Am I completely wasting my time? (soundproofing method)

[metallicarocks]

I'm trying to soundproof the basement in our new house. (my reason for not visiting in a while, I've been moving!) I don't want to spend a lot of money, because I'm cheap that way. I really don't think that buying $500+ of egg crate foam is the most cost efficient way of doing this. I bought a slab of special soundproofing foam that doesn't appear to do a goddamn thing. In fact, I don't notice anything along that wall outside, not anything drastic enough for how much I paid for it especially.

So, here's what I'm trying.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d68/vandyman/soundproof001.jpg

I'm bending up some cardboard into points that will hopefully do all that the egg crate shit is supposed to do, for free. Anybody ever tried this? If not, I'll be sure to let you all know how it turns out!

The other idea that we had was to take the soft, cushion layer that you see under your carpet and throw that along the walls. My train of thought is if the cardboard thing doesn't work, throw this over the cardboard maybe to have just that much more protection. Any thoughts?

Thanks y'all! Good to be back!

(P.S. New changes to the board are lookin' good!)

[jackson1]

If you are soundproofing your basement to avoid making noise heard outside, you're completely wasting your time. For that, you need heavy walls and ceiling, no windows, thick doors and everything air tight. Keywords: heavy materials and airtight.

If not, if you just want better sound inside the room, a cheap-ass ugly method but very effective, would be to hang some thick carpets from the ceiling to the floor, close to the walls. Hang it like a curtain - with foldings. Leave a gap of at least 4 inches between the wall and the carpet - a lot of bass rumble will be trapped in there. Throw a lot of gear and furniture in there and all is good.

That way, you'll have a nice semi-dead room where you can hear every single beat and missed notes.

Don't go too far with dampening - drums and guitars sound horrible in a dead room.

[St.James]

I converted my garage into a "studio" and I go out there at all hours of the night and morning and don't hold a thing back as far as sound goes. The foam alone won't do shit and you have to make sure it's soundproofing foam, because that bedding foam is not dense enough to do the job.

Here's what I did. i bought acoustic tiles and covered the ceiling and walls with it. Then I covered the walls with carpet with the padding under it. Then I covered the carpet with sound proofing foam.

Now, that does not 100% soundproof it. Just guitar you can't hear at all from the outside, but drums and bass you can still hear pretty well, but keep in mind this a garage and I have a window unit AC/heater out there that allows a lot of sound to escape.

If I had the time to really jump into soundproofing, I'd rip it all down, pack the walls tightly with insulation, sheet rock it, then put the acoustic tiles, carpet and foam back up and that would probably reduce the outside noise quite a bit.

Another fairly inexpensive thing you can use, especially in the corners of the room, is U-Haul blankets. Last time I looked they cost about $15 each. These things are thick, heavy and cover a lot of space.

Another thing to keep in mind is your neighbors. Are they cool or dicks that will call the cops at the slightest hint of noise? My neighbors are all pretty cool. I know the people to the left of me, partiers to the right and partiers to the rear who will party hard and loud for days at a time.

So your neighbors may depend on how far you need to go. Your jam schedule may depend on it too. If you are night owl like me you may run into problems.

[metallicarocks]

Shit. I guess maybe I'll have a dead room at least. This will have to go as far as it can, because we are far from airtight and it would cost thousands to make it that. Do you think it will decrease the noise heard outside at least a little? I really don't want any bitching from the neighbors, that shit could get us evicted. The drumset doesn't seem to sound so loud when I stand outside, and we practice during the day when there's noise outside anyway.

We'll probably end up doing this and then throwing the foam over it. Will that do much? I personally don't give a fuck about a dead room. If anything I liked the reverb we got from the cement floor and brick walls. I just want to have it as quiet as possible. I'm not going for dead quiet as soon as I shut the door behind me, I just don't want it to be intrusive to the neighbors. I think we're sliding by okay with the level we have, but that's going out the window when the halfstacks get here. I'm not buying a halfstack to practice in my bedroom for christ's sake!

