The Drum Bubble
The room’s only purpose is to contain my drum kit and allow me to play with some privacy and not intrude on my family or the neighborhood.
Here’s what I built: a 7’x9’x8’ room in a room, 2”x4” framing with rockwool in the bays, on the concrete slab of my garage. The entire house is built on the same slab. The walls are 24” on center and the ceiling is 16” on center. The first layer of 5/8” drywall is screwed with 1-5/8” drywall screws about every 16”. The second layer of 5/8” drywall received two tubes of green glue per 4’x8’ sheet and was secured with 2” #8 drywall screws about every 12” on the ceiling and 16” or more on the walls. The drywall construction is the same for all surfaces inside and out. Acoustic sealant was applied to seams and gaps at both layers.
The room is in a corner of my garage. One wall faces a concrete block exterior wall, and one wall faces an interior BR wall of the house. There is a two inch air gap between the room and these walls. The garage ceiling is 9.5’ so there is an 18” air gap between the room’s roof and the garage ceiling.
For the door, I built what is essentially a wall section on wheels. It is a sliding door like affair that is guided into place by a set of rollers top and bottom. The rollers are adjustable to press the door into a rubber seal as it is closed. The seal is a double row of 1/2” diameter hollow neoprene weather stripping.
A hinged door was not practical as the door weighs 300 pounds. The garage floor has a slope which would make any other configuration of door difficult. The door works well due to it’s mass and the seal is light tight. Friction is a bit of a problem, it takes a good tug to open.
The walls were finished with mud, tape and paint, inside and out.
When the construction was complete I installed thin carpet tiles to the floor and moved my drum kit into the room. It is a medium large kit, three up, two down with an array of cymbals.
I bolted two 6.5” speakers in the upper corners to the corner framing and hung a small rack on drywall anchors next to the drum kit. It holds a Soundcraft Ui24R digital mixer. A 32” tv is mounted with drywall anchors directly in front of the drum kit.
Now that you know the details of the room build so far, here is the first test result:
Pink noise
57-69db inside
Inaudible 4’ outside the door
78-80db inside
Inaudible in BR
90db inside
57-63db 4’ outside the door
Barely audible ear to BR wall
All above inaudible outside house
Dream Theatre - At Wits End
92-96db inside
55-58db 4’ from door
42-48db 4’ from BR wall, all low end
Slightly audible 4’ from garage door
Inaudible from sidewalk
Slight low end ear to garage wall
Inaudible 4’ from garage wall
I was going to do more tests but it seems obvious that my problem at hand is low end leaking into the BR. Everything else is quite acceptable.
It appears that I have created a quadruple leaf between the bubble and the BR wall. Reading the below info, it seems I might be able to improve the leak by increasing the gap between the bubble and the BR wall.
Please comment and thank you.
https://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing_101/triple-leaf-effect
The room’s only purpose is to contain my drum kit and allow me to play with some privacy and not intrude on my family or the neighborhood.
Here’s what I built: a 7’x9’x8’ room in a room, 2”x4” framing with rockwool in the bays, on the concrete slab of my garage. The entire house is built on the same slab. The walls are 24” on center and the ceiling is 16” on center. The first layer of 5/8” drywall is screwed with 1-5/8” drywall screws about every 16”. The second layer of 5/8” drywall received two tubes of green glue per 4’x8’ sheet and was secured with 2” #8 drywall screws about every 12” on the ceiling and 16” or more on the walls. The drywall construction is the same for all surfaces inside and out. Acoustic sealant was applied to seams and gaps at both layers.
The room is in a corner of my garage. One wall faces a concrete block exterior wall, and one wall faces an interior BR wall of the house. There is a two inch air gap between the room and these walls. The garage ceiling is 9.5’ so there is an 18” air gap between the room’s roof and the garage ceiling.
For the door, I built what is essentially a wall section on wheels. It is a sliding door like affair that is guided into place by a set of rollers top and bottom. The rollers are adjustable to press the door into a rubber seal as it is closed. The seal is a double row of 1/2” diameter hollow neoprene weather stripping.
A hinged door was not practical as the door weighs 300 pounds. The garage floor has a slope which would make any other configuration of door difficult. The door works well due to it’s mass and the seal is light tight. Friction is a bit of a problem, it takes a good tug to open.
The walls were finished with mud, tape and paint, inside and out.
When the construction was complete I installed thin carpet tiles to the floor and moved my drum kit into the room. It is a medium large kit, three up, two down with an array of cymbals.
I bolted two 6.5” speakers in the upper corners to the corner framing and hung a small rack on drywall anchors next to the drum kit. It holds a Soundcraft Ui24R digital mixer. A 32” tv is mounted with drywall anchors directly in front of the drum kit.
Now that you know the details of the room build so far, here is the first test result:
Pink noise
57-69db inside
Inaudible 4’ outside the door
78-80db inside
Inaudible in BR
90db inside
57-63db 4’ outside the door
Barely audible ear to BR wall
All above inaudible outside house
Dream Theatre - At Wits End
92-96db inside
55-58db 4’ from door
42-48db 4’ from BR wall, all low end
Slightly audible 4’ from garage door
Inaudible from sidewalk
Slight low end ear to garage wall
Inaudible 4’ from garage wall
I was going to do more tests but it seems obvious that my problem at hand is low end leaking into the BR. Everything else is quite acceptable.
It appears that I have created a quadruple leaf between the bubble and the BR wall. Reading the below info, it seems I might be able to improve the leak by increasing the gap between the bubble and the BR wall.
Please comment and thank you.
https://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing_101/triple-leaf-effect
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