Moving To A Town House

[Snowman999]

We're moving to a Townhouse that Karen inherited (it's free and lower taxes). We just have to sell this house. I'm worried about my music and movie sound reaching through the walls. I don't play anything loud. But, I am partially deaf (can't imagine why. Maybe it was maxing the volume with headphones on, or the thousands of concerts I went to with no hearing protection), so I do raise it a bit.

We have this basement - which is much more packed now with all our stuff. It's pretty big. I think it's 20' wide by like 30' or so deep.

You can see the walls are concrete. Can loud music or sound go through concrete like that?

I need half the basement for storage. We have a ton of crap. But, I was thinking about having two walls built. Putting up a ceiling and covering it all with this -

It's $50 for 50 pieces. They're 12" x 12" and an inch thick.

If this covers the ceiling and the two sides, should that keep all the sound inside? Do I need to cover the concrete walls also?

I'm NOT looking for acoustical soundproofing. I record now in my basement with nothing special. I'm not worried about recording. I'm worried about the sound traveling.

I never thought I'd live with neighbors on either side again. We lived there a month in 2007, and it was quiet as a peep. I don't want to be the one to bring noise to the neighbors, and I hope I don't hear them. It drives me INSANE!

 

[Orson]

That stuff wont do a thing to stop sound travelling. The only way is to stop it properly with the correct stuff. You do need acoustic Rockwool to stop the sound.

Regards your $50 for 50. You also have to add the glue at about $7.00 per can. 2 cans per 50 tiles if you were very lucky.

A 20' x 30' x 8' high room will take 1400 tiles. Plus about 40-50 cans of glue equals £1700.00 minimum of your tiles costs.............And they will still hear you but it will look nice.

To cover the same area in Rockwool RW3 acoustic to give you some idea. One pack of 50mm/2" will cover 64 square feet equal to 64 of your foam tiles and cost approx $30.00 plus a bit of timber and some plasterboard/sheetrock and a little extra work. But would stop a lot more sound. So possibly same cost as your tiles job?

You would need to cover all walls and ceiling to keep the sound 'in'. The sound waves will just escape through any area which isn't treated even if you ask them nicely. So just doing half a job isn't going to make any difference at all.

 

[Snowman999]

THANK YOU!

I'm not doing the entire basement. Just a portion. A room within a room. I just have to design it, to maximize the throw distance for the projector. While keeping enough space for our bins. I think we have close to 100, plus boxes, plus 5+ Christmas trees, Easter and Halloween decorations. TOO MUCH STUFF!

If I use our upstairs attic room for the movie room, the music room in the basement will be small. I'll be using the movie room more than the recording room.

This RW3 seems a lot cheaper than the 1" pads I was looking at. My only other problem will be keeping it cool in the summer without A/C. Basements are always cooler. But, insulated like that, might make it hot. I guess I'll find out. If it's just for recording purposes, I usually don't start till late anyway.

Thanks again.

 

[Orson]

50mm/2" may not be thick enough so you may need to double up on the insulation. Depends on noise. But the timber and sheetrock will be the same.

They dont get too hot. They are insulated boxes that have a pretty standard temp over a few days.

The foam stuff is a waste of money as I found out my self. I even hung Rockwell acoustic panels over the foam to improve it and I had the proper acoustic foam.

 

[MOSSROCK]

Wow looks like a good bit of space though! Once your walls are setup that'll be a cosy spot for audio work. Here's hoping all goes well with the neighbours!!!

 

[Snowman999]

50mm/2" may not be thick enough so you may need to double up on the insulation. Depends on noise. But the timber and sheetrock will be the same.

They dont get too hot. They are insulated boxes that have a pretty standard temp over a few days.

The foam stuff is a waste of money as I found out my self. I even hung Rockwell acoustic panels over the foam to improve it and I had the proper acoustic foam.

THANKS!

2" wouldn't contain it? If I needed to, I will have it doubled. It has to be perfect, where the music (possibly movie sound) won't escape. I could use it as my constant retreat. Plus, I could set up my crap drum set and bang away some days. Right now I use an electronic kit, which has wonderful triggers. It rarely misfires.

