soundproofing a practice room?

[Gabi]

Hi all...

I am planning on partitioning a portion of my future basement to accomodate a 4-5 piece band practice room. Any suggestion on things that I should be aware of? I am specially concerned on soundproofing.
I mean that the other members should preserve their sanity while I loose it down there.

I am thinking of using a regular frame/sheet-rock walls. But I am not sure for the ceiling, etc.

I am sure some of you went trhough this already, and have some tips and clues.
Do you mind sharing them for an un-experienced, please?

thanks,
gabi.

[ampkits]

Hi,

I dont have any experience, either, so this is interesting (I dont plan to soundproof anything though LOL!)

Just to share, lots of bands and studios in Malaysia, where we cant afford specialized materials, use egg crates for sound proofing.

But there seems to be lots o articles on this on HC, as well as Hi Fi sites (altho hi fi focuses on room acoustics).

Thanks!

Nik

[mervgriffen]

Well there's sound "proof" and sound "reduction". I've read a few articles on this. If you really want to soundproof it will cost you. Everything has to be completely sealed and airtight (hmmm......woundnt you suffocate?) .....but as far as sound reduction goes, you want thick walls and alot of stuff and or people in the room to absorb the sound. If its in a basement, throw some old carpet down, and get some thick canvas to drape from the ceiling. Dont stretch it tight, just sort of billow it out so it breaks the sound waves up. Pretty much look for any hard, straight, or shiny surface and cover it up or make it softer, curvier, or duller. My friends have a basement they used to practice in. They tried everything, but the cops kept coming to tell them to turn down......they almost got evicted. You can really cut the noise down if you do it right. If that doesnt work you might have to tie up and gag the neighbors so they cant call the noise police on you. Guess it depends on where you live.

[Bootz]

Gabi,

Go to the following link and select 'Construction' on the left side of the page.

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

Be best way to keep sound from transferring outside of your rehearsal room is to build a room in your basement that doesn't connect to the rest of your house. This will not prevent 100% of the sound from escaping, but will prevent a large percentage from leaking.

If you want sound dampening, find material that will defuse sound and put on the walls and ceiling. We used thick moving blankets in my last band.

The site has some great home studio designs and information. It's a great site IMO.

Good Luck!

Scott

[Graydon]

There are a few things you can do. There are two basic avenues to explore. First of all you want to try as much as possible to keep the sound from going through the walls and ceilings to the other parts of the house. This is called sound transmission. The second is to reduce sound resonance inside your room. This is called acoustic treatment of the soundspace.

For #1, you need to reduce or eliminate any paths which could allow sound to travel to the other rooms. That means building a capsule that is suspended in a vacuum with no solid ties to the rest of the basement. If you can't accomplish that, then you can add supports, lifelines, electrical lines etc. as needed but keep that concept in mind. As an example, I built a semi-anechoic chamber for testing of automobile HVAC components a while back. It was an entire 14' square box that was suspended on large rubber bushings. I had double layers of drywall inside and out and the floor was two layers of 3/4" plywood sitting on top of 1/2" of high density foam on top of the floor joists. The floor floated on the foam so it was not actually touching the floor joists or the walls anywhere. There were only two holes in the ceiling - one to let air in and one to let air out. Both of those had labyrinths through which all the air had to flow. We had carpet on the floor, and 3" thick convoluted foam on the walls and ceiling. The convoluted foam prevented sound from bouncing around in the room. The drywall was a thick dense barrier to sound vibration. Since it is so heavy, it takes alot of sound to move it. Drywall is cheap, so that is certainly a good thing to do in your room.

I also built a semi-studio in my last house's basement. I put acoustic tile on the ceiling and very thick carpet and pad on the floor. This was more for comfort and appearance than acoustics, but I also think it helped the acoustics. Then I built a "sound wall" which is a bass trap and a mid-freq resonator all in one unit. I built a 2x4 wall about 6" away from my concrete foundation and attached a number of horizontal furring strips to the 2x4 wall. I put pink fibreglass insulation in between the concrete and the 2x4 wall. Then I cut 1x3 boards into randomly different lengths and screwed them to the furring strips. The boards were mounted vertically. I attached them leaving a 1/16" space between each board. The space allowed low frequencies to enter the cavity behind the 2x4 wall where they were trapped. The boards all resonated at slightly different frequencies, accentuating the mid-high frequencies in the room. The room ended up being very lively, with a nice short reverb yet it was controlled with no frequencies jumping out at you. It also was not bassy at all. I had to turn down the treble just a little on all my amps.

Many of the photos I posted of my amps and guitars over the last couple years were in front of this wooden board wall so you've probably already seen it. It was finished with a honey minwax over the pine boards.

HTH.

[BirdZeye]

I am also in the planning stages for a basement studio.
Here is some good reading. I think its all about how much you
wish to spend.

http://www.andyneill.com/home_recording_studio.html
http://www.shure.com/shurenotes/feb2003/default.asp

Auralex has got some decent acoustical products, kind of pricey,
but I think I will go for some bass traps for the corners and a few
2x2 panes strategically placed on the walls.

http://www.auralex.com/

Guys at Guitar Ctr recommended Auralex.

Good luck!

Tom

[Gabi]

Guys!

How can I thank you? Invaluable information. I will keep your posts as a reference.
Also the websites rule! When I see those studio plans I go Mmmmmm!!!

But I better not dream big. I should know my limits. One thing I started to do (just as Adam) is draw my basement in AutoCAD. That's been a cool thing!
It is easier to move things around on paper first than on real life.

thanks a lot!

g

[SteveinTempe]

Why I envy you guys they dont have too may basements
here in Arizona The bedrock requires blasting..!
kaboom..

I have a matress over the window in the back bedroom
here ..

Once we had a room in the basement which we took
cardboard and packing foam and lined the Walls
it was that pink foam stuff..
It worked failry well the room was dead
but it was not sound proof..

They also sell sound board at home depot about 6.00 per sheet
its again ok..

The main thing is the drums I think they make low frequncy corner
boxes that help to eliminate the thud from the kick drum.

[Gabi]

Steve... give me a stone wet drill and some TNT... I'll take care of the blast. I know how to do it. I worked in a cole mine. No kidding.

g

[servant]

...I think I will go for some bass traps for the corners and a few 2x2 panes strategically placed on the walls.

Tom

Tom, before you buy anything (and I am assuming that you are a do-it-yourselfer or you probably wouldn't be on the ol' 18 would you?), check out http://ic.net/~jtgale/diy2.htm for some homemade traps. (There is also good info at http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/ but his traps are a lot more labor intensive!) We are doing some DIY acoustical treatments at church and this is one of the projects we are taking on.