Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, from a single mix room to a full facility, anywhere in the country. That includes recording studios, mixing and mastering rooms, home theaters, Dolby Atmos rooms, podcast rooms, post production spaces and commercial spaces. See all of our services or start with a Free Room Review.

Soundproofing keeps sound in or out of a room. It is built into the walls, floor, ceiling and doors. Acoustic treatment controls how sound behaves inside the room, with panels, bass traps and clouds. Panels will not stop your neighbor hearing the drums. Most studios need some of both. We explain the difference in our guide to soundproofing vs. acoustic treatment and on our soundproofing design page.

Yes. Our own crew installs the panels, bass traps, clouds, gobos and fabric track we build, across Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties, and we travel for installs outside Southern California, including out of state. Installation is quoted per job. It depends on panel count, mounting surface, ceiling height and access. Email info@valleyacoustics.com with photos and dimensions of the room, and see where we work.

Our shop is at 9520 Owensmouth Ave, Suite 1, Chatsworth, CA 91311. We are open Monday through Saturday, 9am to 6pm. Pickup is by appointment only, since the shop is not always staffed for collections.

Yes, including out of state, for design, consulting, installs and tuning. See where we work, or tell us where your project is in our Free Room Review.

Yes. We work with studio designers, architects, general contractors, houses of worship, schools and universities. Email us the project details. If you don't have a contractor yet, see our services page.

The design covers the layout, isolation, treatment and audio wiring, with the AC, electrical, doors and flooring planned around them. Licensed contractors build the room from our plan, and we consult through the build; we build and install the treatment, then tune the room. See how a studio project works.

Almost always. An isolated room is close to airtight, and with people and gear in it, it gets warm fast. The cooling has to be quiet at the mix position without opening a path for sound to escape. It's much cheaper to plan it with the build than to add it after the walls are closed.

Yes. Speaker layout, low voltage wiring for systems like 7.1.4, treatment around the speakers, and speaker installation and calibration. See Dolby Atmos room design.

Yes. Custom audio wall plates, tie lines between rooms, patchbays, speaker installation and rack wiring. See studio wiring.

Yes. We build custom synth shelves, shelving units, racks and trim in our shop, and install them as part of the room. See examples in our gallery.

Yes. Depending on the project, you get a room layout, a treatment plan surface by surface and a wiring plan, and larger projects include 2D layouts and 3D renderings. See real design drawings on How We Work.

A line for each part of the scope, with materials, tax and installation shown, and what's included written down before we start. See how a studio project works.

About six weeks for a focused single room, longer for multi-room projects, with a schedule in the proposal. More on timelines in How We Work.

Yes. See recent rooms in our gallery and on Instagram at @valley_acoustics.

On panel and installation jobs, panels are paid up front and installation is invoiced at the end. Design projects have a deposit to start, payments at set milestones and a final payment at completion and walkthrough. See How We Work.

A single room typically starts around $5,000 for panels and installation. A medium room of 250 to 300 square feet is usually $15,000 to $20,000. Panel jobs rarely go past $20,000 to $25,000, depending on the size of the room.

Most full rooms land between $20,000 and $50,000. Fabric stretched over an existing wall sits at the low end, and a built-out system framed to depth with bass traps built in sits at the high end. See fabric track walls.

A full garage studio runs about $75,000 to $175,000. Roughly, that's $45,000 to $60,000 for the isolated room shell, $17,000 to $25,000 for AC and electrical, $5,000 to $40,000 for doors and windows, and $10,000 to $50,000 for acoustic treatment. See our garage studio cost guide.

A theater usually needs less acoustic treatment than a studio, because it plays back content that's already been mixed rather than being used to make decisions. Panels and bass traps run about $4,000 to $18,500 installed, and fabric track on the side and rear walls about $9,000 to $34,000. The full range is on home theater acoustics.

On a retrofit, most take a few weeks, depending on how much of the room is covered. See fabric track walls.

Good parking and access, a place to set up tools outside the room, the room cleared of furniture and gear on work days, and power on site. The full list is on How We Work.

Yes. The first reflection points, the ceiling above the mix position and the corners do most of the work, so start there and add more over time. If you're also building isolation, have the isolation built properly first. Panels can go up later. Walls can't be rebuilt cheaply.

