First Post: Soundproofing my Basement

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dna3496

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I'm a younger kid who lives in my parents' basement. Even though I'm in the basement, my parents can still hear me from the 1st or 2nd floor very easily. Whenever they're home I need to wear headphones and if I plan on recording it needs to be at a time where I have the house to myself so they don't get annoyed and I don't hear them in the background.

I'm trying to think of a way where I can basically soundproof my basement so we can't hear one another. So I could listen to my music/ record and they won't hear me.

I figure the way to go about doing this as best as I can is to cover any spaces where air can get through with soundproofing foam about an inch or 2 thick. I'd cover the cracks around the door and the vents that are connected throughout the house. This way basically no air would be leaving the basement and going upstairs, and hopefully no sound.

Would this work? What else could I do?

Thanks to anyone who responds in advance.
 
It's not only open air that transmits sounds. The walls do also. Sound is made of vibrations, and you'll want to catch these vibrations. Walls can vibrate and therefore bring the vibrations to the other side. You'll want to deal with both the openings and the walls. Blocking the open air should be easy enough. The walls may provide more of a challenge. You either want to make them vibrate less (make them heavier) or prevent them from transmitting the vibrations into (or out of) the room (insulate them). Many higher end studios are isolated by means of being suspended in a larger, outer room, with as little contact with said outer room as possible. You could also put in soundproofing insulation if you want a simpler and much less expensive solution. You may want to use acoustic foam or baffles to absorb the sound from inside the room. There are two halves to soundproofing: keeping sound in and keeping sound out.

(Note: If any of this information is incorrect or a bit off, please feel free to correct me)
 
Don't use any foam as of yet.


Use either bass traps or broadband absorption panels. Of course, it would be easier to state what to do with a pic of your room.
 
it will be hard to accomplish a total soundproof room, and expensive,,, real hard. in my opinion, i would get a really good pair of headphones and learn to mix on them, when they arent home see how your mixes translate on your studio speakers or car speakers. I know a lot of people say mixing on headphones is a bad idea, but its really all subjective. I don't do it but i've heard mixes that are awesome from headphones
 
fateisaweapon said:
it will be hard to accomplish a total soundproof room, and expensive,,, real hard. in my opinion, i would get a really good pair of headphones and learn to mix on them, when they arent home see how your mixes translate on your studio speakers or car speakers. I know a lot of people say mixing on headphones is a bad idea, but its really all subjective. I don't do it but i've heard mixes that are awesome from headphones
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It's somewhat subjective.

The first 2 year of mixing, I used headphones. I can pretty much get the same results today with headphones rather than my HS50m's, but it will take much longer, and I can only get the same results because I know my gear and plugs.

Here's a mix I've done with only headphones. It's not bad. But I could do much better. If only I had the tracks. :facepalm:

 
well lets not get too off topic on the headphones, , anyway , i will elaborate on my post on what I did that was kinda inexpensive. If your good at any kind of carpentry or know a carpenter you can have him build you 2x4(to center) squares, cover them in fabric and get some fiberglass insulation and they are GREAT basstraps. the thing is, even with this DIY route your still going to be spending quite a bit on lumber, fabric, and isulation. But in reality, if your serious about music you will have awesome traps that travel well anywhere you go.

But to be realistic, your parents will still probably hear you if your basement isn't finished. You would probably have to fill your floor joists with insulation and sheetrock over it, then still have your bass traps.,, what i would do in this situation is get good headphones, listen to my instruments in them til i get sounds i want, then when it comes time to mix do it on days they aren't home. but really when you mix it doesn't have to be super loud anyway.
 
fateisaweapon said:
well lets not get too off topic....
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I can see you're new here :D


Welcome to HR.


And your advice is sound (no pun intended). Headphones can be a good start. You don't have to worry as much about the sound of your room.
 
Some good advice and some bad advice in this thread.

Basically, you can't soundproof your basement. It is very expensive to do so. Fate is describing how to build bass traps, but they are for tuning the rooms acoustic response, not for sound-proofing.

To sound proof correctly, you have two options: 1) build a room within a room. Ensure the walls and ceiling of the inner room do not touch the walls and ceiling of the outer room (your basement). 2) Acoustically decouple your room from the house by using resilient channel on the walls and joists of the basement. You ned to put up double layer of drywall which can be heavy and the problem with that is your house may not be designed to carry that kind of load.

But the devil is in the details. Even if you choose to do either of those two opitons, there are many little details to deal with. Any small coupling issue will defeat all your efforts.

Other things you can do without sound proofing your basement:
- Use headphones, though for mixing, this isn't ideal. But, you do most of it with headphones and then make small tweaks with monitors to dial in your mixes.
- For drums, use a VSTi like EZDrummer, Addictive Drums, Steven Slate Drums, etc
- For Guitars, use an amp modeler instead of an amp.
- Bass, go direct.
- Singing and mic'd instruments, shouldn't be too much of a problem. You can do it when they're not hoome if you are too loud.
- Monitors - well you don't need to be loud to mix. In fact it's sage advice to mix at low levels so you can hear proper balance. There's all that psycho-acoustic stuff you get when you mix at loud levels.