Thanks for any ideas.


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Missed St. Jame's post

Here's what I did. i bought acoustic tiles and covered the ceiling and walls with it. Then I covered the walls with carpet with the padding under it. Then I covered the carpet with sound proofing foam.

Sounds really pricy. One slab of sound proofing foam that I bought (looks to be about 4x10') cost me $30. Coating the room in that stuff alone would cost at least $400. A budget that I would come up with only if it did A LOT of good.

How much were those acoustic tiles? Much of our basement has sheetrock and insulation already. If it did that much for you, I might be able to come up with a budget of maybe $600. I've got very roughly 640 sq ft. to cover.

Again any tips, ideas, or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[St.James]

If you have brick walls, dude you shouldn't have much of a problem. My garage only has thin ass paneling, no insulation. I did put new siding up last summer. Left the blackboard up and put thinsulation over that and then the siding. I used dense hard board instead of standard siding material though.

I'd pack the windows up as tight as I could though. Double up on those U-Haul blankets in areas that may leak the most sound.

[jackson1]

.. I just don't want it to be intrusive to the neighbors.

Bass guitar and bass drum will travel through all material except dense, heavy material.

Think of a window, a light wall or a light door as a drum head. Every time low frequencies are hitting that drum head, it starts vibrating, thus giving out sound.

Your thin walls and windows etc. are drum heads - a major pain in the ass for the neighbours.

You need heavy stuff to absorb and kill the bass.

The airtightness will stop high frequency noise (upper guitar tones, cymbals).

[metallicarocks]

If you have brick walls, dude you shouldn't have much of a problem.

I'd have thought so too, but it doesn't seem to be doing it's job. I'll go around and seal up the windows with that slab of foam that I bought and see what that does. I'll give those Uhaul blankets a shot as well.

Thanks!

[El_Kabong]

When I was young and poor, we used old matresses to line the walls for soundproofing.

[Infernal Death]

One of the best sources about this topic is:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

Oh and for soundproofing you normally need a "room in a room". Means you need to build a smaller room inside your normal room which is acoustically independent to the big room. And this means big $$$. I don't think you can make a room soundproof with a small budget.

Flo

[veemagic]

Air gaps are the trick. The "room inside a room" is quite right. I am in the process of doing just that in my studio and rehearsal space. IF you have it down to the framing you insulate well, drywall, space out 1/2" - 3/4" and add another layer of drywall. Then attack the walls with your sound deading material. Of course, as stated before, doors/windows and any other holes will kill your efforts.

[veemagic]

Air gaps are the trick. The "room inside a room" is quite right. I am in the process of doing just that in my studio and rehearsal space. IF you have it down to the framing you insulate well, drywall, space out 1/2" - 3/4" and add another layer of drywall. Then attack the walls with your sound deading material. Of course, as stated before, doors/windows and any other holes will kill your efforts.

[veemagic]

Air gaps are the trick. The "room inside a room" is quite right. I am in the process of doing just that in my studio and rehearsal space. IF you have it down to the framing you insulate well, drywall, space out 1/2" - 3/4" and add another layer of drywall. Then attack the walls with your sound deading material. Of course, as stated before, doors/windows and any other holes will kill your efforts.

[metallicarocks]

Well, the Uhaul blankets helped out the windows a lot. I'm not too worried about it now. We had our first practice without any complaints. We didn't turn down or do anything special, just played at our normal volume.

Thanks for all of the tips, if nothing else they will be helpful for future efforts.

[VitaminG]

you guys that have sound proof rooms set up, what do you do for ventilation? If you can't have an aircon unit because it provides an avenue for sound to escape, how do you survive in there without falling over? Having a bunch of bodies locked up in a room for several hours, working up a sweat, doesn't it get sweltering in there? And what does it do for your instruments? Or are these not so much rehearsal spaces, more just small recording rooms? Even so, wouldn't you eventually pass out from your own recycled exhaust? Carbon monoxide poisoning, baby!