considering building a two-dimensional skyline sound diffuser it's not hard but it does take quite a bit of time the finished product is impressive it looks good and it gives your audio a more natural sound by diffusing harsh and problematic frequencies amplified by a room stick around in this video I'll show you how I built mine and maybe give you a few ideas on how you can build yours [Music] first can you start out with a frequency calculator you need to determine the range of frequencies you're trying to diffuse in my case I'm focusing on the frequencies created by the human voice for spoken word and I'm tuning my panels to 846 to 4514 Hertz this is a little high but my studio is sound treated with plenty of absorption and my goal is to diffuse the brighter frequencies and absorb the lower frequencies also logistically speaking tuning to this frequency made the project much much easier to build at this frequency the plan calls for the columns or the blocks to be one and a half inches in diameter dimensional 2x2 lumber is actually cut one and a half inches by one and a half inches so this means all my blocks would be sized properly and I'd only need to cut them down to length and boy there is a lot of cutting the diffusion panel on the back wall is two feet tall by six feet long and then the panel that's in the Soundcloud of the ceiling is four foot by four foot square and then I also had some additional material left over and I created a smaller 18 inch by 24 inch panel and it's also attached to the Soundcloud I began cutting my backing plywood to size leaving a 1 and a half inch border along all of the edges for mounting mine aren't hung just directly onto the wall they're actually inset into the walls so that's my mounting system yours yours may vary a little bit but in order to screw into my studs and create a creative flush on the outside of the wall I had to leave a place where I could actually screw through so also I recommend using a minimum of half-inch thick plywood I actually use 3/4 of an inch thick plywood and this is to help add a little bit more robust strength because these things are just massive they're super huge they're super heavy and I don't think that I don't think that like if you use something like a quarter inch plywood like you just risk snapping the whole thing in half as you're trying to lift it or move it around or anything also the thicker plywood will help the glue as your project dries to keep the entire project from warping and curling no matter what thickness you're using I recommend that you clamp your your plywood to your work table and then you begin gluing your blocks on if you don't the whole projects just gonna warp and curl and Bend and it's a pain in the butt so just avoid that clamp it clamp it to your table before you begin working next is laying out your plan grid onto the plywood this is extremely tedious and time-consuming but that's kind of the name of the game of this project the step may not be necessary if you're able to follow your plan visually and be able to keep track of where you're at but there are just so many little blocks and little squares and so many numbers that getting lost is very very easy so this was my best solution was just marking it all out on the wood like this it's not foolproof though I learned quickly that once I began loop gluing my layout became out of sync and was mostly used as a reference to keep my place mass-produce dimensional lumber isn't cut exactly the same each and every time and organic materials wood tends to have a lot of natural variation so if one of your blocks is a little bit larger or smaller than the square that you have drawn or larger or smaller than than the block next to it a domino effect occurs in a cascade of alignment issues arise I just stayed consistent with the plan whichever block was called for next is the block that I used regardless of how square the project was or how it aligned with the previous blocks next it's time to cut blocks and boy are there a lot of blocks all in all I think I cut over 2,200 and I did that twice I added a 45 degree angle on the tips of my blocks I read a study that showed the scattered the frequencies a little bit better I also had a know-it-all Instagram troll ridiculed me for it saying it was completely unnecessary you know I'm not sure but logic would tell me that instead of frequencies reflecting directly off of a flat surface such as if your block was cut you know at a square 90-degree angle [Music] sound would then reflect according to the angle that it was cut if it was cut on an angle I notice that some of the expensive pre-made panels that you can purchase have their block ends or column ends cut at an angle it doesn't really matter whatever you feel is gonna work the best for you the biggest advice that I can give during this process is safety because it took me hours and hours and hours on the saw and you become mindless and that's when bad things can happen so do your best to remain alert and conscious of what you're doing you know when you start getting around block 900 you don't you know you got paying attention like you were so that's the biggest thing I can stress is just just be careful [Music] let's cut the trailer unhooked headed to Harbor Freight it's a balmy 9 degrees out let's go get a sander [Music] now that all the blocks have been cut you have to sand them so here you go now you get to sand all four sides of 2200 blocks I didn't sand them perfectly but I did want to smooth out any rough spots and remove the splinters and stuff so that they would paint up somewhat nice again this takes even longer than actually cutting the blocks wear a respirator and just try not to get your fingers caught now it's time to glue glue is the only thing holding this project together so I recommend a quality strong glue I use tight bond three I gave a light dab on the bottom of each block and then I smeared some along the sides where it would come into contact with the block next to it obviously some of the blocks are taller than the other blocks so there's no need to coat the entire side just you know put a little smear where the you know block is actually contacting another piece of wood also because I cut the angles on the tips of my blocks each block was rotated one quarter of a turn from the previous block and this just ensures that neut no two blocks side by side have the same the same angle again can't stress this enough the project will warp the plywood underneath your backing board will warp if you don't clamp it down as your glues drying so you know if it does if you do end up warping it I just I'm afraid you're gonna ruin your project there's just a tremendous amount of force because what your have to do to get this thing to sit flush on anything or to mount flush on a wall so you're gonna have to break that glue and you know when you've got a million blocks all glued together and you're trying to bend it back straight you're just worried that the whole thing's gonna snap or splinter or something and you've spent so much time on this you really don't want that to happen so clamp before you glue I'm not sure what happened to the rest of my footage but basically I use spray paint to paint the whole thing up and it was difficult to get an even coat especially down in the in the gaps at the bottom of the thing where there were there are no blocks you know the blank spaces and I think a real legit spray gun would have murk work much better than like spray paint I can overall I think I have four coats on it and now that my panels are up on the wall it looks pretty good you know because everything is up high and as far away looks totally fine if you get up close you can see imperfections because I didn't spend a ton of time sanding or you can see lighter coats where I couldn't get the nozzle I couldn't get good coverage in certain spots just because angles are weird and blocks were taller than other blocks but all in all it it works it looks good here are the panels mounted and these things are heavy as hell it it took three of us to do the job two of them had to hold them in place and then we actually had we made a Deadman with a 2x4 to help as well and then the so two of us holding and a Deadman and then the third person actually went around screwing it into place and [Music] it's important that whatever you mount these two can can handle the weight make sure it's a solid service and that you're using some black bolts because I'm gonna guess that these things are somewhere around 250 to 300 pounds they are very very heavy all in all I love how this project turned out for one their functional acoustically they do make a significant difference with how things sound in this room and secondly they're just fun to look at they're kind of like these massive pieces of art you can stare off and you know get just get lost like staring off into space at them for quite a while there's so many you know shapes and angles and just depths and you know things to get lost into so on both accounts I'm really happy with them as far as that's concerned but the biggest thing that I can say about this project is that it is super time-consuming it's not hard at all but it is very tedious and there's no way around it and I'm not gonna like I don't think I'm exaggerating it at all when I say that it I think it took me about 80 hours to build these things and that's pretty spot-on and I couldn't do it all at one one time so it just the whole thing cluttered up my garage for weeks if it didn't take so long I would probably build some more of these just to put around the house because they are so cool-looking and they really do help you know like throw it enough common area or you know a place where you watch TV family room or something and they work well and they look really cool but boy is that a it's a long job to do them this big so if you have the time the end result is pretty impressive and I definitely say it's worth it but just know what you're getting yourself into so anyway I hope you guys enjoyed it and I hope I gave you some ideas you're gonna build one of these hit me up if you have any questions good luck to you [Music]