I recorded and mixed for years in a basement. I basically do all those things and never bothered the family upstairs. So it is doable.

Good luck and have fun,
 
Chili said:
Some good advice and some bad advice in this thread.

Basically, you can't soundproof your basement. It is very expensive to do so. Fate is describing how to build bass traps, but they are for tuning the rooms acoustic response, not for sound-proofing.
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I didn't even realize OP's biggest concern was to attenuate the sound so that family can not hear. :facepalm:


I should really be reading these threads more in-depth. lol
 
Thanks to everyone who's replied. As far as the headphone thing goes, that's what I usually do. I record when I have the house to myself and use headphones when people are home. However, I want to be able to listen to my music and other music through speakers without waking up my parents.

So far I've had 2 ideas:

1. Get acoustic foam and use it to cover the door and vents

2. Sound Absorption Sheets
 
Hey DNA.
I could be wrong, but I don't think you're going to have much luck.
I'm thinking you could literally full the room with foam and absorbent panels, but what they're going to hear upstairs is the bass that's travelling through tables, floors, beams, walls etc.

At my first college, there were two studio rooms which were 'isolated' by way of a very large cavity wall, filled with insulation.
There were two doors (airlock stylie) with great seals and what not.

Sure, it made a difference, but I wouldn't be trying to sleep in room A while someone drums in room B.

EDIT.
Just realised Chili has got it covered. You'd pretty much need to physically detach your room from the house. :P
 
dna3496 said:
So far I've had 2 ideas:

1. Get acoustic foam and use it to cover the door and vents

2. Sound Absorption Sheets
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What Steeno said...

Go back reread my post. You can't soundproof your basement. Sorry, ain't gonna happen. You can put up all the foam you want and your music will still get through to the next floor.

There are tons of threads that you can browse through and read up on it. They're all going to say the same thing.

The best solution is compromise.
 
I'm thinking you could literally full the room with foam and absorbent panels, but what they're going to hear upstairs is the bass that's travelling through tables, floors, beams, walls etc.
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These points are accurate - not only because some noise is structure borne, not air borne - but also because foam does not block sound. It is often incorrectly called soundproofing when all it really does is absorb sound waves so they do not reverberate around rooms with hard surfaces. It does nothing to stop sound transmission. So cover a door with foam, you will still hear (structure and air borne) sound on the other side.

To stop structure borne sound you would need to do some fairly pricey isolation and construction. What you could do to stop some of the air borne sound is install a door seal kit so at least the noise escaping through the door frame is lessened: acousticalsolutions.com/598~door-seal-kits

Check out this article on soundproofing, hopefully it's helpful: acousticsblog.com/2012/sound-blocking-proofing/
 
I feel like there have been many posts like this. What is it you are trying to record?
 
Sorry, ain't gonna happen. You can put up all the foam you want and your music will still get through to the next floor.
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++1 and ditto. Ain't gonna happen unless you have deep pockets, lots of time to research, skills to build, or hire a TRANSMISSION LOSS construction specialist, and your parents agree.:) PS..did I mention foam, or any other "treatment" products are simply useless when it comes to isolation? It takes DECOUPLED MASS ..and lots of it. Not to mention knowing HOW to use it.
 
What has been said here is true. The only thing that stops sound is mass, and it isn't cheap. When I did my basement, I used Auralex Sheetblock between the floor joists and studs, another layer across, 2 layers of 3/8 sheetrock (overlappng the seams) mounted on de-couplers. recessed lights and recepticals wrapped in another 2 layers of Sheetblock, then caulked to fill any gaps. Drycore subflooring underneath.It worked to the point that my wife could be on a conference call for work while the band was playing downstairs, and we weren't exactly quiet.. She could still hear it a bit, and feel the bass, but all in all, it worked. Cost for materials was around $5000, and I provided all of the labor nights and weekends for 6 weeks. It is very labor intensive. Then came the room treatment... . If you have the time, money and some ingenuity it can be done.
 
the easiest thing to do, would be to build a small vocal booth, to handle tracking of everything except drums.

wood framing, rock wool in the walls, sheetrock, a small door and a small window.
you can add air, that part is a bit tricky, but there are ways.
build it in a corner, if you have an outside wall, you can attach to it, if not, make it free standing so no soundwaves are going thru anything structural to the house.


big enough, to put a amp inside, or to sit on a chair with an acoustic guitar.

this way, you can minimize the cost and size...

you can build it inside the room, complete, so the only break out noise would mostly be contained in the basement room..

you can do most of it yourself, or get your buddies to help you....

you can build it in sections, as you can afford the pieces parts.
 
Dont seal yourself in too air tight, then accidently fall asleep....you may not wake up...LOL
 
i think your this idea is work and you can record your music. This way your batsmen is becomes sound proof which is much better because any other sound is disturb your work.
 
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