In this article, Julian Rodgers looks at ceiling clouds and asks whether we think too horizontally when thinking about acoustics.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen explanations of standing waves and room modes which is accompanied by a picture showing a wave bouncing from wall to wall. Never between ceiling and floor. I am sure that the people who put the image together understand that standing waves happen in three dimensions but even so we probably all overlook up/down to some extent.

Length, Width And Don’t Forget Height

The conventional wisdom is that we should avoid being halfway along any axis in our rooms. the rule of thumb is to try to be a third or two-thirds of the way along the length of our room. The desire for left/right symmetry across the width of our rooms tends to encourage us halfway across the width of our rooms but when you look at the height of a typical domestic room and compare it to the typical ear height of a seated person, you’re pretty much halfway between floor and ceiling.

Add to this, the fact that in a great number of cases, the closest boundary to our ears (other than our desks) is the ceiling and the importance of adding some acoustic treatment over our heads is even more apparent. Luckily adding a ceiling cloud to a studio in what is usually unused space is straightforward. To help with this ADAM Audio have produced a video which, rather than explaining how to build the absorber, takes a detailed look at the practical business of how best to install a ceiling cloud, including what tools you’ll need and how and where to fix your heavy panels to the ceiling.