Drum booth

P

pangalactic

gargling blasters
Hey all.

For a few months now I've been looking into building a drum booth so that I can go at it in my garage without pissing off the already miserable neighbours. At first I looked at stuff like Esmono and Whisper rooms, but there's just no way I can afford something like that.

Earlier today I found this page. Has anybody had any experience building and using these things? What kind of sound reduction could somebody listening from outside expect? And, more importantly, what kind of cost could building one realistically run to? I'm also wondering if it would be fairly easy to build it bigger than the stated size, because that thing just isn't big enough for a kit.

If anybody knows of any other systems like this - i.e. buy the plans and build it yourself - or can point me in the direction of somewhere that would help me design and build my own, I'd be eternally grateful. I've already been looking at places like johnlsayers.com, and I'm starting to get a good grasp of the principles behind so-called "sound proofing". The bit I'll struggle with is the actual construction, because I have no real experience beyond putting up shelves and flat-pack furniture :) But like I said, any help at all would be gratefully received.

Cheers.
 
You dont need to buy those plans, a few questions on this forum and youle be on your way! Im not an expert on sound reduction but il give it a shot.

Depending on how much room you have to build, the best idea would be some form of room within room design, leaving a percentage of air inbetween the rooms, and the a layer of insulation. The biggest issue (as ive found when I tried to isolate my shed) is getting no sound to leak from the booth.

Its a good idea to have multiple doors if possible, both with industrial seals around the edges.

Vocal booth's reduce enough sound for you to record a dead vocal in there, but a drum booth will need alot more noise reduction as you can be blaring a good 120db inside there.

You then have the problem of ventilating it... if you seal this room up properly (which you should) there wont be room for air to get in... which means youle get out of breathe and very hot very fast.

Search these forums for ventilation designs.


I think ive covered the main points, but it would be good to know what size room your working with =]

TM
 
technominds said:
You dont need to buy those plans, a few questions on this forum and youle be on your way! Im not an expert on sound reduction but il give it a shot.

Depending on how much room you have to build, the best idea would be some form of room within room design, leaving a percentage of air inbetween the rooms, and the a layer of insulation. The biggest issue (as ive found when I tried to isolate my shed) is getting no sound to leak from the booth.

Its a good idea to have multiple doors if possible, both with industrial seals around the edges.

Vocal booth's reduce enough sound for you to record a dead vocal in there, but a drum booth will need alot more noise reduction as you can be blaring a good 120db inside there.

You then have the problem of ventilating it... if you seal this room up properly (which you should) there wont be room for air to get in... which means youle get out of breathe and very hot very fast.

Search these forums for ventilation designs.


I think ive covered the main points, but it would be good to know what size room your working with =]

TM
Click to expand...

Thanks, but I pretty much knew all that already :) The bit I'm struggling with is the actual construction of the thing. I could talk all day about double studded walls, floated floors, droped ceilings, but I have no idea how to actually go about building them. I figured plans or what-have-you would be the best thing to start with, because they'll give me at least a starting point if nothing else. Information on materials would be good as well, although I'm thinking I should at least be looking at Rockwool for insulation.

How did you go about insulating your shed? I'm going to be working in my garage, so I'd guess that it would be a similar process. It's not very high, unfortunately - just shy of 2 metres - so it's not the ideal place for recording drums by any means, especially once I start putting a new room with an even lower ceiling in there :( But it's all I've got. As far as width and depth...the depth isn't really an issue, as I won't be filling the space with another room (I have to have somewhere to store all the rest of my crap :)). I havn't measured yet, but I'm guessing at about 2.5 metres wide. I've got two normal size doors lying across the floor in there, which is what's giving me the basis for that estimate. So no, not the biggest space. But I must be able to do something with it, no?

PS: Sorry if the first bit (thanks, I already knew that) came across as insufferably arrogant. It wasn't meant to be. I really do appreciate the help. I just don't think I asked the right questions in my first post, so I got an answer that wasn't really what I was looking for. Cheers though.
 
You pretty much need to build a floating room or booth within the room. The foundation of that room needs to be on rubber or rubber floats and not touching anything else in the room.

Modified vocal booth plans from DAWBOX (google search) has a vocal booth/drum room design with ventilation. You will need to libe the insode of the drum booth with limp mass sheetblock and silicone all seams as well as use a double wall design though. I have built a number of these drum booths in 8x8 sizes with ventilation and mic jacks and these plans will show you how to construct the basic design as well as soundproof, foam and ventilate, jacks ect.
 
did you build it?

hi -- i'm looking at the doing the same thing....drum booth in the garage. just curious if you built it and if so, could you give some insight....thanks!
 
i built the room within a room design with pretty good results.

i first put an extra layer of drywall on the existing walls and had an electrician extend all my wires.
then i framed up new walls with the bottom plate resting on a foam pad to lessen the sound transfer.
then i added a new ceiling to it and a layer of isulation.
two layers of drywall, double door, and im good to go.
 
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