How do I keep my sound in my room?

D

Demonstealer

New member
Okay here is the deal


I have a garage where i play my drums
behind my garage about 2meters slighly above the ground there is an old house where a lady resides and basicly claims the drums are too loud and distrubs her alot

how the hell do i prevent the sound from going out in that direction???
I've already faced my drumset away from that side of the garage

should i stickk egg cartons on the walls???
matress foam???

i can do all that drywall and double wall and stuff
i need some simple basic and cost effective soloution
even if it reduces the volume of my drums that escape the room in that direction it will work for me

so anyone here got any ideas??
 
eggcrates and matress foam wont do anything to soundproof your room.

the best bet is to do some reading to find out your best solution here.....

www.johnlsayers.com

sounds like you need some mass on those walls, or a whole nother room for your drums.

can you explain what your garage is made of now
 
its made of brick wall man

and i dont want to do any heavy work
i just want to reduce the volume of sound that escapes the room
i dont care if i hear the world from inside
just need less sound to escape from the back and left side of the room
 
Sound travels through air.

If you want sound to stay in the room you need to make it as airtight as you can until you reach an outdoor volume level you're happy with.
 
Demonstealer said:
i just want to reduce the volume of sound that escapes the room
i dont care if i hear the world from inside
just need less sound to escape from the back and left side of the room
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Sounds goes both ways. If you can hear outside noises then they can hear you.
 
I used to hav the same problem... we fixed it by putting egg cartons from both sides of doors and from one side of walls. Even the Matress foam would work... but you have to make sure there's no air escaping from your room in the direccion you want to decrease the volumen... try by putting some silicone between wall and door (but then you wont opemn the door, unless you figure something better)...

generaly sepaking.... this worked for us... we are not just one drummer, but two guitars, bass guitar and singer... so it was vital for us to keep the sound inside the room... :D
 
egg cartons are good for reducing reverberation inside the room, but they don't magically stop sound transmission.

i think the easiest option for you is to create an air trap on your back wall. do this by sticking a couple of layers of hessian underlay or just plain old carpet to the wall, then hang one or two sheets of carpet or dense underlay about 5 inches from the wall.

this will help to trap some of your bass frequencies and mask out the high end. this is the very least you should do. remember that carpet is free! just check out skips at any carpet layers and keep an eye out for buildings undergoing renovation. you'll find gold more often than you expect!

and do at least something to the other walls, floor and ceiling. just slap carpet on! i know you don't care about the acoustics of the room, but imagine all that reflected sound energy smashing back into the one wall you want to protect. it'd worth your while to cut back on some reverb. an added advantage is that you might get an extra few years of hearing!

don't forget that protecting just the one wall won't stop sound travelling through the connected walls. the best solution is to do as much as you can to every surface.

if you're getting lots of sound transmission through the floor into the walls (bass in particular loves to travel through solid concrete), steal a few wooden palettes from somewhere and make yourself a little platform. pack on some layers of carpet on top of and inside the palettes and put them up on short legs (preferably with rubber shoes) to minimize contact with the ground. this makes it difficult for bass frequencies to travel directly into the floor and makes you feel like you're playing onstage too!

remember that any kind of basic soundproofing takes a lot of work but if you've got scavenging in your blood, it won't cost you more than a couple of boxes of tacks! (if you're real cheap you can save up all the nails that you've pulled out of scrap wood).

if all this is too much to think about, you could always wait for the old lady to die! but you'll be wasting valuable practise time...

good luck!
 
hippy said:
i think the easiest option for you is to create an air trap on your back wall. do this by sticking a couple of layers of hessian underlay or just plain old carpet to the wall, then hang one or two sheets of carpet or dense underlay about 5 inches from the wall.
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but not only will this not create enough mass (or dead air space - in fact it won't create ANY dead air space) to give you isolation for any intent and purpose - but it will create a rather deadly fire trap.

There is no carpet made for installation even ON walls with the exception of Berber - and even that will burn VERY RAPIDLY if it is simply hung in the air.

if you're getting lots of sound transmission through the floor into the walls (bass in particular loves to travel through solid concrete), steal a few wooden palettes from somewhere and make yourself a little platform. pack on some layers of carpet on top of and inside the palettes and put them up on short legs (preferably with rubber shoes) to minimize contact with the ground. this makes it difficult for bass frequencies to travel directly into the floor and makes you feel like you're playing onstage too!
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Same answer as above, this would create an air passage directly below the carpet - and with both sides exposed create another potential death trap.

You already mentioned what you need to do, you need to add drywall - the more mass the better, and (unfortunately) just doing that one wall is not going to get the job done........ sound doesn't travel like that.

ROd
 
Demonstealer said:
its made of brick wall man

and i dont want to do any heavy work
i just want to reduce the volume of sound that escapes the room
i dont care if i hear the world from inside
just need less sound to escape from the back and left side of the room
Click to expand...
Allow me to paraphrase --
"I don't wanna know anything about your stupid theory on sound transmission, and I don't want to exert any effort in any way, just tell me the quick and easy way... after all there must be one, because I can't be bothered to actually learn anything about the subject....."

