# Sound proofing.



## SnowBlind

Has anyone here ever sound proofed a room in their house before? Does this material cost a lot? Im guessing it would be totally worth it though.


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## imbackagain2

You can hang matts or blankets on the walls or use egg cartons as an alternative to paying alot of money. IT would totally sound proof but it will condense the sound a little I would imagine. You could always just pack tons of insulation in your walls.


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## SnowBlind

imbackagain2 said:


> You can hang matts or blankets on the walls or use egg cartons as an alternative to paying alot of money. IT would totally sound proof but it will condense the sound a little I would imagine. You could always just pack tons of insulation in your walls.


I also dont want the room to look like crap by having egg cartons everywhere. I guess theres no real solution.


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## Lester B. Flat

Are you trying to create a recording environment or keep sound from disturbing the neighbors? If you're trying to keep sound from escaping, you almost have to build a room within a room with an insulated space in between floor, walls and ceiling. If you just want to create a studio, invite your friends over for omelettes, use soft furniture and basically avoid hard flat surfaces. It depends a lot on the building construction as well. (wood or concrete). Egg crates, baffles and blankets will keep some sound from escaping as well. Bass is the hardest thing to contain.


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## SnowBlind

Hmm, What if I put one layer of plywood on all the walls? will this significantly help?


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## SnowBlind

I just dont want the neighbours to hear me play.


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## Emohawk

I was looking into this a little while ago. Here's a link to a manufacturers site.

http://www.controlnoise.com/

It'll give you an idea of some of the options, and what kind of results you can expect.


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## Lester B. Flat

SnowBlind said:


> Hmm, What if I put one layer of plywood on all the walls? will this significantly help?


It would only help marginally if it was'nt touching the existing walls and there was a dampening layer in between. If you just nail up plywood directly on to the existing wall it will simply transfer the sound. Wood, afterall, is a good sound transmitter and that's why they make guitars out of it. Sheets of 3/4" foamcore board (used for mounting photographs, you'll find it at an art supplies shop) would be better than plywood, maybe cheaper too, but I'd still leave a space in between it and the outer wall. You want to stop it before it gets to the wall. Aiming the amp away from the direction of the neighbors would also help reduce some of the direct force.

P.S. Some good info at Emohawk's link. You could also try insulating the amp itself by keeping it off the floor, maybe set it in an upholstered chair. This might keep some of the lower frequencies from travelling.


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## SnowBlind

Lester B. Flat said:


> It would only help marginally if it was'nt touching the existing walls and there was a dampening layer in between. If you just nail up plywood directly on to the existing wall it will simply transfer the sound. Wood, afterall, is a good sound transmitter and that's why they make guitars out of it. Sheets of 3/4" foamcore board (used for mounting photographs, you'll find it at an art supplies shop) would be better than plywood, maybe cheaper too, but I'd still leave a space in between it and the outer wall. You want to stop it before it gets to the wall. Aiming the amp away from the direction of the neighbors would also help reduce some of the direct force.
> 
> P.S. Some good info at Emohawk's link. You could also try insulating the amp itself by keeping it off the floor, maybe set it in an upholstered chair. This might keep some of the lower frequencies from travelling.


You just gave me a retarded idea that might work. How about I create a funnel type thing attached to the speaker end of the amp. This will direct the sound much more narrow.But its not going to be much of a funnel. More like something that makes the speaker project sound forwards.


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## Lester B. Flat

Well, that might make a small difference to you inside the room. Most of the sound leakage is through physical vibration of the walls, floor and ceiling, and most of that is lower frequencies which are omni-directional. High frequencies travel in straight lines and most of those are not getting out anyway.


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## Beatles

SnowBlind said:


> Has anyone here ever sound proofed a room in their house before? Does this material cost a lot? Im guessing it would be totally worth it though.


What exactly are you trying to do in your room? Do you play drums? Guitar? is the room in a basement? If you're looking to do any soundproofing, forget about blankets and egg cartons. Totally useless. 

