My band practices in a basement, and the people upstairs would like to dampen the sound coming from downstairs at least a LITTLE. What would be some good(preferably fairly cheap as well) ways to cut the noise from penetrating the house? Someone told me to have soundproofing panels of some sort on the door and above the loudest part of our set...??
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Soundproofing
- Thread starter PNS128
- Start date
Unfortunately you can't post a link to search results (why is that? sure would be helpful).
However, common sense says to search for the word "soundproofing" and sit back and read for a while.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/search.php
However, common sense says to search for the word "soundproofing" and sit back and read for a while.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/search.php
already did. unfortunately im not finding much of what im looking for. everyone's saying to build a room inside a room, and though im sure that works, i'm looking for a much cheaper solution. are there any panels or foam products or anything of the sort that we could put like above the drums or anything?? im looking more along the lines of that
foam and panels and such are great for 'deadening' a room (reducing unwanted sound reflections), but aren't going to do too much to increase 'isolation' (reducing the amount of vibration that transfers out of the room). The only way to get isolation is to either add mass or 'dead space'. So you either have to isolate the interior wall with the exterior (room within a room, floated floor, etc...) or add mass (lead, mass loaded vinyl, concrete, double layered drywall, etc... ).
Perhaps a drop ceiling layered with MLV or perhaps even just owens-corning 703 or high quality acoustic tiles would give you the isolation you need... still, not a cheep solution.
There are a lot of misconceptions (and misinformation) about soundproofing out there and just as many snake oil solutions.
There is some good information on [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]. Try searching there for more info.
Good luck
so even foam on the ceiling wouldn't help at all? wouldn't it absorb a lot of the sound in the loudest parts of our area? even slight improvements are improvements
No, it will do almost nothing for soundproofing. It will however possibly make it sound less harsh IN the room.
Plywood would work better than foam for actual soundproofing. You need DENSITY to stop the sound.
This is correct... density or space
Sure it might be a slight improvement. Even foam has some mass, but pretty much negligible
so to get even slightly less sound directly above us, putting a buttload of plywood up like above drums/amps could help? a little?
I think the suggestion was more rhetorical than practical.
If you can't drop the ceiling, then perhaps adding another layer of sheetrock would provide some enhanced isolation... but you would have to do the entire ceiling and even then I doubt that the benefit would justify the expense. You would still be getting vibrations traveling through the materials and into the floor above, even from the studs in the walls contacting the joists and on into the floor above.
You have to understand, the entire room you are in is vibrating, those vibrations transfer into all the connected materials of the building. Those materials vibrate the other materials that they are connected to and eventually it turns the floor and walls above you into one big 'speaker'. The only real way to fix it is to either isolate the room you are in from those other parts of the house (room in a room, drop ceiling, floated floor, resilient channels) or adding mass (extra drywall, lead, mass loaded vinyl, sandbags, poured concrete) or (better yet) both.
I know you are looking for a cheap solution, but there really just isn't one. soundproofing is difficult, that's why it's so expensive to do and why professionals charge and arm and a leg to do it.
Again, there is a lot of information on the web on this topic. That forum I pointed you to earlier is a good place to start. I'll warn you though, if you don't at least to the due diligence to research this stuff a bit yourself, you could end up wasting money on materials and net zero effect on the isolation of the room.