Gimme a fuckin' break......... :rolleyes:

Sorry buddy, you WILL need to get your ass off the couch after all... the laws of physics and sound transmission don't give a shit if you're a lazy ass or not........ there's no "quick way" to accomplish sound isolation.
 
Gimme a fuckin' break.........
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Couldn't have said it better myself Bear. :D Let me summarize...






Lazy morons get NOTHING. People willing to bust ass get EVERYTHING. You sir, in case you don't get it, are the previous. Get lost.






UNFUCKINGBELIEVEABLE....... give me a break indeed.

fitZ
 
Rod Gervais said:
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but not only will this not create enough mass (or dead air space - in fact it won't create ANY dead air space) to give you isolation for any intent and purpose - but it will create a rather deadly fire trap.

There is no carpet made for installation even ON walls with the exception of Berber - and even that will burn VERY RAPIDLY if it is simply hung in the air.
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bugger, that is bad news indeed. i've done this in a warehouse before and am about to do it in my home. the warehouse never burned down, but you make me rather nervous so i'm gonna need to ask you some dumb questions!

why is it that carpet should burn if air is allowed to flow on both sides of it?

surely this could be prevented if you trap the air completely by sealing the whole thing off...

g
 
hippy said:
why is it that carpet should burn if air is allowed to flow on both sides of it?

surely this could be prevented if you trap the air completely by sealing the whole thing off...

g
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I don't think he meant it would spontaneously explode- just that if it did catch fire since it was hanging free it would burn like hell.

:D :D :D :D :D :D
 
hippy said:
bugger, that is bad news indeed. i've done this in a warehouse before and am about to do it in my home. the warehouse never burned down, but you make me rather nervous so i'm gonna need to ask you some dumb questions!
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Ok - 1st off - understand that you can do anything you want to do........ and even get away with it.

However - that just makes you lucky............

Using anything for a wall covering (or in this case, your own design of a hanging wall) that isn't certified and designed for that use - puts you into a position where your insurance company can abandon you if there was in fact a fire - and where you could possibly even be criminally proscecuted in the event that (God forbid) someone should die in that fire.

On to your questions (and they aren't dumb by the way):

why is it that carpet should burn if air is allowed to flow on both sides of it?
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Carpet will burn regardless of where it is installed - I have seen (and worked on) a lot of fire jobs over the years - and have never seen any carpet make it out that didn't burn......

The issue isn't the carpet burning - it is the speed which the burning progessses at.

Take a piece of paper - 8x12 - lay it flat on top of a surface - set a corner of the paper on fire......... time how long it takes to completely burn.....

Take an indentical piece of paper - hold it up in the air by it's corner - light the lower corner on fire - time how long it takes to completely burn............

Amazing how much faster the fire developes in that 2nd scenerio.......

And THAT - exactly that - is the issue - the time of spread and the developed smoke in that time period.

surely this could be prevented if you trap the air completely by sealing the whole thing off...
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1st off - even assuming you could do that - seal the air off (impossible due to the fact that the carpet breathes freely through the body of the weave) - but let's assume (for just a moment) that you had some magic fairy dust - and once installed - you could sprinkle it over the carpet and create a complete air seal........... WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE FIRE BREAKS THROUGH THE SIDE WALL AND SUDDENLY THE SEAL IS GONE?

You need to take a few moments and think about things here.......

The reason very few carpets are even approved for installation on a wall - and by that I mean glued directly to sheetrock.......... is because the fire spreads too rapidly..........

The carpets that ARE approved - the berber carpets - the act of gluing them to the wall stops the very thing we have been discussing from being able to happen......... when the fire finally breakes through the outer face of the wall - it still does not give you air at the back of the carpet - the air is then inside of the wall cavity - so the fire does not accelerate.

Now let's just get back to the sealing off question - and the fact that this assembly will not work for creating isolation to any extent worth mentioning....

In order to seal off speaces - you need 2 things - you need mass and you need an air seal.

If you have all the mass in the world - but cut a hole through it - it does you no good.........

So please explain to me how you take this mass you suggest using - and create the air seal you would need (let's just talk pretending that the life safety issue didn't exist for a moment).

Rod
 
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Woah.... :eek: Very important this issue here... I believe that safety should be first... No matter if the room is not flat tottaly... I 'd rather do what is left digitally and take some safety rules... like a fire extinguisher perhaps... and trying not to put things so vertically. I was about to put some carpet on one of the walls... I guess I'm not doing this anymore. :cool: ... I'll try to slow down and think of this from another perspective too... not just sound and sound...Everything could be bad in extremes... a very good sound may lack of something... of course... ask a Fireman and he'll tell you how secure and safe your studio is... :)
 
nicolaad30 said:
Woah.... :eek: Very important this issue here... I believe that safety should be first... No matter if the room is not flat tottaly... I 'd rather do what is left digitally and take some safety rules... like a fire extinguisher perhaps... and trying not to put things so vertically. I was about to put some carpet on one of the walls... I guess I'm not doing this anymore. :cool: ... I'll try to slow down and think of this from another perspective too... not just sound and sound...Everything could be bad in extremes... a very good sound may lack of something... of course... ask a Fireman and he'll tell you how secure and safe your studio is... :)
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Actually you can have the best of both worlds.

