraaudio]

This was a really cool video! I'm glad you came to actual audible results! 3D printing and audio are a combo that should be explored more. I've designed several headphones on Printables with an emphasis on audio quality and I'm disapointed that its basically just me, Headamame and Ploopy making interesting 3d printable headphones.

[@hoshiai299]

Built a pair of Satyr 1 a while ago and it's been phenomenal

[@capraaudio]

@@hoshiai299 that's awesome! you should check out the new v3 headband design, it adds folding and some customization!

[@FelixTheAnimator]

I'm autistic. Echoes are a HUGE problem for me in public spaces. Restaurants could take a few tips from you.

[@MandicReally]

As are my partner and I, we are both pretty sound sensitive. Ruby has a sweet spot where too much sound deadening makes her uncomfortable. Me? I thrive in my studio when it is not echoey. In public we live with our AirPods in our ears to cancel sounds when we get overwhelmed or just listen to something calming.

[@josevargasrd]

She is right though, I learned helping my cousin make his home studio, once you kill enough sound with absorption you will need to revive it with some diffusion

[@Titan3DAZ]

I really like this idea! This is a nice mix of materials! Definitely need more of them printed. Hexagons are the bestagons!!!!

[@MakersMuse]

This is such a sick idea, and good timing too. Our cats have decided that foam tiles are delicious and fun to tear off the walls 😂😭 need a new solution

[@MandicReally]

They knew I had something in the works, haha. Working on the release version right now (well after I finish comments). Files should be up yet today.

[@MandicReally]

On Thangs and Printables now: www.printables.com/model/1119210-real-3d-printed-sound-panels

[@ColinJReed]

i just watched this with my son and he wanted to let you know that this is amazing

[@MandicReally]

Thank you very much, I appreciate the kind words.

[@davydatwood3158]

Spiffy! Not directly relevant for me, but it does remind me that I need to research speaker boxes. And it was fun to watch whilst eating dinner.

[@MandicReally]

Thanks for watching and commenting. I appreciate all kinds of content about stuff I will likely never do, so I'm glad when others can too.

[@gracenoterecordings]

These came out great! Built something similar out of wood and used speaker grill cloth for the front. Will have to try 3D printed ones soon. Looking forward to seeing the other office projects!

[@MandicReally]

Thank you so much. I was gonna make some wooden ones just to have them (and not do a video) but then the inspiration struck. My design files will be release SOON (yet today) and linked in the description when I do.

[@gracenoterecordings]

Awesome, I appreciate it! I feel like we think similarly haha. I used carpet underlayment (cause I got it for free) and old T-shirts/rag for the sound absorption as well. Build video is on my page. Always cool to see how different people tackle similar challenges!

[@westsideloyalty]

0:52 is this Stock footage or do you already have a Prusa Core?

[@MandicReally]

Neither! It was the Core One on display at SMRRF earlier this month, I just used my own “stock video”. I wishhhh.

[@cowabungacreation]

amazing video! do you think the command strips will tear the paint off the wall? i'm looking for sound treatment for my secondary filming location (I'm using sennheiser mke50 which cuts down on a lot of reverb)...this home improvement video series is amazing, I already installed a DIY 3d printing ventilation system in my workshop based on your recommendation using a super strong inline fan, its super overkill and super amazing

[@MandicReally]

The strips may do that, but I fully intend to completely repaint my office, so I'm not bothered if they do. I will see when the time comes (it will likely be part of a video). Rad on the ventilation setup, that is an upcoming project in the main studio as well! I have and love my Deity shotgun mics as they definitely help with Reverb, but lately I'm moving around too much to use them. Maybe I can get back to using them once the studio is a little more set.

[@airshipcpt3714]

Very nice looking. Do you think if you put the command strip areas near the top corner would they sag less? Looking forward to the smaller print volume ones

[@MandicReally]

Smaller print volume version is available! than.gs/m/1231787 As for the command strips, if I had just rotated the panels 30 degrees it would be a non-issue. That would have put the command strips at the top-right & bottom-left. I realized that this morning sadly, ha. But I did put 3 command strips on the first one I put up in the big section by my desk, that helped a lot (one at the top and 2 on the sides).

