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Building a basement studio - Sound Isolation

MaxThroughput

MaxThroughput

Guest
Nov 9, 2015
214
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Cleveland, OH - West Park
#1
Hey All,

My girlfriend and I are buying a house and part of the deal is I get to turn a room of the basement into my music studio. The house has a nice finished attic that she will be using as a get away area. The goal here is to isolate the sound enough to where she will not be able to hear band practice in the attic, which is 2 floors above. Additionally, the neighbors are about 25 feet away and I do not want to disturb them.

The house is made of brick, which should deaden some sound from the outside. It also has steam heat, so there will be no duct work for the sound to travel through.

The basement studio has a working brick fireplace, 2 outside brick walls, and 2 inside drywall walls, one of which has a doorway. The total size of the area is approximately 200 sq ft. The ceiling is already finished. I have attached a picture of the room.

I've read that tearing out the ceiling may be in order at least to see if there is dead space between the dry wall and the floor above.

Where should I start? Are my goals realistic? My budget is $2000 and I will be doing all the work myself.

Thanks.
 

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#2
it is possible, not that easy though. We rehearse in a room that´s 3-4ft higher in the ground, can see the actual neighborhood through the windows.

Going around the house, you can hear the sound coming through the windows, but it´s not obnoxiously loud, even though we did not do anything to the windows or the glass yet. If we´d build the soundblocker for the windows just like we planned to, there wouldn´t be a lot left to be heard.
In the first floor, above the rehearsal room, it´s still really loud. Second floor, it´s okay, but not entirely silent.

Noise inside the house is more of a problem. You have the following options:
- build a room inside the room. Very Expensive, lots of work, needs ventilation behind the newly created walls. Best acoustical solution though.
- build a new floor in the music studio, "swimming" on isolation material. Works very well for lowest frequencies, as long as it doesn´t have any contact to the walls! Got that one in my studio, acts as a huge bass absorbing block as well (rockwool underneath). Doesn´t help at all above 60-80Hz though, that shít will keep barking through the house
- build a second ceiling, filled with insulation (1ft thickness or more! Low freqs need thicker insulation to be absorbed, and low freqs are what´s travelling through your house)
- Get a heavy security door for the music studio. Keeps a bit more noise inside than your usual doors.
 
#5
If you'll be hosting all kinds of bands at all hours, a room within a room is ideal. But your OP mentions the goal is to host band practice, singular. If you're talking about one band, dealing with isolation will depend on personnel, playing habits, and flexibility. (How loud are the drummer, guitarists, etc? How flexible is the gear situation? Do the vocalists like to use IEM?)

If the drums and overall volume are reasonable, I'd be inclined to block the big openings (windows and fireplace) w/ fitted layers of different densities (for example, plywood alternating w/ foam). That should be enough to avoid infuriating your neighbors and girlfriend during a shake-out rehearsal to find out how much spill (and what types) are actual problems. Ideally, I'd want to have a looper pedal for the bass and a sound meter. Then I'd have the band jam along to a verse/chorus bass loop or two while I checked (by ear and by meter) the volume from the 2nd floor and from the property lines by the closest neighbor.

You might find that the practical solution(s) to the actual noise problems are relatively modest. (For example, maybe the kick drum will turn out to be your only real problem for the near neighbors and the 2nd floor, and you can address that problem either with an acoustically-decoupled drum floor or small drum room.)

In the worst case, you'll find that the band is really loud and that the room has *a lot* of mechanical acoustic coupling to the exterior walls, and you'll ultimately need either full RWAR isolation, or else electronic drums much smaller amps. But even in this worst case, you'll know the kind and scale of acoustic problems before investing time and money chasing a lot of half-measures.
 
#6
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#7
Hey man, best of luck on the project! I bet it will be awesome when you're finished! :bassist:

Some things to remember:

Mass isolates sound. If you want isolation between rooms, MASS.
Using acoustic absorption (regarding the frequency response of your room)
is a different story. It's popular to use stiff boards (4-8" thick) of rigid insulation for
lower frequencies (which are the trickiest to get a handle of).
However, this is not as effective as using 15" or so of regular, fluffy insulation.
This is due to gas flow resistance properties. If you have the space, use the regular fluffy stuff.
If you need proof of my last assertion, I'll see if I can dig up a great NASA white paper that I
have on the subject.

Hope this helps man! All the best!

Gideon
 
#11
silky smoove said:
Mass, dampening and decoupling all isolate sound to varying degrees.

Rigid works comparably to pink fluffy stuff when applied across a corner with an air gap behind it. The difference becomes the trapping frequencies achieved. Either is great depending on your needs.
Click to expand...

I agree that the rigid stuff can work almost as well, but often times at 5 times the cost. That being said, if you don't have the room, it's a
good compromise.

Great point about dampening and decoupling. Reducing the transfer of vibrations everywhere is the goal. :thumbsup:
 
#14
Gideon352 said:
I agree that the rigid stuff can work almost as well, but often times at 5 times the cost. That being said, if you don't have the room, it's a
good compromise.

Great point about dampening and decoupling. Reducing the transfer of vibrations everywhere is the goal. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
The rigid stuff is definitely more expensive. I have 15 sheets of 703 going into my studio and need about three more. In terms of performance the rigid stuff with an air gap straddling a corner is highly effective, and seems to trap slightly higher frequencies than the pink fluffy "superchunk" style in a corner. Depending on the room, monitors, and requirements that might be a good thing. Measure, trap, measure, trap, repeat ad infinitum, haha.
 
#18
As others have mentioned, it's going to be a long, expensive process to get excellent sound isolation. Depending on your budget, I might recommend doing everything you can to make the room sound as good as possible from within. If you can get the room to sound amazing while you are in it, you will be able to play at lower volumes while retaining good sound quality.
 

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