Yonce N Mild's studio/rehearsal room build. Step 1 Soundproofing

[Yonce N Mild]

I mentioned in another thread that my brother is buying a house and we will be using the basement as a studio/rehearsal room.
We are getting the power taken care of and we are now moving on to the next priority........sound proofing.

I realize that retrofitting total soundproofing is very costly and difficult. That is not my goal. It doesn't have to be silent in the rest of the house.
It doesn't have to be silent outside the house it just needs to reduce sound enough to keep the neighbors from calling the cops.

We have a couple of things going for us. First of all the basement is all solid concrete including the ceiling. It is not block but solid poured concrete.
Also street side of the basement has no windows or doors so the neighbors across the street are safe. Both sides are good as well since he is on a corner on one side and owns an extra lot on the other.

The main concern is the neighbors behind him. They are only about 200 feet away and the back wall of the basement is definitely the weak link.
The back wall has a sliding glass door and one window. As it is now I can stand in the basement with the doors closed and yell and be heard clearly at the back of the property.

The sliding glass door is not sealed properly. I can actually see daylight through one of the cracks on the side where they didn't caulk correctly and the didn't caulk on the inside at all.
The window is the cheapest shittiest window I have ever seen. Think about a crappy screen door window and then imagine something even thinner and frailer. Seriously, shittiest window ever.


Money and speed are big considerations at this point. We practice at my brothers current house so when he moves out we have nowhere to practice until we can get the new room ready. We are both short on cash at the moment to so budget type D.I.Y. stuff is the answer for now.

I'd also like to hear what suggestions you guys have for the long term. If we have to build a second wall and add another door or something similar we will do it............just not next week.

So what are our options? I'm thinking seal the cracks, plug the window and then test and go from there. Any suggestions for plugging the window? Stuff it with something and nail a piece of plywood over it?
What about sealing the cracks around the door any particular kind of caulk that is more effective? How much help would a big heavy curtain over the sliding glass doors be?

If we try all of these things and the neighbor can still hears us what then?


Any suggestions are appreciated.

Edit: Here is a pic of the back wall.


Thanks!

 

[Jeff_D]

For the window, I'd replace with glass block. Hell maybe even two wythes of glass block. In the meantime, if you can life without the light, you could board it up with a few layers of plywood or drywall.

For the door, if its gotta be cheap, I'd seal it up with caulk the best you can for now. Long term, I'd replace the door with a better quality door, then build a vestibule with another door.

My 2c.

 

[Yonce N Mild]

For the window, I'd replace with glass block. Hell maybe even two wythes of glass block. In the meantime, if you can life without the light, you could board it up with a few layers of plywood or drywall.

For the door, if its gotta be cheap, I'd seal it up with caulk the best you can for now. Long term, I'd replace the door with a better quality door, then build a vestibule with another door.

My 2c.

Cool, that's what I was thinking. Actually after looking into the cost of glass block We might just skip the window plug and install the glass block ourselves immediately. I imagine that glass block is better at stopping sound than drywall and plywood?

A second door is the best way to sound proof a slider? That makes sense.
That would work perfectly since the door opens out to the patio and is covered by a balcony. It would be pretty simple to add a second door. It would also give people somewhere to wipe their feet and hang their coat before coming in the studio.

Thanks for the input. Any advice on stopping sound transmission from the door in the short term? Adding an extra door wouldn't happen until the end of the summer at the earliest.

 

[Jeff_D]

Find out what brand and style of glass block you want to get and you can get the mfg priduct data that tells you the STC rating. Higher is better.

I googled "glass block STC". Looks like they have STC of anywhere from 38 to 53 depending on the product.

For comparison sake, a 2x4 wall with 5/8" drywall on each side and sound batt insulation is worth about 34-39 STC.

 

[braden_]

my friend has the same situation in his basement. he ripped the window out and poured concrete in to seal it up.

 

[Jeff_D]

my friend has the same situation in his basement. he ripped the window out and poured concrete in to seal it up.

lol, yeah, I suppose that'll work too. You might brick it up with concrete block or bricks too.

If that was my place, I'd go with the glass block, just my preference.

 

[Yonce N Mild]

my friend has the same situation in his basement. he ripped the window out and poured concrete in to seal it up.

Maybe that will be "plan B" if we install the glass block and totally screw it up we'll just cement the bastard closed.

 

[Yonce N Mild]

Update on the soundproofing.

So we looked into glass block. The window is a very odd size and we would have to frame it in with concrete to fit glass block.
Since we didn't want to mess with it ourselves we just boarded the window up. We used that super heavy subfloor stuff. Got 3 layers in and caulked around the edges.
We also re-caulked around the door.

The difference is night and day!
You can barely hear us at the edge of his yard even at full volume.
Plus he met his neighbors and they are all cool. The closest neighbor that we were worried about is a 20 something kid who likes to party. he doesn't give a fuck how loud we are.

After practice we saw him outside and asked him if it was too loud. His response, "you guys were playing!? I didn't hear shit".
It was ear plug loud in the basement.


Next up is acoustic treatment. I'll start a new thread and get some pics up soon.


Thanks again for the input!

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

we just boarded the window up. We used that super heavy subfloor stuff. Got 3 layers in and caulked around the edges.
We also re-caulked around the door.



The difference is night and day!

Ah yes, another testimonial to the Transmission Loss of glass. Thats why it takes a pane of 3/4" and a pane of 1/2" glass to match a simple two leaf wall with 2 layers of 5/8" drywall on each leaf.

 

[Yonce N Mild]

Ah yes, another testimonial to the Transmission Loss of glass. Thats why it takes a pane of 3/4" and a pane of 1/2" glass to match a simple two leaf wall with 2 layers of 5/8" drywall on each leaf.

Not only was this super thin cheap glass but the window was the crank type and didn't even latch. So the window was always slightly open.

After some further inspection of the sliding glass door there were gaps in the seals big enough to fit a pencil through. Sealing those up made a huge difference.

So there are a couple of lessons here. Glass sucks at stopping sound and you need to seal all air gaps. Even the smallest crack can let out a lot of sound.

 

[Dogbreath]

huh...good bit of info. I figured it was the glass itself that sucked for any sort of isolation. I mean, I know the thin stuff is worse but I guess I never really thought about caulking it makin that much of a difference.
Cool.

Lookin forward to how this progresses man.

Luck
Kel

 

[Yonce N Mild]

quick update:

Room is painted and set up. My dad did a walk around the property line with a db meter while we were playing full blast and found the sound levels to be only slightly above ambient! Win!

Here is a crappy cell phone pic of the setup.

 

[Dogbreath]

Hell yeah!
Lookin good already!

 

[Chili]

quick update:

Room is painted and set up. My dad did a walk around the property line with a db meter while we were playing full blast and found the sound levels to be only slightly above ambient! Win!

Here is a crappy cell phone pic of the setup.

Place looks real comfortable. The acid test will be whether the cops knock on your door or not... and if you hear them knocking.

 

[dodgeaspen]

Looks nice. I contacted Pella windows to have the windows in the house replaced plus have a DB reduction window in my drum room and the price was almost 10K Our house is about 1,000 square feet. Bottom line is windows are expensive. I have also been told glass block can be very pricey.

 

[Supercreep]

Great job, Yonce. What a very nice space. Congrats.