[@DJZach22]

Do you plan on making these designs available? If you do can you include print settings you changed pleaseeeee

[@MandicReally]

I do, and HAVE! The design files are here, including 3MF files with all my slicer setting tweaks for how I intend them to be printed: than.gs/m/1231772

[@DJZach22]

@MandicReally thank you thank you thank you

[@xargon1234]

resize x&y to 70% and it will fit on the bambulab build plate make sure you uncheck uniform scaling to keep the z height

[@MandicReally]

I'm working on a version for Bambu & Prusa Mk4 printers RIGHT NOW, but yes scaling to 70% is a quick hack.

[@technosworld2]

I haven't done much with foaming filaments, but always wondered if they would be a good material for sound deadening

[@adnanmohandis]

Would TPU instead of infill and rockwool work too?

[@MandicReally]

No, TPU is still far too hard of a material. The sound waves need to be able to penetrate into the material where they become trapped as they try to vibrate around inside. I meant to address this very thing in the video but it slipped my mind in the final stages. TPU just isn't porous or soft enough to do the job. Even just bunched up TShirts wadded inside likely would make a difference honestly. Maybe some of that "Vairshore" TPU that "foams" but even then I can't see sound waves penetrating deep enough. Ideally the panel should have an open back (as mine do) so sound waves can travel through the material, bounce off the wall, then get come back into the material and get trapped in the process. You want a fine line of "sound can pass through this" and "sound gets trapped by this". I'm sure this is a much deeper topic than I have any knowledge on.

[@EG-MAN]

This may be a good option for a DIY studio, if not covering the whole room at least a little station for the vocalist

[@hardwareful]

Honest impression from someon listening with headphones? The processed audio is worse than the unprocessed one. It's hrd to describe what's going on exactly, but it sounds like a flanger tracking the speech trying not to get caught. Truly awful once you hear it.

[@MandicReally]

See I cannot hear this. I've had a grand total of 2 people say they hear "something" off in my audio but they cannot truly explain it. My hearing is absolutely damaged from years of metal fabrication. But unfortunately I will never be able to have someone edit my audio while I'm making videos to confirm it is perfect for everyone. I especially cannot justify doing so if it is for .1% of viewers. I'm not saying you are wrong, I simply cannot address this issue.

[@hardwareful]

@@MandicReally in a nutshell: your sound panels work better than the funky noise / reverb reduction algorithms. There are multiple approaches to it, each leaving a different kind of artifact signature behind. The way I imagine it happening is that it attempts to do thresholding in a 2D waterfall representation of the audio, erasing time-frequency regions that get classified as background noise or reverberations. Subsequently, a compression step amplifies what's left over, leading to a "blotchy" filter that erratically varies with time. Sometimes this sounds like bandpass filtering / like when you drive into a tunnel and pressure on your ear drums changes your acoustic perception. Then there are the deep learning approaches that just take your audio as a suggestion for generating a fake voice that somewhat matches the original speaker. Before this was commonplace and available in the popular video editing tools, creators put a lot of effort into sound treating their studios and workshops, but at some point a couple of years ago it all went downhill. I hope my attempt at explaining things was somewhat helpful. Your panels are pretty and they seem to work rather well. I myself have bought a couple of melamine acoustic foam panels to experiment with, but that stuff gets expensive pretty fast, and you lose quite a bit of ceiling height when installing it with some spacing from the ceiling. So I guess I'll leave you with my 2 ct: there is value in having actual room acoustics that match the scenery instead of ending up with the sound of a bored person reading a script for the 10th time with a microphone almost touching their mouth (yay presence). Back in the 80s and 90s, reverb effects were all the rage, and today we've lost all the sense for it, slapping noise suppression onto outdoor recordings and compression over the noise suppression artifacts. I'm tired of it. I want to hear stuff again, in a measured and aesthetic way.

