help on soundproofing a room

[conor.meara]

so my parents are selling their house to move into something with less maintenence (this place is 200 years old + 80s renovations) and i won't have access to the beloved garage where i and my bands have practiced, slept, got fucked up, and recorded in for years

which works out pretty well anyway because i have my own place now and 3 of us are in/very near new york city

so now we're looking for a new practice space and the options we've come up with are:

get a rehearsal space and pay hourly (expensive)

get a rehearsal space and pay monthly (less expensive, but more of a commitment long term)

and the most recent idea: sound proofing a room in my apartment

so working off the third idea, i need help seeing how much this is going to cost. here's how the room's set up:

wall 1 has two large windows on it,

wall 2 is the exterior of the building so nobody's on the other side of that one (just a parking lot),

wall 3 has two big french doors and leads into the rest of the place,

and wall 4 faces another building so there are two exterior walls + some space in between.

so we talked about it and figured that the best cheapest way would be to put sound proofing foam on the ceiling checkerboard style, foam bass traps in 4 or 8 corners, put down two layers of carpeting on the floor (it's wood right now), and then hang thick thick carpet over the windows on wall 1 and over the doors on wall 3. another idea was to get a cheap futon mattress + the carpeting for the walls because that shit is thick as hell.

so what i'm trying to figure out is if a) this will actually keep down a huge amount of sound leakage and b) how much this would cost.

the cost issue seems to me that it would pay for itself in the long term vs. paying hourly or monthly for a rehearsal space.

and of course we wouldn't play nearly as loud as we do now (in the garage on a farm in the middle of nowhere) and may even put a sheet or two over the drums to mute them down a good amount.


so. that's basically it. does anybody have any experience with this shit that could tell me how i could get the best cheapest results?

thanks, all

[brake]

http://www.owenscorning.com/



good company.

[Grant Sharkey]

talk to modmanq6 - kevin's got a job doing that stuff and he'll strike you a deal, i'm sure.

[NotFSI]

I've got about a 2000 word essay on soundproofing that i did the other month, I can email it your way if you like (it hasn't been marked + graded yet so it might all be wrong, lol)

[MrJoshua]

That would change the way the room sounds, but it probably wouldn't actually prevent a lot of the sound from escaping. Some, but not a lot.

[bill]

That would change the way the room sounds, but it probably wouldn't actually prevent a lot of the sound from escaping. Some, but not a lot.

There is no way a electric band can practice in an apartment without pissing off the neighbors. I don't care what you do to the room, unless you built soundproof walls inside of the walls of the apartment. If you have a drummer you are sunk. sorry

[Grant Sharkey]

tip one - invest in electric drums. tip two - get a mixer and four sets of headphones with amp modellers if you're into that. singing, strin noise and tapping is all that will be heard.

[conor.meara]

thanks for all the replies guys

so has anyone actually tried it?

am i inevitably going to piss off the neighbors no matter what i do?

[NotFSI]

Your main source of egress is going to be the doors and windows...that and the fact that the internal walls are probably going to be like 12mm of gypsum board on a timber frame...not good if you're going for a high transmission loss. Since you can't really completely fuck your room up, the best solution would be to hang HEAVY curtains in front of the windows, and ideally either side of the door. Stick some weather-stripping (like what you'd find in a DIY store) between the door and door-frame, because a lot of sound gets out this way . If you can, stick an inch thick layer of R19 fibreglass on the walls (careful 'cos you don't want to inhale that shite) with some carpet over the top. You can make bass traps (or 'damped resonant absorbers' if you want to get technical) using plywood panels over a fibreglass/mineral wool core, with a void between the layers and foam covering the whole contraption - these will flex as low frequency waves hit them, thus dissipating the sound energy as heat (friction).

But I think those windows are going to fuck you the most, to be honest...unless you want to replace them with a 'proper' window (two entirely uncoupled panes with rubber seals around the edges)

[Croissant Seven]

thanks for all the replies guys

so has anyone actually tried it?

am i inevitably going to piss off the neighbors no matter what i do?

Pretty much. I did everything humanly possible to a basement I used to live in, including filling the window wells with styrofoam peanuts and covering them with plywood, and it was still audible at the curb. The main sounds you're not going to be able to keep from getting through are the kick and snare, and your bass. It's because those frequencies shake fucking everything, down to the floor joists and wall studs, so unless you float a soundproof room on Auralex risers and there's at least a foot between that box and the walls, you're going to be heard.
It's a bitch but you'll spend alot less money on a rehearsal room than you will on soundproofing the room and paying noise ordinance violations. Especially if your time is worth anything to you.:D
C7

[mnemosyne's lobotomy]

thanks for all the replies guys

so has anyone actually tried it?

am i inevitably going to piss off the neighbors no matter what i do?

Yes. Sorry to say this, Conor, but unless you have EXTREMELY understanding neighbors, this isn't going to work. THere's no way you're going to insulate that room well enough to not piss your neighbors off. Drums and bass carry through just about anything you put in front of them.

