soundproofing

okay, so, moving into a new place. i'm stoked. perfect room for my studio, except that there's someone else on the other side of one of the walls, and possibly the floor.

is there something simple i can do to help keep the noise in? stack some boards or tack up some blankets? i'm clueless really.

i don't play stuff THAT loud, but i don't want to have to compromise on when/how i write music.

i should add, i'm not talking about room treatment. just soundproofing.

i have been studying this myself and i have been pointed towards the direction of a very stiff insulation foam board you can buy at a place like uh.... dixieline? home depot? lowes? something along that line. they're particularly good for windows, but they will seriously trap the heat inside the room so you might want to figure something out for exhaust if you plan on enclosing a whole room.

yeah, what makes this doable at all is that it's only one wall that i'm worried about in particular...

egg crate foam works, but you have to do a couple of layers. also, if it is just one wall, build a false wall in front of it. start by stapling high density foam to the wall, evenly, and then throw a few sheets of plywood on top of that. you can staple or nail egg crate foam on top of the plywood for extra soundproofing.

  cornelius (aka ben) said:

egg crate foam works, but you have to do a couple of layers. also, if it is just one wall, build a false wall in front of it. start by stapling high density foam to the wall, evenly, and then throw a few sheets of plywood on top of that. you can staple or nail egg crate foam on top of the plywood for extra soundproofing.

you're shitting me... someone else in a different thread told me egg crate was a myth -- or maybe that was egg cartons.

also, i can't do major construction -- i can pound a few nails in the wall, but i can't massacre it.

it'd be nice if i could build something, like a couple of door-sized slabs, that i could just re-use elsewhere if/when i move again.

egg cartons are a myth, i dont know what egg crate foam is, an actual soundproofed block the size of a wall is around 3000 pounds.

there are a variety of materials inbetween egg cartons and genuine soundproofing that will do the job at varying levels.

your best off googling on this one i think.

in order to keep the noise in, you have to basically detach the room you're in from the walls and the floor completely. Anything which includes "put nail into wall" is counterproductive. The best insulation is air, any material will transport sound waves better then air. So in theory, the best insulation is: make a room which hovers in the room you're in, without touching it. Realistically, build an isolation wall or something which touches the outer wall just where its necessary, using instead of nails something that's not resonating a lot, like sponges or so.

egg cartons or carpets and all this crap will not improve sound isolation at all. will just alter the way sound reflects inside your studio, and in most cases to the worse.

  plangplang said:

in order to keep the noise in, you have to basically detach the room you're in from the walls and the floor completely. Anything which includes "put nail into wall" is counterproductive. The best insulation is air, any material will transport sound waves better then air. So in theory, the best insulation is: make a room which hovers in the room you're in, without touching it. Realistically, build an isolation wall or something which touches the outer wall just where its necessary, using instead of nails something that's not resonating a lot, like sponges or so.

 

egg cartons or carpets and all this crap will not improve sound isolation at all. will just alter the way sound reflects inside your studio, and in most cases to the worse.

you can buy expensive soundproofing plates that have multiple vacuums inside them, you dont actually need to suspend the room.

egg cartons rock

  plangplang said:

in order to keep the noise in, you have to basically detach the room you're in from the walls and the floor completely. Anything which includes "put nail into wall" is counterproductive. The best insulation is air, any material will transport sound waves better then air. So in theory, the best insulation is: make a room which hovers in the room you're in, without touching it. Realistically, build an isolation wall or something which touches the outer wall just where its necessary, using instead of nails something that's not resonating a lot, like sponges or so.

 

egg cartons or carpets and all this crap will not improve sound isolation at all. will just alter the way sound reflects inside your studio, and in most cases to the worse.

you forgot to say it also has to hover in a vacuum, sound travels through air too :)

very true point though. i have no hope of totally isolating it, just want to IMPROVE it if i can without major headaches/$$ - that's what i'm looking for out of this thread.

  hahathhat said:

i should add, i'm not talking about room treatment. just soundproofing.

hmm in that case you have a lot of work ahead of you. Room treatment is significantly easier to accomplish than sound proofing.

the way music studios eliminate bleed and create sound proofing is with a technique called room within a room construction. its almost like an elevated room surrounding by air and sound dampening materials

(whoops i repeated what somone else said ).

hat, i honestly think you're kind of fucked. The cheapest solution ive found to what you need is putting a subwoofer inside a couch or inside a mattress. It has to be elevated, free standing not touching the floor and completely surrounded by padding.

even by doing this you're not going to cut down hugely on the bleed through, especially if its just drywall and wood seperating you.

if i were you i would invest in some extremely nice bassy headphones or just kindly talk to your neighbor about the best times to be loud.

well, i'm not too worried. it's not just drywall, this part of the house was a later addition i think, used to be outside of the house where it is.

i guess it boils down to -- if i can make it better without it being a headache, i want to. putting the sub on a mattress is exactly the sort of idea i'm looking for. i'm moving and i happen to have a spare!!

maybe tack an old comforter up over the wall?

or the mattress itself...

  hahathhat said:

you forgot to say it also has to hover in a vacuum, sound travels through air too :)

most of the studios I've been to hover in air and you can't hear anything outside, even professional microphone windscreens use air to avoid unwanted noises

air is great.

gtfo

can we maybe have a diagram of the floorplan to see how much space we have to work with etc.? I dunno.

i don't think it's gonna be necessary anyways. did some 4 am composing at a comfortable volume, and the neighbors didn't even seem to notice. if something's fun/easy i'll still consider it...

it's 2:15 AM and i've put on winnipeg is a frozen shithole. we'll see how it goes

how'd it go?

did he get murdered?

respond!! AAA

still alive. the wall is pretty thick, they didn't seem to care. i spoke with mrs. neighbor yesterday and she didn't seem upset about anything, but i didn't bring the subject up. i also think their tv room or something is on the other side; not a room they use during off-hours, and noise is fine during the day.

im really lucky to have my room situated where it is, i can full on hamer the piano and have my moniters on half volume (whcih is loud) 24 hours a day and the neighbors dont even hear it.

i could probably push it further than i have been... i'll ramp it up a bit eventually, just want to be gentle with my new neighbor-friends :)

honestly, though, i consider myself lucky too. i couldn't hold a concert in here past 9pm, but 24 hours a day i can have it loud enough to work comfortably -- and that's what matters!

they actually have a piano, i think, and i can hear it in the living room, but not my studio... and i think it's on the other side of the studio wall!!

thickest wall in the house, conveniently so.