[@hardwareful]

@MandicReally in a nutshell: your sound panels work better than the funky noise / reverb reduction algorithms. There are multiple approaches to it, each leaving a different kind of artifact signature behind. The way I imagine it happening is that it attempts to do thresholding in a 2D waterfall representation of the audio, erasing time-frequency regions that get classified as background noise or reverberations. Subsequently, a compression step amplifies what's left over, leading to a "blotchy" filter that erratically varies with time. Sometimes this sounds like bandpass filtering / like when you drive into a tunnel and pressure on your ear drums changes your acoustic perception. Then there are the deep learning approaches that just take your audio as a suggestion for generating a fake voice that somewhat matches the original speaker. Before this was commonplace and available in the popular video editing tools, creators put a lot of effort into sound treating their studios and workshops, but at some point a couple of years ago it all went downhill. I hope my attempt at explaining things was somewhat helpful. Your panels are pretty and they seem to work rather well. I myself have bought a couple of melamine acoustic foam panels to experiment with, but that stuff gets expensive pretty fast, and you lose quite a bit of ceiling height when installing it with some spacing from the ceiling. So I guess I'll leave you with my 2 ct: there is value in having actual room acoustics that match the scenery instead of ending up with the sound of a bored person reading a script for the 10th time with a microphone almost touching their mouth (yay presence). Back in the 80s and 90s, reverb effects were all the rage, and today we've lost all the sense for it, slapping noise suppression onto outdoor recordings and compression over the noise suppression artifacts. I'm tired of it. I want to hear stuff again, in a measured and aesthetic way.

[@hardwareful]

@@MandicReally wrote you a lengthy explainer, but youtube seems to delete it right away. Thanks for nothing, I guess. Will wait a bit, maybe it comes back. Other than that, those panels you built do a great job and are the way to go.

[@MandicReally]

@@hardwareful is what you are hearing during the sections in my office? or the entire video? Cause the Office audio is absolutely not ideal still. Reverb reduction is causing some funky-ness there.

[@DobynsMedia]

Holes in your ear threw me off a sec 😲

[@Legotrain333]

Theses are the best ones I have seen by far.

[@the.kingant]

Literally was thinking about this last night!

[@RebelPhoton]

We have to try embedding Helmholtz resonators into a 3d printed sound panel design.

[@MegaDman42]

IME 'split into objects' gives them all physics and will settle all parts to the build plate. I would recommend 'split to parts' which leaves them in place while still letting you change the settings without letting them move freely, as it leaves them all as the same object

[@MandicReally]

I would normally recommend "Split to Parts" but this particular geometry had MASSIVE errors when doing so. I cannot explain why but this particular design just does not slice properly when set that way. When using "Split to Objects" it works flawlessly. The design has all the intended faces against the build plate already anyway (I ALWAYS orient parts for printing) so it works just fine in this design. I made it with this in mind. You can find the files here: than.gs/m/1231772

[@DarrenPoulson]

Did have a thought when you used the old t-shirts. Could be a good way to do sound deadening *and* display those old band or tour t-shirts that are too old or broken to wear but you can't bring yourself to throw out! :P

[@richardmilner4392]

Have you looked Into Auralex sound

[@JohnOlson]

Command strips! Love them.

[@SUPPORTYOURSELF]

Hell yeah! Happy Holidays dude!!

[@Disruptii]

Oh man great video! This means you can make a translucent cover for that could defuse some LED strips that you put inside. Ahhhh i want a 3d printer haha! Keep up the awesome content

[@faxen123]

protip: scream into an absorber. if you can still hear too much from the other side its basically just trash.

[@Eric_In_SF]

FYI I think it’s important to mention that although you did your research it’s clear you don’t quite understand everything. Dispersion panels work very well when they’re installed correctly. They aren’t gonna do anything when 80% of your wallet is still flat and exposed. They need to be placed in a critical area where reflections occur to then scatter the reflections. So the theory is correct but the application is incorrect

[@kamelsr]

Couldn't you use TPE as a secondary layer that would reduce the depth of the boxes and eliminate the Rockwool? If you had a soft pattern behind the main grid it seems like a good combination. But I'm just spit balling.

[@MandicReally]

TPU/E just isn’t soft nor porous enough to allow the sound waves to penetrate into it and get “trapped” like they need to. Maybe the foaming kind but even then I just called see it. It wouldn’t hurt to do the infill part in it, but some more “open” material like the insulation is still necessary.

[@ahmadramadan4097]

This is such an awesome idea. Now I know why you sound like Shaft in all your videos.