[78pbass]

Conor, I did the room in a room thing in my attached garage. And even though it is good, in the adjacent room, you can still get plenty of kick drum. The rest of the house is pretty much iso.

The bass will carry HUGE through just about anything. I would say that the $1500 I spent on materials would go a decent way to an E-kit + headphones as recommmended above.

Further, the worst area of sound will be the kit on the floor. I had a practice pad set that PISSED off my neighbors in my first apt just becase the kick pedal would sound horrendous thru the floor.

YMMV, but prolly not.

[conor.meara]

alright. so probably not a good idea.

i'm gonna keep asking people i know/my dad knows from in and around jersey city and see if there are any other space options.

[bill]

You may want to look into a storage garage, You know the kind, you rent a room that is like a garage size 20x30, around here they are about $50 a month, but you can't heat them????

[conor.meara]

You may want to look into a storage garage, You know the kind, you rent a room that is like a garage size 20x30, around here they are about $50 a month, but you can't heat them????

i'm sure there'd be something in the contract about rehearsing with a band in one of them... have you tried it?

[Croissant Seven]

i'm sure there'd be something in the contract about rehearsing with a band in one of them... have you tried it?

Lots of people do it, but you'll have trouble finding one with electricity running to it. Most of them are just a row of sheds.
The contracts I've seen for storage units usually just state that you can't live there, cook meth there, or store stolen property there. Just find one where the manager doesn't live on-site, that you can access 24/7 (so you don't end up getting locked in the yard like I did once), and has electricity (it's a fire hazard, but you can put an outlet converter into a light socket.):D

Also, you might try to find someone that runs a business in a commercial park, like an auto glass place or something, that would let you set up there on Sunday evening or something. I knew a band that rehearsed in a Maaco shop for a while.
C7

[ModmanQ6]

Ok, I've been out with the flu and a fever for a week, but I'm back now...
Conor, you have a few issues that have been mentioned above, but they aren't insurmountable. Bass frequencies are the hardest to stop and nothing but high mass will do this. Futons and carpet will filter high frequencies, but the lower frequencies are going to cut right through.
The electric drums idea is great, but if your drummer doesn't want to do this, then I have isolation pads that are fairly inexpensive and can be cut up to make an isolated riser. We also have a rubber floor underlayment that can go under carpet which provides isolation as well as a high mass soundproofing for your downstairs neighbors. (I'm not really clear if you have up or down neighbors, but I'm assuming both just in case)
As for your walls and the french doors, I have acoustical blankets with absorption on both sides and a high mass soundproofing material in the middle. These have vertical mating velcro for a tight seal and can be custom made to whatever sizes you need 4' wide, by up to 25' high. They will have grommets at the top and can mount on hooks near the ceiling. The nice thing about these is that you can take them with you wherever you live and remount them easily. The ceiling is a little more problematic, but can be addressed either barrier backed ceiling tiles or you could build a ceiling latticework and cover it with sound barrier. Call me and we can talk through it... 800-782-5742 xt 19...

...and yes the ebassist deal is definitely in effect. I'll make my money on the next guy... :cool: :)

[Grumpy_Polecat]

...

Here's a cheap solution for the old house that won't change it around much.

re-frame the walls using furring strips (1x2s).

Get with a local breakfast restaurant for their egg cartons. (these will actually be cardboard trays holding 2 dozen eggs each.)

Frame the walls so the egg cartons fit the centers. (look up framing centers if you don't understand this)

Make sure the new 'walls' are not at right angles to one another.

Cover all the walls with the egg cartons.

Build partitions the same way as needed for isolation.

All of this can be torn out later without reducing the home's value.

[bill]

Here's a cheap solution for the old house that won't change it around much.

re-frame the walls using furring strips (1x2s).

Get with a local breakfast restaurant for their egg cartons. (these will actually be cardboard trays holding 2 dozen eggs each.)

Frame the walls so the egg cartons fit the centers. (look up framing centers if you don't understand this)

Make sure the new 'walls' are not at right angles to one another.

Cover all the walls with the egg cartons.

Build partitions the same way as needed for isolation.

All of this can be torn out later without reducing the home's value.

This will make the room sound better, but will not stop the sound from going though the walls.....:badidea:

[ModmanQ6]

This will make the room sound better, but will not stop the sound from going though the walls.....:badidea:
Correct. This is a diffusion solution which will eliminate flat surface reflections, but does nothing to block sound from travelling to the neighbors...

[bassmanatlarge]

add about 6 layers of 5/8" drywall to all surfaces including floor, doors and windows...each layer will cut noise by 6db

[basshunter]

add about 6 layers of 5/8" drywall to all surfaces including floor, doors and windows...each layer will cut noise by 6db

Better yet, use THIS STUFF (http://www.homasote.com/sb.html)

[NotFSI]

Correct. This is a diffusion solution which will eliminate flat surface reflections, but does nothing to block sound from travelling to the neighbors...

Yep, the best soundproofing is about 18" of concrete :D