soundproof my room!

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capnspoony

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
400
Location
brooklyn, NY
So .. I just moved to a new apt and I need to soundproof it .. The Walls our very thin.. just 2X6 + drywall .. not very heat insolated :oops:

but anywho .. I have enough aurolex foam to cover the entire room i wish to soundproof .. the problem is I have downstairs neighbors that will not appreciate a drum set all day long ..

I want to float walls inside the room .. and I'm wondering what would be the cheapest/best way to block sound .. I can build these walls free standing and then cover them with the aurolex foam to give a nice absorbing finish ..

I was thinking of taking a 2x6 wood and building a frame .. backing one side with plywood .. and then stuffing the front with couch coushins .. after that tack a sheet over all the ugly .. lightly rib 4 or 5 horizontal pieces over the sheet .. then tack my aurolex foam on the ribbing.

I have already layed 6 inches of carpet on thet floor.

-richie

I need it to sound as dead as possible
:grin:
 
Hi Richie,

The first thing you have to realize is that Sound proofing is different than Sound Treatment. Auralex foam is used for Sound treatment. Mainly deals with Mid to High frequency energy absorption. Don't get me wrong, it will help you some, but it is very limited in terms of sound proofing.

Why don't you post the dimensions of the room so I can assess the situation better..

Ideally you would want to build a "room within room".
You could float the floors on Auralex U-boats, and then build second walls on top of the floating floor and at least 3" from the existing wall, and build the ceiling on top of these walls. Basically creating a floating box within your existing room. Now that is costy and not effective if your room is small, which I think it is.

Take a look at this booklet from Auralex, it talks a bunch about construction.
http://www.acoustics101.com/common/acoustics101v3_0.pdf

For some help with isolation you could double up the drywall on all walls and ceiling and put the drumset on a padded drum riser.

You can then use the auralex foam to treat the room for some bad reflections.

Like I said. Some dimmensions will help..

take care
Gil
 
Hi Richie :grin:
but anywho .. I have enough aurolex foam to cover the entire room i wish to soundproof .. the problem is I have downstairs neighbors that will not appreciate a drum set all day long ..
I agree with Gil that Auralex won't help you much. If you have idea to isolate from downstares neighbors you probably have to start with your's floor. So, prepare to do some serious broadband isolation and some floating floor. Try to visit this link and find some info and try to follow ideas described there.
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
Also you can visit this forum and ask John for advice as I did :wink: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php
Cheers and good luck :thumb:
 
Fuzz/foam inside the room will just make you play louder, annoy your neighbors more.

Sound transmission requires blocking all leaks, adding MASS, blocking leaks, adding a second layer of mass, and blocking leaks.

> backing one side with plywood .. tack a sheet over all the ugly ..

No. MASS MASS MASS! Drywall is your best friend. It is far denser than cinderblock, similar to solid rock-concrete but easier to handle. You will need a massy floor too: drywall covered with plywood. Three layers of 3/8", joints staggered and taped, will be good enough that your door will be the main escape for the sound. When you gasket and screw the door so it does not leak at ALL, you suffocate. Bringing air into a truly sound-tight room without letting sound out is very hard.

The alternative is a hut in the back yard. With one room over another, 20% of the total sound power wants to go to your downstairs neighbors. With a hut out in the open, maybe less than 1% of the sound power hits their room (though of course now many other neighbors also get their 1% share of your efforts).

The real answer is that Drummers can not be allowed in nice neighborhoods. The walls in the Music Building, purpose-built in 1928, are double-layer masonry a foot thick, solid-wood doors 3 inches thick, but we don't allow drummers (we keep them in a basement in another building).
 
Hi

Thanks for the reply and advice thus far

some dimensions:

the room is a 10 by 20 foot room wih 9 foot high ceilings ..


im aware that auralex is not for sound "proofing" but I like the sound that it provides for recording drums .. I wanted to top off my floated walls with the auralex foam and have the isolation material behind the auralex

and like I said I layed down about 6 inches of carpet on the floor

-richie
 
Hi PRR .. I just posted a reply .. and your's went up while I was typing mine..