[@mafofpv4394]

You should take a look at the Box turtle.

[@MandicReally]

Oh I will be. Mostly on the Mandic Labs channel, likely in a stream series or a tech focused video. If I like it I'm sure it will appear in more videos.

[@JustJosh365]

Could you scale it down to 256 and split it into plates? as a .3mf?

[@MandicReally]

I haven't played with a scaled down version yet. It SHOULD be doable, but I will have to test. I just uploaded the default design version. I will see about a 3MF of the scaled version. Current version: than.gs/m/1231772 (scaled version will land here if it works)

[@cade861]

Honestly i think that maybe audiophiles care what it sounds like but im just happy if i can hear and understand you i notice very little differences between all your audio clips but if i would pick i liked the unprocessed audio better the processed has a higher hiss to it than the unprocessed

[@zappedcustomdesigns788]

command strips: When you want something to fall and shatter, but not right away..

[@PLr1c3r]

It's a cool project for sure, I only wonder why you didn't use multiple infill patterns to improve the diffusion/scattering effect and randomize the look more. I know you can rotate them, but there's so many aesthetically pleasing infill patterns and randomizing widths and angles could have given a better end result for both look and performance IMO.

[@MandicReally]

Only one or two infill patterns can actually self support enough to work for this. Adaptive Cubic is by far the best one. I meant to touch on that but forgot as the week dragged on. Gyroid may work, and Grid, but idk if any others will as they don’t interconnect enough.

[@np626593]

I’m trying the same thing with the ‘Einstein tile’ shape and printed out of varioshore tpu

[@ghostblackout1]

I think im going to do some thing like this but make them look like starship heat tiles

[@Pitts252]

A what's the VM product placement angle?

[@MandicReally]

"VM product placement"? I don't get it.

[@Pitts252]

Vision Miner

[@7axes]

Thanks Matt Parker!

[@Mobile_Dom]

probably a dumb question, could the rockwool not be cut on the laser cutter?

[@MandicReally]

It is flame retardent, so it would not be a good time I'd say. It is literally made of lava rock. So unless the laser can cut.. rocks... no. Ha

[@Mobile_Dom]

@@MandicReally i mean hey, if nothing else, thats a quick and easy video for next week ;)

[@MonkeyShotLLC]

lololol, sound panels! i thought it was solar panels.....still learned something though. Thank you

[@tobighst]

so instead of just buying panels, print them, buy hard to find supplies, and triple the costs. full proof

[@MandicReally]

Have you looked at the price of REAL sound panels? Not the cheap foam stuff I showed early in the video, that is FAR less effective than real quality panels (that use the same insulation inside). They cost $100ea for cheap ones. That aside, I love the way mine look, and it was a fun project to figure out. I used about $200 worth of materials to cover an area that would have cost about the same with cheap real panels and had fun doing it. What's wrong with that?

[@FARCOAL.]

how did it only take 45 hours to print? nice video btw xx

[@MandicReally]

9 of them, 5 hours each. The Prusa XL is wicked fast at multicolor printing and with a .8mm High Flow nozzle it lays plastic pretty quickly too.

[@Eric_In_SF]

FYI, the sound isn’t “trapped” in your foam. It’s actually hits the foam and it’s converted into heat at a micro level. So technically it’s converting the sound into heat energy

[@SirTools]

COOL....

[@c.j.1089]

jesus, the ears. I can't even focus on this.

[@mrwerder616]

Now I can’t un-see it

[@Yash-c3v]

Nice!

[@MiladGolshan]

Wouldn't it get way too expensive to do it this way instead of buying sound pannels onlines? I'm considering materials(PLA+insulation) cost and electricity cost... I have been thinking about this for a while now

[@MandicReally]

Have you looked a the price of panels? They average $100 a piece for an area of coverage similar to what I got done in this project and look far more basic. I used $10 worth of Rockwool, some old shirts, and about 4kg of filament ($80-100). Is that cheap? No, but I can still add on piece meal as I see fit, customize the size (& shape) of this design, and have a better looking design for my filming space. Is it cheaper? No, but I never said that was a goal. Folks like to fill in the blank on that a lot. Electricity cost isn’t crazy in my area and the XL is more power efficient than most machines of its size, so I don’t have an exact figure on any of that.

