Help me Help my Neighbors!

[bradly]

I am new to all this so I need some help getting my studio setup. I don't even know if what I want is actually called a studio, because it more for just for jamming and messing around with as opposed to recording. Anyways here is my problem.

My parents are letting me use their garage. I get a little over half of it which comes out to about 12' by 20'. Not exactly a whole lot of room, but at least it's something.

What I need is some sort of sound isolation. I don't need anything crazy, just enough to keep the neighbors of my back when playing the drums during the day. The problem is I can't really build a wall because, one, it's my parents garage, and two, if you look at the picture below you can see all the electrical boxes and garage door opener that I would have to deal with.

My dad wants to put a row of those six foot heigh home-depot garage cabinet things and then carpet running from the ceiling to the tops of the cabinets. Is this going to do anything. Are there any other/better options for me to limit too much sound from getting out of the garage? How effective are drum shields? I don't really care about sound going into the house, so if I put the drums against a house wall and then put a shield around them would that make a big difference? Thanks guys for any help, Let me know if you have any questions.

-bradly

 

[fitZ2]

How effective are drum shields? I don't really care about sound going into the house, so if I put the drums against a house wall and then put a shield around them would that make a big difference?

They may help a little, but drums are very difficult to isolate. Unless you can build isolation walls with lots of mass, especially in front of the garage door, there isn't much that will stop this kind of sound, as it easily goes around baffles, gobos, shields, or what ever you want to call them. They are basically for isolating the mics around the drums from other instruments, NOT to keep the sound from transmitting through adjacent walls. Sound is transmitted via air or structurally. Impact sounds of drums do both. You could build an "isolated platform" with very high "gobos", but at best, it will still leak out side, although attenuated somewhat. These conditions are the most difficult to suggest solutions for, as you can't build anything that will truly do the job, and there are NO shortcuts for isolation of drums. Good luck.
fitZ