This is my "recording studio" (hoity toity ain't it) and Sony BDV-N790W home theatre surround sound system.
I keep the Samson at 3/4 up at all time. I adjust the Mbox and iTunes volume for comfort.

 

[Mickster]

Yeah...that foam stuff is only good for cutting down some mid to high frequency reflections....inside........and not much else. Great space!! But....getting it to leak no sound as you're describing is going to be difficult. You mentioned that you lived there 7 years ago and it was very quiet. Maybe that's because some of the building's characteristics / construction are already pretty good. Because it was quiet doesn't mean your neighbors were quiet. You just didn't hear them. And...since you are mostly going to be creating normal level noise...or thereabouts.......it may not be as bad as you think. The drums????.....well....maybe not.

2 cents worth of.....hey...you never know....it may be ok

Mick

 

[Papanate]

THANKS!

2" wouldn't contain it? If I needed to, I will have it doubled. It has to be perfect, where the music (possibly movie sound) won't escape. I could use it as my constant retreat. Plus, I could set up my crap drum set and bang away some days. Right now I use an electronic kit, which has wonderful triggers. It rarely misfires.

This is my "recording studio" (hoity toity ain't it) and Sony BDV-N790W home theatre surround sound system.
I keep the Samson at 3/4 up at all time. I adjust the Mbox and iTunes volume for comfort.
View attachment 110380View attachment 110383

You don't get anywhere with the foam squares - Mass is what blocks sound. Also I'm confused - are you trying to stop the sound of your monitors? First thing is 3/4s up on your monitors is bad for your ears - and what does the Sony Surround have to do with the system?

 

[Snowman999]

Yeah...that foam stuff is only good for cutting down some mid to high frequency reflections....inside........and not much else. Great space!! But....getting it to leak no sound as you're describing is going to be difficult. You mentioned that you lived there 7 years ago and it was very quiet. Maybe that's because some of the building's characteristics / construction are already pretty good. Because it was quiet doesn't mean your neighbors were quiet. You just didn't hear them. And...since you are mostly going to be creating normal level noise...or thereabouts.......it may not be as bad as you think. The drums????.....well....maybe not.

2 cents worth of.....hey...you never know....it may be ok

Mick

I will find out. We were there one night and I was waiting waiting for AAA. A girl two doors away, had her window open at 12:30am. I was standing in the street and could recognize the songs she was playing. It was mostly high end (country music). When I stepped into the Town House, it was completely quiet. You can't even hear cars going along the development.

I'm really not looking forward to having neighbors a wall away. It's been my Achilles heel since 1997 when I lived with bass coming through the walls 24 hours a day in our NYC apartment. When I die and I'm rotting in hell. Satan knows exactly how to torture me.

You don't get anywhere with the foam squares - Mass is what blocks sound. Also I'm confused - are you trying to stop the sound of your monitors? First thing is 3/4s up on your monitors is bad for your ears - and what does the Sony Surround have to do with the system?

I keep the Samson loud. It allows me to keep the MBox lower. But, I do sometimes blast it, usually after a mix. 50 years of loud music, I can't stop now.

This is the attic room where I'm going to set up the movie theatre. I will not be allowed to soundproof this room, or do anything to close it off from the second floor. No construction, except in the basement. Only one of the two neighbors has a room like this. The other has attic space. So, this might be okay for the movie room. However, if the sound travels into our bedroom, I'm going to enlarge the room that's going to be built in the basement, and move the movie room down there. In the basement I could also project a larger screen. In the attic my screen would either be 9' or 12'. For a 12' screen I'd have to buy a screen. The 9' would fit on the wall that's indented where those 2 pictures and flower thing are now. Since my screen is 7.5' now, the extra foot and a half might be fine.

I also think overall the design of these townhouses considered noise. I could be wrong. But, the two photos of stairs lead from the 2nd to third floor. There's two more that lead to the first floor. Because I'm a moron with NO sense of direction. this attic room might not be over the bedrooms (at least not the master bedroom). Because I think the main space is over the stairways. I've looked out the windows and have been wrong every time. I think I should see the street and I see the backyard, visa versa. There's a skylight in this room, and I can't see where it looks out to. I can see the mountain far off.