[@Davesretrodungeon]

When and if you get the speaker material why don’t you put a thin piece of ply wood to the back of the rock wool filling so you can stretch and staple the speaker material to the back. It will give the front a neater look and make the back less messy.

[@MandicReally]

With sound panels you actually don’t want a backing like that. In fact they work better if you space them off the wall. The goal is that some sound waves that don’t get “absorbed” as they travel through the panel will bounce off the wall behind and have a 2nd chance to be trapped as they come back through again. The further the waves have to travel (thicker insulation or spacing off the wall) the more effective and different frequency ranges it traps.

[@jamesm3268]

Why the prusa? You have a 500x500 rat rig 4 idex that you never use and don't show? Why wouldn't you use that?

[@MandicReally]

It isn’t IDEX yet nor fully tuned in yet. Also sure I could print bigger panels on that but far fewer folks have a machine that big. Folks may not have an XL but a 400mm machine isn’t as uncommon. I knew I wanted to release this design so folks could make them too.

[@NickyNiclas]

Here is something I've started to notice: Why do 3D printing content creators always share models that use WAY MORE filament than is actually needed for the application? Seriously, the thing is hanging on a wall, only supporting its own weight so it doesn't need to be strong! I'm sure that filament manufacturers are very happy this is a thing because they'll sell so much more! Sure, it feels nice and high quality but it kind of makes me wonder if there is some foul business going on behind the scenes 🤔 Excessive filament use is not a good trend either way!

[@AABB-px8lc]

Kind of disappointed, at the beginning I expected some new math heavy sophisticated 3d structure like gyroid filling that have 20-20000Hz optimised sound dumping, but it is just fancy grid. Anyway, nice idea and 40cm bed printer flex.

[@xandersnyder7214]

I'm going to echo (no pun intended) another comment on here, the audio is out of sync on this video, it's only about 200ms, but enough to be off. I tried it in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox and it's out of sync on all browsers, and I ran the test of three machines.

[@MandicReally]

What are you using as a sync point to determine 200ms off? In a 24fps video (this is) 200ms is 5 full frames out of sync. There is a 0% chance I wouldn’t be able to perceive that nor notice it in the editing timeline. Premiere throws a warning and indicates when audio is out of sync by even 1 frame. The only way this could be the case is if it happens in the export (nothing I can do) or on KZbin’s end. Which I’ve watched this video a handful of times on KZbin since upload and still don’t perceive it. 🤷🏻

[@mikec5347]

Bit too flammable for me. Decent sound insulation panels are also fire retardant.

[@MandicReally]

The most common way of building them is wood… The rockwool is flame retardant and FR filaments exist if you really care.

[@firelion98]

The audio is out of sync. You are correct the audio makes it annoying to watch XD

[@MandicReally]

That is a playback issue on your end. It is 100% in sync on my tv, phone, computer and in the editing software. KZbin is known to have audio sync issues in some browsers, I'd look into it.

[@Weird_guy79]

Overly processed audio isn't great either, it starts to sound detached from the video.

[@Weird_guy79]

in fact it sounds horrible, all the natural highs and lows are muffled, the tone through out the vid stays the same and it just drags on, gives me a headache.

[@_Garm_]

V2 with leads ? :D

[@MandicReally]

Did you mean LEDs? Cause yes, that is absolutely a thought for the future, just no time and not the focus of this video so I didn't side track.

[@_Garm_]

@@MandicReally yes :D

[@9Sleepyhead5]

Im 1min into the video... I like the Raw audio more xD

[@valerioamato3761]

jyst use the rockwool

[@MandicReally]

This isn't a voiceover sound booth, it is an office I have to live in AND film in. What would you really think if you just saw raw Rockwool glued all over the walls?

[@valerioamato3761]

@ Thanks for your reply. What I meant is that the rockwool is doing the job and the 3d printer part is a pretty enclosure. I saw many frames done with wood, canvas stretchers etc. using a sound deadening material inside. Though your clickbait title says “3D printing sound panels that actually work!” isn’t the rockwool what actually works? Would you have conceptualised a 3d printed part that without any alien material could do the job then yes.