Our church has a sound reverberation problem and we need your help. I have looked around and this forum seems to have the best experts in sound design around.

Our Church's social hall is a medium sized room (about 90' by 60') with a tray ceiling and a max hgt of about 16'. When full of activity, the sound reverberation is deafening. We are looking to solve this problem with a minimum expense to the church. We talked with a contractor about acoustic panels, but they wanted about $3000 just to develop a design/solution.

The current idea is to do a test by hanging blankets along the slopes in the tray ceiling to see if this helps to deaden the sound. If it does, then we are looking to hang acoustic panels on the slopes of the tray ceiling.

We would like this endevour to be as DIY as possible, and minimize the visual impact in the room. With that in mind, does anyone have any suggestions as to what might work in this case, thin materials that might be able to be hung in the space, good ideas for DIY panel construction, etc.

I thank you in advance for your advice and my church thanks you as well, especially those in charge of our budget.

Tim

http://www.atsacoustics.com/
You can buy the raw materials here and make some very effective treatments, especially those in the voice frquencies. You'll have to do a lot of experimenting to figure out the best placement.

Lots of every day items are effective in reducing reverberation (carpeting, overstuffed furniture, curtains, quilts, etc). Start experimenting with such things and see if that helps.

You can also search this forum for do-it-yourself (DIY) acoustic panels that are comprised of compressed fiberglass (insulation), wood frames, and fabric.

Also, do a search for the term linacoustic, which is ductboard sold by HVAC installers. Many people who frequent this forum use linacoustic, or something like it, to reduce reverberation in their home theaters - I did. I bought a 100 foot roll of the stuff for a few hundred dollars, built a "frame" on the walls, secured it to the wall, and covered it with fabric. You would need more than one 100 foot roll for your hall.

Good luck!