“The multipurpose area used as a cafeteria and auditorium, affectionally called the ‘cafetorium’  presented the greatest challenge.” Stated Jeff Hartman, Acoustical engineer at Next Industries.  ”We were tasked with creating an environment in which during performances on the stage the room would present enough livelieness to all acoustic projection evenly throughout the audience during events and presentations with proper sound stage presence from the loud speakers as well as the back stage area. Another goal of the space was reducing the reverberation time as well as minimize standing waves within the large space which increases speech intelligibility and reduces background noise levels during lunch periods and other large group gatherings. The combination of effects from high ceilings,  hard surface walls including partial exposed block surfaces and polished hard concrete flooring minimized the attenuation of first and second order reflections and allowed all sound to propagate freely throughout the interior space.”

By utilizing a combination of echoshield™ Pro series wall panels and dipole ceiling baffles,  Next Industries was able to create an environment that meets the needs of the cafetorium environment.  The echoshield™ Pro series ceiling baffles were arranged in an X,Y configuration to absorb transverse waves that emanated from any direction within the ceiling structure area.  ”By utilizing our echoshield ™ Pro series baffles we have the flexibility of not only multiple mounting positions, but also we can configure the product to either be a single side absorber, or dipole to meet our needs.”  Says Jeff.

“Band rooms can be a nightmare to control acoustically.  Percussive instruments with the ability to easily produce 90dB or greater without amplification are intermixed in an enclosed space with wood wind, brass and other more subtle instruments.  Such spaces require a greater emphasis on reducing not only reverberation time caused by first and second order reflections from perimeter spaces, but also attempt to balance the room tonality so that overlapping frequencies and fast impulse percussive instruments all stand out in the stereo field without being lost. The absorptive control is key as human hearing is very keen on perceiving impulses such as those from percussive instruments.  By controlling the reflections, the human ear can more readily focus on other instruments during performances. This balance is where Art meets Science”,  Jeff concludes.

The use of echoshield™ Pro series wall panels and dipole configured ceiling baffles were again selected and carefully arranged to meet the acoustic needs of each of these rooms.  In addition,  Next Industries worked with the school directors to pick a color scheme that emphasized the schools colors.  Once the project was finished and all acoustic goals were met, students and teachers alike not only noticed the improved ambience, but they were also astonished by the decor.

To reduce early reflections,  Next Industries installed echoshield™ acoustical panels along the perimeter walls.  Utilizing a staggered positioning, every other panel alternated between two weightings of acoustic materials to improve optimum frequency absorption to not only to increase speech intelligibility within the room, but the minimize the resonant frequencies of the room itself.

With an initial measured peak reverberation time of over 2 seconds,  the treatment provided a reduction of 50% and reduced resonance frequency peaks by 30% within the space creating a more inviting and warm experience for all that utilize the space.

Traditional acoustic treatments such as acoustic panels and diffusors would distract from the traditional decor. Next Industries engineers met with Suzanne to discuss her vision for the interior space. Quilts, re-purposed barn wood planks from the 1800′s, and pictures of rural American farm lands were a central theme for decoration.

Vertical acoustic baffles can be utilized to break up transverse sound wave issues in large open areas, effectively reduce the background noise levels. Next Industries devised a solution in which Amish-made quilts were produced without standard backing material, this allowed to quilts to be installed with an internal frame and acoustic material. To finish these off, Next Industries built an external frame and constructed a horizontal bar for the quilts to hang from.

Also constructed for this project were acoustical wall panels in which repurposed antique barn wood was used for external trim. Acoustic yellow suede fabric was used to match the color of the walls, and canvas prints were used to create a shadowbox design.

Finally, to aid in minimizing background noise closest to the customers, custom head rest backboards were created and wrapped in acoustically transparent fabric that went with the decor of the room. These headrests allow for direct background noise absorption at the closest surface point to the restaurant patron ears. All treatments in the space provide a warm and inviting, acoustically uncluttered experience. Ultimately, the overall design created additions to the restaurant that did not detract from the design target of the interior designer.

“I recently met and worked with the staff of Next Industries for a restaurant project/rennovation I was working with. I was amazed, after our initial meeting, how much I learned from them both about their products and services, as well as knowledge of space, sound and solutions.

The staff of Next Industries listened. Together, we came up with wonderful solutions that accomplished all our goals. The experience has been enlightening, easy, and well worth the efforts. I look forward to my next project with them.”

-Suzanne Catlette, SC Interiors for Dutchman Hospitality Group

We first identified the amount of shift in the equilibrium of the rooms acoustics. Centerline phase is a must to allow the front of house (FOH) engineer to properly balance a stereo mix during an event. Secondly we tackled individual issues such as determining which frequencies we need to absorb on each surface and the amount of treatment required to bring the RT time and delay anomalies to acceptable levels, all while calculating for the presence of people in the seats as part of the equation to ensure the room still has some liveness even when filled to capacity. Many companies either push too much reduction or not enough, the science meets art when the balance is achieved.

“‘Next’ took our newest auditorium designed by someone else that had a 4.7 second echo and economically and aesthetically made it into our best sounding and looking auditorium in the system. I would not think of building any new venues without consulting them first. We would have saved a lot of money and aggravation if we would have had them at the beginning of the Canton project.”

- Steve Jones, Canton Campus Facilities Supervisor, NewPointe Church

To achieve the results we utilized out echoshield™ product line of acoustic wall panels for the first order reflection issues on the walls. We build every panel in our own factory, and because of this we can design the panels to tackle different frequency ranges and at different absorption coefficients, this gives us a great advantage over other consulting companies. We also utilized our brand new echoshield™ hanging ceiling baffle product to minimize transverse waves from the ceiling. We were able to align the panels along a single axis as the room naturally reflected acoustical energy from the wall surfaces to the acoustic baffles.

After treatments were performed. The audience now enjoys clarity from the pastors on stage and the music events they provide. The FOH engineers are quite pleased that now they add effects to the mix such as delay and reverberation as well having the confidence that the stereo mix is properly presented.

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