It’s rare to find a dance studio with good acoustics. What I mean is they’re all echo chambers because of all the hard surfaces. Floors and mirrors reflect sound and cause an echo. It’s something that is fairly subliminal. You make your studio look beautiful with paint, but most of the surfaces are reflective.
So you’re about to start a number with music……. five, six, seven, eight, is everyone really starting exactly on the beat. Maybe a millisecond late because the sound is coming off the back wall instead of directly from the speakers or the instructor’s voice. Also working in that type of a condition for a long period of time causes fatigue. Compare it to the difference between a noisy café and the relaxing feeling you get in a restaurant with carpet and other soft, absorbing walls or booths that deflect sound and absorb it.
It’s just more comfortable to be in a room without echo. A good way to explain is with a ping pong ball. If a ping-pong ball will bounce off of the surface then, so will sound. Hold up a blanket and throw a ping-pong ball at it, and it will hit the blanket and fall down straight to the ground. Sound reflection gets eliminated in the same way. Soft absorbent material can work wonders for the atmosphere of your Dance Studio. Typically it’s good to cover 20 to 30% minimum of all the surfaces available. The ceiling is usually a great place to start. And then the wall that is opposite your mirrored wall would also be a good candidate for some sound absorbing material. A wonderful sound atmosphere has nothing to do with the look you’re trying to achieve in the studio but you can get a happy medium.
Some suggestions would be for a flamingo dance studio, a Mexican flock, or a L’oracle dance studio. You could put Spanish blankets on the wall creating a look, as well as an absorption to stop the echo.
If ballet is your primary dance, then maybe creating some plywood shapes of dancers, jumping through the air and covering them with rock wool and some material that air can pass through may achieve your look and also provide practical sound absorption.
There are things specifically made for recording studios but sometimes they can get pricey. Alvas realizes this problem, and so we have created the “Sound Pillow“. It utilizes Rockwall, which, for the money, has the most sound absorbing ability. But you can do stuff yourself and if you have any ideas, but lack some technical knowledge, please feel free to contact us. Matt, the owner, would be happy to discuss the issue. We have a legacy ballet school that is a pleasure to dance in because the acoustics are so good.
If you’d like a more detailed explanation from Matt, please contact us.