I was thinking

What if I made a Hexagon Shaped room that fit almost exactly around my drums out of drywall and then auralex'd the interior?

Would this sound terrible for recording?

I have recorded drums in isolation booths before and have had great results after a bit of post production work. Although this was also done on an SSL which I don't have at home. Is there a specific shape that would work better than others for a drum set? I like the idea of making a smaller free standing room air tight than trying to remodel my new recording room ..

I also have free reign to the attic above our apt which takes up the second floor.

Its just so hot up there I fear for the temp change from day to night to ruin my drums. The attic has no windows or hatches. Just one room probably 30 X 80 .. lots of room to stand .. all hardwood floors walls and ceiling ..

maybe in the winter
richie
 
Rectangular shapes are actually a lot easier to control room modes and control high freq reflections.

Just by the dimensions you mensioned, you can do the math to find some room modes. You will have serious problems around:

28Hz, 57hz, 113Hz, etc etc..

basically the dimensions of your room reinforce some the the modes. But remember its very easy to treat room modes in rectangular room. Just put some bass traps (tuned to problem freq preferbly) in the corners and you are in business.

You can make it sound pretty decent without covering the whole thing with absorption material.

Remember that if you do build a room within room, you will loose quite a bit of square footage. If you are OK with that, go for it.
PRR was right, drywall is your friend. If you want to add a little bit more mass, just add on "sheetblock" in between the current wall and the new drywall panel you would put up. Like PRR said, mass is the name of the game.

http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_sheetblokPL/sound_isolation_sheetblokPL.asp

Good luck
Gil
 
Smaller room just for the drums sounds like a good idea. I saw a perspex and glass one someone made in their garage. Spent serious money. Their elderly neighbours still complained about the leakage, which was really tiny...actually. So he opened all the doors for them one day..... :green:
 
thanks BR

I think I'm going to take a trip to home depot this weekend and see what happens.. I'll try constructing a free standing room that simply covers the perimeter of my drum set. This will cost less and I could build it so I could connect the walls when I need to record/play drums. If I built four walls of drywall .. with a rubber seal between them do you think this could suffice?

maybe three drywall layers thick?

I don't have to eliminate the noise .. just enough so it sounds like a radio is on "loudly" but not noise complaint loud ..

-richie :thumb:
 
PRR has it with the mass issue. Good isolation and good sound are two different entities.

To stop transmission you have to aviod all coupling to the outside structure which is very hard to do without seriously encroaching on your space and budget. In terms of adding mass to at least minimise leakage, if you do triple up on the drywall - go for three different thicknesses and seal all gaps between panels before adding each subsequent layer. If you can stagger the joins so that panel divisions are in no two same places through out the layers then you will improve the performance many times over.

ie. where a full panel is ------panel------ and / is a join.

Layer 1 ------panel------/------panel------/------panel------
Layer 2 panel------/------panel------/------panel------/-----
Layer 3 ----/------panel------/------panel------/------panel-

By using three different thicknesses of drywall you will improve TL over using three equal thickness panels by substantial amount. If you were to build in a new stud mounted room, then have an air gap (10cm-ish) and absorption material between the outerwall and the multi-skinned internal walls.

The floor I'm afraid is always going to be the weak point of the structure for a number of reasons. Adding mass to the floor will help with TL but without an air gap (i.e floating) in the floor, you will always suffer from coupling and low frequencies will transmit down to your neighbours. It will also compromise the entire inner room as it will couple through to the outer walls. However you could probably get pretty good isolation above say 500Hz.

One advantage if you can't add too much mass is the fact that really low freqs should pass through to the outside world, helping you with your trapping issues.

You will also have to make sure the floor / building is load bearing enough for the weight of an internal room plus mass floor.

I say add mass to the floor, walls and ceiling if you can, you will lose maybe 20-25cm height. And then build a floating drum riser to further isolate the kick from downstairs. Thats probably the best you could do give then circumstance....unless you try and float walls and a new ceiling - which might not be worth it if you don't have the height. As you could make it tricky to treat if the height is decreased to the point where you need too much absorption to reduce comb filtering and flutters.