If your room is in the basment, the best way is to frame the room with metal studs.Fill the framing with mineral wool (Roxul Safe n Sound works well). Screw resilient channels into the studs. Then screw a layer of drywall into the reslient channels. Put a second layer of drywall on top of the first layer. Do the same for the ceiling Use acoustic caulking on all the joints. You'd also have to build a floor (use neoprene underneath plywood). Like a previous post said.. you need mass. it's the only way to stop sound transmission. You have to decouple the walls. floor and ceiling from the rest of the house. Again, like building a room within a room. Solid core doors too. Don't forget windows. You'd have to build something that would cover a window a couple of layers of MDF would do. Electrical outlets and switches would have to be sealed too. This topic can go to great lengths, but is gives you a BASIC idea of what is required to soundproof a room. If you just want to keep the volume of your amp under control, you can just build an isolation cabinet.


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## SkunkWorks

As already stated, soundproofing (as opposed to sound treating) needs to be done properly in order to be effective... and to be done properly is not going to be cheap no matter which way you do it.

Sound treating is a completely different ball game... and although it isn't really what your question was about, I just wanted to say that I've seen several posts recommending egg cartons/crates which, although might provide some diffusion, will not absorb and are a huge fire hazzard. Just wanted to put that out there for anyone who is considering plastering a room with them... if safety is a consideration at all.


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## Hamm Guitars

I'm with Lester on this one,

A room inside a room that is isolated with materials that do not transmist vibation easily (rubber or some other pupose made material) is the way to go. It does not have to be expensive as all you need to build is a sound booth, big enough to put whatever you need to record inside of it.

If you are recording drums, or what to record a whole band live off the floor, then you are going to need a big booth.

If you construct the room from wood framing, use silicone in all of your joints. You want to try to eliminate hard surfaces that contact other hard surfaces - this is especially true for the wall coverings themselves. Try not too have the wall coverings fit tightly together, leave gaps - it doesn't look as nice, but it serves a purpose.

Use accoustic insulation inside the walls and wrap the whole thing in a vapour barier. The door will need to be sealed with either a rubber gasket or silicone. Use a hollow door that is filled with foam or insulation (You can buy a cheap door and fill it yourself), and put silicone under the hinges when they are installed.

Keeping the sound down to appease the neighbors is one thing, but more importantly you don't want to contaminate your controll room with the actual source sounds. It should get the same treatment and in no way should be coupled to the recording booth.

If this is all going too far, you can make a 'tent' room that will help somewhat. I use electric blankets (I don't plug them in of course) behind the backdrop on really live stages and they deaden things quite nicely. Electric blankets are fire resistant (which is why I use them), and you can pick them up at a thrift store by the boatload for two bucks a piece. Don't fasten them directly to the wall, hang then in front of it, and let them hang loosely from the ceiling. More layers, not toching each other, give you more attenuation outside of the tent. Inside the tent is going to be very dead as well. The blankets will not do much to attenuate lower frequencies though.

Putting plywood on your walls could cause the room to become louder, as wood conducts sound vibrations pretty well. The room inside will also be pretty live. Add plywood walls and ceiling a concreate floor and a hard hitting drummer = deafness.


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## Beatles

Hamm Guitars said:


> I'm with Lester on this one,
> 
> A room inside a room that is isolated with materials that do not transmist vibation easily (rubber or some other pupose made material) is the way to go. It does not have to be expensive as all you need to build is a sound booth, big enough to put whatever you need to record inside of it.
> 
> If you construct the room from wood framing, use silicone in all of your joints.


In order to stop sound transmission, you need mass. And lots of it. Two layers of drywall minimum.

What you should be using is acoustic caulking in all your joints. Rather than use wood framing, if you can, use metal studs. They have a better efficient than wood studs.



> You want to try to eliminate hard surfaces that contact other hard surfaces - this is especially true for the wall coverings themselves. Try not too have the wall coverings fit tightly together, leave gaps - it doesn't look as nice, but it serves a purpose.