There are three ways to start. Send us your room through the Free Room Review and we will email you recommendations at no cost. For in-depth projects, book a Phone Consultation: $125 an hour with a 2-hour minimum ($250), and a written treatment plan covering panel type, quantity, thickness and placement. Or book an On-Site Room Consultation ($279 to $629 in our drive-time zones, quoted anywhere else in the country), where we take the room's dimensions, listen at your main position and mark the panel positions. All three are on our services page.

Yes. The Phone Consultation fee is credited in full against your panel order. The On-Site Room Consultation fee is credited in full against an order of $5,000 or more in panels and installation, before tax and freight.

Our Broadband panels have a 4" core and our Mid / High panels have a 2" core, both 6 PCF rigid mineral wool. In published lab data for that board, both cores absorb nearly all the sound that reaches them from 500 Hz up, and the 4" core absorbs about three times as much at 125 Hz. If the room has low frequency problems, you need the thicker panel. Where depth is tight, the Mid / High panel is roughly half the depth. See broadband vs. mid / high panels.

It depends on the room size, the ceiling, what the room is for and what is bothering you now. Send us photos and rough dimensions of the room through our Free Room Review and we will tell you what it needs. See also how many acoustic panels you need.

For general low end buildup, look at our Diaphragm Bass Traps. They are predicted to work from about 80 Hz up on 2 ft wide traps and about 60 Hz up on 3 ft and wider, and they keep absorbing through the mids and highs. If one note booms, a tuned membrane bass trap at 45, 60, 70 or 85 Hz is the better tool.

A gobo is a free standing acoustic panel. Studios use them between instruments, around a vocalist or across a doorway. Ours are double sided wood frame gobos with floor legs, and optional locking casters and an acrylic viewing window.

Yes. Any of our ceiling clouds can be ordered with two recessed 6" lights, an LED uplight strip, or both, in standard white or Philips Hue. Final wiring to power is done on site by a licensed electrician; when we install, we bring ours.

An acoustically transparent, Class A fire rated fabric in 50 colors. See all of them on our Fabric Colors page.

Yes, swatches are free, and we recommend one before a large order. Screens do not reproduce textile color accurately. Email us and ask for a swatch.

We email you with the mill's restock date. You can wait, switch to any in-stock color at no charge, or cancel for a full refund.

Our wood framed panels, gobos and clouds come in red oak with six stain options, or painted pine in ten colors.

On our wood framed products and fabric track walls, yes. The fabric is tucked into a track rather than stapled, so a color change later is a re-tuck, not a rebuild.

The fabric is Class A fire rated, and fire ratings for the materials we use are those published by their manufacturers. We supply the mill documentation on request. See Class A fire rated acoustic panels.

Our panels are built in our shop in North Los Angeles by producers, musicians and engineers. We're carpenters by passion, and we love music, so we build treatment we'd want in our own rooms.

Precision cutting of panel parts, scatter plates and custom furniture components. It keeps every part consistent from one panel to the next.

Yes. Wall panels ship with a Z-bar cleat wall mount kit, and clouds hang with our Cloud Mounting Kit. The fixing has to suit your wall or ceiling. For a cloud or heavy panel above a work position, use a qualified installer if you're not sure of the fixing, or have us install it.

Everything is built to order in our shop. Most panel orders ship within 2 to 3 weeks, depending on size and fabric availability at the mill. We confirm the lead time when you order and tell you if it moves.

Small orders of 2 x 4' panels ship UPS Ground. Larger sizes and larger orders ship by freight on a pallet, which costs less and means fewer hands on your panels. Shipping is calculated at checkout, and very large orders get a freight quote by email before we start the build. Local pickup in Chatsworth is free, by appointment.

We ship to the continental United States as standard. For Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico or international orders, email us before ordering for a quote.

Because every panel is built to your size and fabric, all sales are final, with three exceptions: cancellation before the build starts, damage in transit, and manufacturing defects. The details are in our Refund Policy.

Yes. We warrant our own workmanship, meaning the frame, joinery and assembly, against manufacturing defects for three years from delivery.

Wall panels come with an aluminum Z-bar cleat wall mount kit. Clouds hang from eye bolts with our Cloud Mounting Kit. Floor legs and locking casters are available for free standing use.