Once you've sorted that you'll know how it sounds and can add treatment accordingly. Trapping would be the most critical and PRRs right too much absorption will likely kill your HF, and shorten RT60, making you play louder.

Non-parallel walls help reduce standing waves and flutter. Anywhere you can't avoid parallel surfaces...(ceiling-floor maybe if its not that high) add a broadband absorber to reduce flutter echoes. If you have high ceilings >12ft, maybe try some diffusors (you can make poly diffusors and quadratics easily out of plywood).

Good luck. Post piccies!!!! I reccomend getting Alton F. Everests book - its the bible. If you can't find one - try Glen Ballou's handbook for sound engineers - there is a lot of good Everest stuff in that concerning mass, STC and transmission.

-Tom
 
yes.. indeed

it is a small but mighty room

the first time my bedroom hasn't been my "studio area"

Thank you for the very detailed help .. I think I'm going to turn to the attic I spoke of.. there I can build a new frame and have plenty of room.. I figured out a cheap way to get circulation to it.

I lifted up some of the floor boards last night and I can get into my studio room directly below it. From a window downstairs. I can bring cool air up via a window fan and then having a plastic tube direct the air straight up into the attic.

This avoids noise from the fan while recording and me ripping a hole in the roof for fresh air.

I'm going to build a floating drum riser 10cm air and then the floor i'll use a sheet of plywood then drywall and a rubber layer then carpet. I'll put rubber between all the contacts with the rest of the house.


Tom.. I'll plan on using your layering idea for the walls .. it doesn't sound that costly .. drywall is cheap and so is wood. just have to lug it up three floors
:grin:

best
richie
 
pics to follow ... I think i'll have the band help me lug all of it upstairs this weekend

check it out

www.myspace.com/aficionado
 
I don't know anything about the specifics of your apartment, but in general, attics are often not built to carry heavy loads (multiple layers of drywall really add up). How hefty are the joists up there? Do they span a wide room below with no load bearing walls? It would suck to end up with your drumset on the second floor with a pile of debris...

A P
 
Quick comment:

I'm not sure what your time frame for this project is, but make sure you've done your homework on the matter and don't rush into things. I'm reading a very good book by Rod Gervais on studio construction. And he makes a very good point that your isolation is only as good as your weakest link, and that there's nothing worse than spending a bunch of money only to have "ok" isolation at best.

As AP suggested, take into account the loading that a VERY heavy wall will introduce to your structure.
 
At times like this I have what I call "kings new cloths" questions. questions SO dumb they might be pertinent.

Why not hire space somewhere? I used to visit a place in South London that was a converted factory 4 stories high 20 rooms long on each side. Musicians would rent space by the month. It was a musical pigion loft.

Face it, how many people build their own gym AND use it? Naa! It just sits there. Now a gym membership - you see that money going out and forces you out ....... and you might just socialise.

Warning, don't loan your kit to a studio - they'll murder it.
 
I ripped up the floor a bit today to check on that

they are 2X6 beams spaced every foot.. Also the attic extends over our porch leaving a wall i can stradle my wait on. I'll build the room half over the porch and half on my studio room.

Does anyone object to having 4-5 hundred pounds of material on something like that?

Since im floating the floor I'll be distributing the wait over a larger area.

I think I'm going to start by building a 8X10 rectangle .. to not make it so heavy .. since the room will be "dead" sounding I don't see any advantages to having a larger "dead" room.

I think 4 or 5 hundred pounds may be an over estimate for a room that small.

-richie
 
pbass:

I actually went to check into some out of home options today .. there is a church two houses down from mine .. a drummer plays there all the time ..

I walked over today to introduce myself and the pastor is supposed to give me a call in the next couple of days. I may just end up doing some chores around the church and in turn have free reign of their meeting room where the drums are set up and a hammond b3 organ .. very nice

the room sounds AMAZING!

I'm going to check out some other churches too to see if they'd allow me to use their space in turn for some odd jobs around the place.

-richie
 
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