Neighbors Called the cops on me......twice

R

RichHead

New member
I cannot keep my drums under control it seems. I do all my trackin/practicing in a 14 by 20 room. I recently have started to "soundproof" it because I live in the city. I have built walls inside of my original walls, and covered those with plywood and sound deadening board covered with a medium fabric. But of course, you can still hear accross the street (barely, the guy is an ass with nothing better to do). I have talked to all my neighbors. Nobody cares. There is just this one guy...Why is there always "one guy" that has to be a jerk? Anyway....

I have thought about dampening my drums, but I want to do that as sort of a "last resort" kind of thing. Let me get down to my question......Now that I am near done soundproofing, and starting to think about sound treatment, something occured to me. Will acoustic foam and traps also aid in soundproofing? What realy comes through the other side is the bass drum and toms...Will bass traps help this out some? Thanks in advance for wading through my semi-rant....
 
In a word, no. That stuff only helps knock down sound refraction in the room. It does nothing as far as sound proofing is concerned. Maybe some resiliant channel and a couple layers of dry wall (mass helps stop sound transmission).
 
Yes. Properly designed bass traps will improve the STC of your walls. How much I am not sure. In theory if you are changing sound into heat there would be less sound to transmit through the walls.

John or Ethan might be able to give you a idea of how much soundproofing improvment is gained by trapping the low end. Personaly I think not very much.

Kirk
 
Ok, thanks guys. So probably I could expect little to no improvement. Grrr.....Alright then, guess I am going to have to go across the street and have a little chat with this guy then.. Thanks again.
 
Don't worry about the guy...

I had a neighbor like that once. Luckily i have a relative that is an attorney. Check out your city noise ordinence laws.

The cops can't do anything to you as long as you are not playing beyond the specified time and as long as your drums are not heard above the stated decible level outside of your house. In my city if I did happen to get supeoned to court or a citation was issued the police where i live do not have the neccesary equipment to calibrate the decible level coming from my house. Therefore the case would be thrown out.

I hate people like that. The next time your neighbor so much as hammers a nail outside of his house call the cops on his ass for being too loud.
 
Eric, yeah I'd really like to "return the favor" somehow, but I'm going to take the high road...for now. It wasn't real nice when we were checking for sound leaks, and the guy started yelling at my wife "turn that shit down". Like my drums have a dial on the side.... I wish it were that easy.

lol....I did look up the laws. There is no established times really, but the law does state about disturbances between 11 pm and 7 am. Disturbing the peace laws are really vague here. The law says for musical instruments and radios (etc.), should not be clearly audible at a distance of 50 feet.

Can somebody define clearly audible for me?????? Man, I am envious of the all the rural folk out there.
 
Ask if he will take some cash to shutup and in return you could play during certain hours. Even $50-100/ month may be cheaper than doing a lot of construction or getting a rehearsal space.

There was on guy here who made some large baffles out of plywood and insulation and blocked off a small section of his garage to block out the drums. He claimed it worked pretty well.
 
RichHead - you say you built a new wall layer of plywood. Did you put insulation in the cavity and did you make sure you sealed it properly??

cheers
JOhn
 
John Sayers said:
RichHead - you say you built a new wall layer of plywood. Did you put insulation in the cavity and did you make sure you sealed it properly??

cheers
JOhn
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just used your standard fare OC R13 in the cavities, and placed full sheets of 1/2" plywood on top of that. As far as sealed....I do have a small gap (maybe 1/8-1/4") on the very top because I have an "acoustic" ceiling and didn't want to destroy the stuff putting my walls up or down. I want to be able to tear the walls down if I sell the house, etc. Maybe I should stuff some insulation inside there John?

Bribery isn't a bad idea Tex. That may be next if this guy doesn't cool down. Thanks.....
 
RichHead said:
Yeah, I just used your standard fare OC R13 in the cavities, and placed full sheets of 1/2" plywood on top of that. As far as sealed....I do have a small gap (maybe 1/8-1/4") on the very top because I have an "acoustic" ceiling and didn't want to destroy the stuff putting my walls up or down. I want to be able to tear the walls down if I sell the house, etc. Maybe I should stuff some insulation inside there John?
Click to expand...

Just remember, "soundproof" means "airtight." I really don't think 1/2 inch of ply is going to stop jack shit, to be honest with you. You need MASS. Try 2-3 layers of 3/8" drywall. Also, is your "acoustic" ceiling those cheap tiles? Frame in something solid, and hang some drywall up there. Then seal EVERY joint. Walls, floor, ceiling, you name it. If you don't seal every single crack, no matter how small, that's where the sound will go and it will seem like there are no walls at all. If you build your room properly, you shouldn't be able to hear ANYTHING outside at all.

-0z-
 
BTW, go to radio shack and buy a cheap SPL meter. Do measurements inside and outside with the drums playing. If it's under 60dB outside, that would not be "clearly audible" by any stretch of the imagination.... a car passing by would be louder... so would chirping birds.

-0z-
 
I understand what you are saying Oz......the ceiling is drywall with the acoustic texture. The whole room is drywall. Its an older house built in 78'. When thing is for sure, it is a HELL of a lot better than it was. You could hear me loud and clear all the way up the street before. I know I can only get it down a certain degree the way I've gone, maybe someday I'll completely gut this room and do it the right way. Then again, maybe I should wait for a bigger house :).

I'll try the meter SPL meter, OZ. Thanks.
 
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