Thin walls, door window, small spaces and gaps between floor and walls

J

jdenmo

New member
Hey guys,

Turning my room into somewhat of a "garage rock band" set-up for live rehearsal as well as recording. My room is about 10 x 15ft with a closet that goes about 3 ft in where I have my desk and computer set up.

I've been watching "Music Studio Setup and Acoustics" with Bob Oswinski on Lynda and he went over the basics. The most effective way to significantly decrease the sound heard outside my room would be increasing wall mass with dry wall, extra insulation, a room inside a room, .etc .etc.

But I won't be able to do that- building or modifying on my current wall. However, I figure I can atleast fix up the little things. Also note this house is close to 100 years old- and in the photos the floors look a bit dirty but thats cause I just moved around a bunch of stuff haha.

ALBUM WITH PHOTOS: Roomfix - Album on Imgur


So right now I have a huge door with an old window on top of it. I hear that sound travels right through windows but it's wedged in their and I cant seem to get it out. Over the months as an amateur I just shoved blankets, t-shirts, sweaters and general into these little cracks with minimal success. I've been considering packing some sort of foam/pillows over it.

Another thing is the small cracks between my floor and walls- I took the carpeting out 2 or 3 years ago which left a 0.5 to 2 inch gap all along the bottom of the wall. Now I have 4 walls but realistically 2 are the outsides of the house, and the other half of one (other half is closet) also reaches the other side of the house. So basically the 1 wall (and corner w/ door pictured in image below) is where most of these gaps are.

So I'm just looking for any tips or advice to deal with these small orifices since I can't dramatically re-construct my walls. In addition to this I'm looking into what I could hang on my wall to kill sound as well but we'll get to that later. I'm thinking I could use some sort of filling here?

Any information is appreciated guys. Thanks.
 
For the wall to floor cracks, you can fill them with joint compound then cover it with baseboard moulding, then seal the baseboard with caulk. But that won't help keep sound out if you have huge gaps elsewhere and if the walls are thin. Honestly, there's not going to be much you can do to minimize sound leakage. For the window over the door, you can make a plug from plywood or MDF. Cover it or paint it to look nice. Seal it with caulk.

If you really need to minimize sound leakage, then you have to consider adding more drywall on both the walls and the ceilings. But that adds a lot of weight to the house. Before you buy the drywall, you absolutely need to get an engineer to calculate the load and approve the modification. That in itself can get expensive. But think about how expensive it would be if your floor failed due to loading and the insurance company doesn't pay. Or , if you think it's not that heavy, but then have other problems with your 100 yr old house, the insurance still won't pay due to an uninspected modification. Even if the other problem is completely unrelated to the studio.

So, then you have to get creative for practice and recording. Look at other venues. Rehearsal studios, other people's houses, a band member's business after hours. Look at schedules, maybe you can practice when no one else is around.

For recording, you can do a lot in the box and DI everything without making a lot of noise.

Or, just make a lot of noise and don't worry about it until the cops knock on the door.
 
Chili said:
If you really need to minimize sound leakage, then you have to consider adding more drywall on both the walls and the ceilings. But that adds a lot of weight to the house. Before you buy the drywall, you absolutely need to get an engineer to calculate the load and approve the modification. That in itself can get expensive. But think about how expensive it would be if your floor failed due to loading and the insurance company doesn't pay..
Click to expand...


^^^^^


For soundproofing, it's always about mass and density....there's just no way to get around that.
 
Do you own the house? The frame on that transom window over the door has no doubt been painted so many times is why you can't get it out. You'll have to take a hammer to it and bust it into pieces to remove it. Then you can put an insulated sheetrock patch in. They had those in rooms in old houses where there was no central heat, so you could open them up and let the air circulate.
Adding a layer of sheetrock to a wall or two is unlikely to cause any structural issues - but its also unlikely to make much of a difference in sound transmission, either. Best you're going to do is absorb some of the sound in the room (which means less is going to transfer out) - so put some bass traps up on the walls/corners, put resilient rubber pads under any amps.
 
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