Acoustic fabric questions

Alan

'Lo.

Can anyone point me towards a suppplier of 'acoustic material' of the type used to cover wall hanging panels? I undersatand it needs to be of an appropriate open weave, although more googling is required here.

Also, would it be possible to have art/photos printed onto such material? Usually prints are put onto a tightly weaved canvas type material, but I wonder if it can be done on 'acoustic fabric'?

Thank you for any pointers.

Brain_Dead

Ask Simon at http://www.musicskills.co.uk he has just done his studio sounds nice.

Alan

Thanks Col, I may just do that.

Thus far, I have found several companies that will print onto open weave acoustic fabric. At least they do it for their own panels - whether they will do just the material so I can recover my panels is unknown. To maintain the fabric's acoustically 'invisible' signature, it apparently has to be printed using a process called dye sublimation.

I can choose from stock art, or upload an image of sufficient resolution.

However, I seem to have found an alternative, of the non-audiophile variety. It is therefore cheaper, more attractive and eminently practical! Woo-Hoo...

Following this discussion on Audiocircle, I'm looking into using Spoonflower. Someone has measured the cloth for it's suitability toward a sound treatment use, and it seems to be pretty decent. This may be the way to go. More thought and googling required...

PAC

Hi Alan

I think that I can help.  Cara acoustic fabrics are who you need to get in touch with.  I used their fabrics when making and selling acoustic panels a while back. To find out more or buy the fabric, just follow this link:

http://www.eqacoustics.com/products-page/acoustic-treatment/acoustic-fabric/cara-acoustic-fabric

...and yes, printing can be done onto just about any fabric if you contact a specialist printers.

alfamatt

I've been using this

NATURAL COTTON CALICO CRAFT FABRIC - 63" BY THE METRE -MINIMUM ORDER 3MTRS
SUPER SMOOTH WEAVE- SAME DAY DISPATCH - MAX P+P £9.95
From eBay seller forrest6774
Very cheap & I had images printed onto it by my local prontaprint. They'd not attempted it before, but I explained what I wanted, supplied the fabric & digital images & after a test run I'm very happy with the results.
Fabric at £2.50 per metre, 4 x 2ft square images printed for £50 & I've got 4 acoustic panels with my choice of design. Can't fault it at all!
Matt.

Alan

Excellent, thanks both Matt & Paul.

The treatment panels I have are large... about 1.1m on each side. The pattern I'd need would preferably be bold, high resolution and probably a single image, or 4 repeating ones at the most. It's going to be hard making those 'disappear'!

alfamatt

Alan, my panels are approx 600mm square, so 1/2 the size of yours. The images are of some Album covers, photoshopped together, 4 album covers for each panel. IIRC, they were printed at about 300dpi & the completed images were sent to the printers at 100% physical size, so they didn't have to re-size or anything.

As long as the images you wish to use are of sufficient quality to be blown up to your required 1.1m, I think it should be fairly easily do-able.

Matt.

alfamatt

Alan, my panels are approx 600mm square, so 1/4 the size of yours. The images are of some Album covers, photoshopped together, 4 album covers for each panel. IIRC, they were printed at about 300dpi & the completed images were sent to the printers at 100% physical size, so they didn't have to re-size or anything.

As long as the images you wish to use are of sufficient quality to be blown up to your required 1.1m, I think it should be fairly easily do-able.

Matt.

magnafabrics

You can find Made in USA acoustic fabrics at Magna Fabrics for $1.99 a yard or less at www,magnafabrics.com
They buy overruns and slight slight irregulars from the producers and offer it for a fraction of the price you are expecting to pay.