Our 6 month old's bedroom has a terrible echo which amplifies any crying etc. Any tips for reducing it, other than the usual "fill it with soft furnishings"? Or any good ideas about which soft furnishings - I'm thinking bean bag, a fabric wall hanging etc. It's a Victorian stone mid-terrace, with a chimney breast, floor is carpeted and it the room has curtains. The echo is pretty bad - worst I've come across. Ta v much.
.....uch......uch
Victorian terrace? It's probably haunted.
Exorcism is the answer.
You need some sound absorbent tiles, something like this:
APF
Cork board? Also somewhere useful to pin lists and other stuff...
You just need soft things in there. Hard = loud, echo, reverb. Soft stuff soaks up the waves and stops them bouncing around.
So, curtains not blinds. Sofa, big cushions, beanbags, carpet not tiles. Rugs etc etc...
Could fit a volume potentiometer to your child also.
EDIT: just read your post properly and it seems you’ve done all this... in which case, your house is most definitely haunted.
What is the floor covering?
What curtains?
egg boxes on the walls.
add a few more children to the room, as one stops crying another will start therefore removing that troublesome echoing moment of silence. hth
In a previous flat where I used a living room as a recording space as well, I had a couple large canvas prints with a 2 inch deep surrounding frame 'box', and behind the canvas had standard acoustic tiles like these
Only worthwhile if you're certain the canvas is reasonably porous, rather than 'airtight'
If you use wall hangings then try and space then off the wall a bit as that helps. I've used large Ikea wall prints backed by a few layers of cheap white cloth spaced 5mm off a wall with some success before
Book shelves which are roughly half filled with a variety of sizes of books. Any other open storage containers. Once you've broken up and diffracted the waves they're much easier to damp with soft furnishings.
What are the room dimensions?
Hang fairly heavy curtains with a backing down the walls, they’ll stop reflections off the walls, shelves with books, as Chiefgroovy says, anything to break up unbroken flat surfaces.
Lots of soft toys will help as well.
oops, just forgot. Bean bags are great, especially in corners. Solid things to break up the waves (as chiefgrooveguru sez) really help as well. If you want to fit stuff that markets itself as sound absorbing the you can find a bunch of options here, but for me wall hangings spaced off the wall worked well.
Try moving the cot as well. You could possibly be in just the worst spot for one frequency and moving it a few feet might help
Put the noisy little selfish wailing child in a sound proofed box. Much less faff and way cheaper than sound proofing a whole room.
You could install a web cam inside the box to allay any concerns mrs wl has, and you can watch him wail with the sound muted on your pc.
Pin an old duvet up against the door, cheap and easily removed
Cork boards are a good idea too, as picture framed rather than direct onto wall