Simple physics apply in both cases.......

Isolation takes decoupling from the structure and then mass, mass and (for the lower frequencies) more mass.

This can be acheived through some money and hard work (it doesn't cost as much if you put sweat equity into the project).

There are very good sources for construction techniques out there - with very helpfull people (including this one) - so take it one step at a time - ask the questions before you build - figure out what to do and the right way to do it - and then proceed.

Then - after you have the room built with some decent isolation - work with treatments that are safe and designed for the purpose.

Again - go to these types of sources - speak to professionals (and intelligent non-professionals - being a pro doesn't mean no one else knows intelligent solutions) and again determine how you want to proceed.

It can be fun - an education and a lot of hard work - but when you're finished it's all worth it.

Only one caveat here.......... there is no and i do mean NO easy cheap way to make this happen - no magic beans that grow to the clouds - no magic fixes that the pros are just to stupid to figure out.

All of these homemade ideas - the carpet - egg crates - foam from matresses (ya ever see one of those burn? I have) the packing foam (that one only killed over a 100 people in Rhode Island) - all of those bulls**t magic cures to isolate/tune your room - besides being unsafe from a life safety point of view - they also JUST DON'T WORK....... someone might delude themselves to believe they do - but then again we have people all over the world who are hypocondriacs, who aren't sick but still believe they are.........

Rod
 
Rod Gervais said:
So please explain to me how you take this mass you suggest using - and create the air seal you would need (let's just talk pretending that the life safety issue didn't exist for a moment).
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i had figured that as long as it's difficult for the air to move, if you roughly enclose the space in carpet it would still be enough to form a half decent sound barrier, even though carpet can breathe... sorta like air gets trapped underneath your blankets at night and it takes a long time for any farts to waft out =)

but i didn't consider that sound waves don't cause much displacement and would easily push small amounts of air in and out of the weave, thus ruining the effect of the cavity.

what i'm coming to understand is that you really do need an airtight seal for any cavity, otherwise compression from the sound won't be forced to be absorbed or transmitted by the cavity - instead it could leak out the edges and i suppose carry the sound energy off in that direction. is this vaguely right?

so you see my method didn't need magic fairy dust, but i also got poor sound isolation and still had a massive fire (and insurance) risk =) so that's out the window!

do you think there's as much confusion about the properties of carpet as there is about egg cartons and sound isolation?!

cheers rod for taking the time to elaborate on this - i think i was about to make a huge mistake!!! i'm back to the drawing board, doing more research, and in search of some money trees!!!

i still attest though, and this is for demonstealer, anything you do will help your situation. i reckon you could shave off a few decibels with something that's not tooooo dangerous! in one of my old band rooms all we did was hang a single layer of carpet about 3 inches from the walls. more than anything it helped reduce reverb inside the room but it also took the outside sound levels down a notch... not much, admittedly, but some is better than none.

if carpet sounds too evil i still wonder about hessian underlay. as far as i can tell it's woven into a mat and no glues go into making it. that would make it much safer than carpet (am i setting myself up here for more bad news??)

and if in doubt, try playing quieter :D

it would definitely be worth making a batch of scones and visiting the lady next door. come to some agreement where you don't overdo the drumming and she doesn't overdo the complaining. after all, it's not fair for her to get all of the deal and you to get none. i found more often than not, if you have good communication with your neighbours and show them consideration, they'll be much more tolerant. this appears to be the most sound advice i can give (apologies for corny puns).

g
 
"behind my garage about 2meters slighly above the ground there is an old house where a lady resides and basicly claims the drums are too loud and distrubs her alot"

Just Tell Her To "Fuck Off" Wouldn't that be Quicker & cheaper? Isn't That what you're looking for? lol
 
Well, mass does stop noise, but if it is a brick wall you most likely have mass there, but just there?

First of all look at cracks. Most garages, unless they have been well finished, have cracks all around the door. They also usually have a thin and flimsy door a thin roof and no ceiling, and vent holes near the floor. All of those are wide open paths for sound to attack your neighbor. You most likely have poorly sealed single-pane windows.

Your best bet, what I am considering, is building an isolation booth inside the garage.
 
You really an ungratefull ass. You asked for advice. And leople took time to share knowledge with you. And how do you expect to be good and any music making if you dont understand sound? And that attitude will only help you fail. Be grateful Be kind Listen and Learn or quit now.
 
Shellynng said:
You really an ungratefull ass. You asked for advice. And leople took time to share knowledge with you. And how do you expect to be good and any music making if you dont understand sound? And that attitude will only help you fail. Be grateful Be kind Listen and Learn or quit now.
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Nice. You resurrect a 13 years old to call someone an ass???
 
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