This is entirely different from soundproofing. 



> Use accoustic insulation inside the walls and wrap the whole thing in a vapour barier.


Do not wrap anything with a vapour barrier. This defeats the purpose of the insulation. The vapor barrier will reflect the sound transmission back into the room rather than being absorbed by the insulation. Use either Owens Corning 703 acoustic insulation (expensive) or Roxul safe n sound (inexpensive) The Roxul also eliminates any need for a vapor barrier.[/QUOTE]




> The door will need to be sealed with either a rubber gasket or silicone. Use a hollow door that is filled with foam or insulation (You can buy a cheap door and fill it yourself), and put silicone under the hinges when they are installed.


Hollow doors are not necessarily hollow, but in most cases they are chambered, so it would be difficult to fill them with anything. You are much better off using a solid core door. A hollow door will still vibrate even if it can be filled. You will also need a proper threshhold. Ideally, two doors are best if you can manage that.


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## MXDAD

Before doing anything I recommend you start reading here --> http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php?sid=f99187d1f4104bb49476d7601ac25783 Look in the studio construction section. 
There is a much more involved than what could be discussed here. Once you get the Mass-Air-Mass principal down it’s all in the details. Where is the best return on your money. For instance if building in a basement you could spend 30% of your budget on a floating floor that would return about a 5% reduction in transition lossß not worth it!

You have to decide where your are now and were you want to be when completed. Measuring outside your room now when playing with a cheap db meter from radio shack will give you a starting point. Then turn down the music/playing till find a level you can live with. Take that reading again. Look to a chart to determine what STC rating will net you that differential and build to that. No sense in spending 3K with a return your not happy with or spending 100k when all you needed to spend was 10k. 

Building two walls is necessary for Mass-Air-Mass but what we are trying to do is stop vibration from transferring. As a result you will most often see a double layer of drywall attached to one wall then an air gap of a few inches then another wall again with two layers of drywall. The caveats here is that if any wall or ceiling drywall touches another your have effectively “shorted” the vibration path and just lost about 10STC from your project. You must leave a 1/4inch gap then fill in with a backer rod then cover with acoustical calking. IF not your tossing away your money.

More on the details. What frequencies do you want to block out? If your playing drums you’ll want to go with 5/8 fire rated drywall. If it only guitar 1/2 may suffice. Why spend more than you have to right?

If it is in a basement in keeping with the Mass-Air-Mass principal you will likely be unhappy just strapping 2 sheets of drywall to the ceiling. To do this effectively you will likely need to beef up the bottom side of your sub-floor with 2 sheets of drywall between the studs creating more mass. Then hang HAT channel off the correct rubber mounted clips to isolate the inside drywall from transferring vibration. Most of what I read tell me that regular pink insulation gets you 80% of the way there spending 20% of the money. I always look for that point of diminishing returns!

I have no practical experience in this but I am in the process of planning out my space and as a result I have 100’s of hours into research. If I can help at all let me know. 

Best book you could buy if considering this is “Build it like the pros do” buy Rod Gervais. Though geared to a recording studio build the principals of sound transmission are universal and easily applied to practice rooms.


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## sysexguy

There's lots of great free info on the web.

go to auralex and download acoustics101 http://www.acoustics101.com and then go to real traps http://www.realtraps.com/videos.htm and grab the DIY pages http://www.ethanwiner.com/basstrap.html. They are trying to sell you something but it's a soft sell and the info is right on (unless you are building a multi million dollar facility (in 2007???) in which case you know everything there is to know about the music biz:tongue: ). 

Gear****z has lots of diy threads and links to diy forums for acoustics but you'll see ****'s in the post 'cause it's a nickname for gear afficionados that rhymes with putz and nutz but is brought to you by the letters "s" and "l" and this board has a banned word scanner....yikes. as if, Q: why don't guitar players laugh at jokes? A: 'cause either it ain't dirty enough...or they already heard it 3 times!

Andy


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