Temporary solution

P

protein

New member
I wonder if you could help.

I live in a rented house and probably will do for another one or two years. I'm planning on using a room in my house as a live room for drums, guitar amps etc while I use my current room purely as a control room. I'm worried about my neighbours and girlfriend getting pissed off with all these bands in the house making noise all the time.

Since it's a rented house I can't really do any major construction work. The room's walls and ceiling are pretty solid and thick and the only places the sound can escape from is the window and the floorboards (which are currently bare).

I'm planning on sealing up any gaps in the window and door and maybe covering the window up with a board too. I'm also planning on putting up a fair bit of rigid fibreglass. So now I'm stuck with what to do with the floorboards.

Anyone got any ideas?
 
I'm afraid you're not going to have a lot of success.... there's no "quick way" around sound-proofing, which requires specific construction techniques to contain sound to a single area.

Basically, if a room isn't waterproof, it's not soundproof -- so that will give you an idea of the scale of construction required.

What's essentially required is isolation and mass - neither of which can be accomplished without major construction efforts.
 
Well, I have the mass with regards to the walls, I'm sealing the window and putting a heavy board over it, I'm getting a heavy door, sealing the door frame, putting up rigid fibreglass over the door, window board and on parts of the walls...

The only thing is the floor boards.

Would it help to put a layer of fibreglass under the floorboards and then sealing the gaps between the boards and covering the floor with something?

I don't want total isolation here, I just want to be able to have drummers in that room and not feel too guilty. I know that the regular answer here is that there's no quick solution and that I'm going to have to spend hundreds of pounds in construction but I was wondering if there were a few basic steps I could take to stop a little of the sound from escaping.
 
Well, I have the mass with regards to the walls, I'm sealing the window and putting a heavy board over it, I'm getting a heavy door, sealing the door frame, putting up rigid fibreglass over the door, window board and on parts of the walls...

The only thing is the floor boards.

Would it help to put a layer of fibreglass under the floorboards and then sealing the gaps between the boards and covering the floor with something?

I don't want total isolation here, I just want to be able to have drummers in that room and not feel too guilty. I know that the regular answer here is that there's no quick solution and that I'm going to have to spend hundreds of pounds in construction but I was wondering if there were a few basic steps I could take to stop a little of the sound from escaping.
 
It wouldn't hurt to do all that but it may not help enough to be worth the trouble. All it takes is a few square inches of gaps to make all the other soundproofing worthless.

Buying a good solid wood door and sealing the edges would probably help the most with interior soundproofing. Some carpet and thick padding will help stop vibrations (like the kick drum) from being transferred to the rest of the house but it may make the room sound like crap. A drum riser decoupled from the floor with rubber or sand would probably help a bit.
 
Drum riser? Hey, that's pretty clever. I guess that will help dampen the vibrations downward.

I reckon I might buy some thin sheets of wood to place over the floorboards and then seal around the edges with some sort of rubber sealant, put some carpet down and then put a riser on that.

Hmm...
 
Well is what you really looking for is soundproof? A lot of people talk about 'soundproof' when what they are really interested is sound attenuation.

Soundproof is when your band launches into a loud piece and people outside are unaware that the band even exists.

Sound attenuation is when the band launches into a loud piece and the people in the next room can still have a comfortable conversation.

Soundproof has to be perfect. Sound Attenuation has to be good.

The same principles apply to both. Add mass and as few weak links and leaks as possible. Also sound attenuation is different than absorbtion, which aims at controlling sound from bouncing around inside the room, Most sound absorbtive foams and batts are no good at all at stopping sound from going THROUGH them.

What seems to me to be god's gift to retrofitting sound attenuation into a room is mass loaded vinyl sheeting. It is only an eighth of an inch thick, heavy (1 pound per square foot), and relatively easy to install. Your strategy would be to cover every possible square inch of the walls, floor, and ceiling with a layer of this. Usually it is placed as an interlayer between the existing wall/floor/ceiling and a new finished layer, but if that degree of new construction was not permitted by the landlord you could get the reinforced version and make curtains to hang on all the walls and from the cieling and a layer under carpet squares on the floor.

Here is the cheapest supply I have found for the stuff

http://www.soundcontrolroom.com/tecnifoam/TFlexandTSorb.htm
 
Yup, attenuation is what I'm after. If I can cut down on some of the sound emitted then I'll be really happy.

I'll look that material up and if I can find it I'll post the source here for the other UK posters. :)
 
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