soundproofing my basement...

[rucarlso]

A few weeks ago the cops came by to tell my band we were playing a bit loud. In order to keep the fuzz off my back and in order to keep my neighbors happy, I'm trying to do what I can to keep sound from escaping the basement where we play.

The basement is all underground, no walk-out sliding glass door. The room we play in has 1 window to the outside, a cheap plywood door into the adjoining laundry room and then there's the door at the top of the basement stairway.

A friend suggested putting a piece of plexi glass in the window as a way to reflect some sound. He said it would also create a space between the plexi and the actual window glass (about 8 inches) that would serve to diffuse the noise too. I'm not sure if this is true or not. Anyone?

And does anyone have ideas on what I can do to soundproof around those doors? I've heard that egg-crate foam rubber doesn't really do much.

[Garak]

I think the celing would be where most of the sound is excaping.

The first rule of soundproofing is get everything air tight, the seond rule of sound proofing is to have mass.

The easyest thing to do is just turn down the amps and play the drums softer, having everything really loud isn't going to do much to make you sound better.

While some amps need to be run hot to get tone out of them it dosn't mean they have to be loud. You can buy these resistors that you connect inline or in paralelle with the speaker to make the amp run hot without being loud. I can't remember the name of the product off hand, try searching google.