sound proofing a room

[rudutch]

Good Morning!
I would like to tap the wisdom of y'all
The room is 9 x 25ft concrete floor, one wall is concrete, one combination concrete / wood stud (exterior) 2 are indoor wood stud
drywall one side. The ceiling is 2 x 10 stud.

I need to have a 50% 80% reduction to please my lovely wife.

1st step is installing R13 3.5" insulation in all the stud walls
(almost done)
Step 2 is to put a large carpet remnant on the ceiling.
Step 3 is a "resonant" drywall on the interior walls.
this is a vertical "Z" metal strip(s) that the wall board mounts to.
I was planning on putting carpet on the back of the hollow wood door.
anyone here had any experience with what does and does not work? I do not have unlimited funds to do this with so think "cheap"

Thanks in advance

[rudutch]

that would exceed my budget. I am looking to isolate the low frequencys, it seems all the heating ductwork makes a fine distibution
system through the entire house. The registers work like speakers.
I am hoping to do this on a cheap bastard's budget. I know carpet will dampen some of the noise as will insulaton. I am at a loss on how to minimize the ductwork vibration but lacking a degree in physics it will be trial and error.
I wish I could do the room in a room, I think that would be the ultimate soulution
Thanks!

[Tele-Bob]

Spose speaks the truth. Simply build a "free-stanging" room on the concrete floor right inside the room you already have. DO NOT stuff the space between the new room and the existing walls with anything! Dead air space is an awesome sound atenuating medium. If you stuff the air space between the walls, the insulation (or whatever you use) will actually conduct the sound better than if you just leave it empty. As Spose said, the walls in the new room "within" the room MUST NOT touch any existing walls or ceiling in the house. The new room must be free-standing. You'll have no problem getting the noise level down to an acceptable volume for her. Good luck.

[OneL]

Spose has got it right.

I've had some success on the cheap by hanging heavy drapery material (think movie theater) around the room 6 to 12 inches away from the existing walls and ceiling thereby creating a room within a room.

[rudutch]

I was told that is what the resiliant (resonant?) wall does. it mounts on "track" that runs horizontally
and the by some black magic it does not transfer the drywall resonance / vibration to the studs. That was what some guru at the commercial building supply company told me.
sounds like I need more research or money (or both)
Thanks for the input!

[Dwell]

The carpet won't do a damn thing except dampen some high frequencies within the room. Won't stop sound at all. And you'll want to use a solid door, not hollow. No amount of carpet will help.

[shunka]

Have to disagree with the idea of NOTHING BETWEEN THE INNER ROOM AND THE OUTER ROOM. Big hollow air spaces amplify sound. Think about guitrs and drums.
Here's what we did. Insulation between the joists. Acoustic tile on the ceiling. Should have cut sound transmission down by 50%. This is a 22 by 12 room. Concrete(basement) floor. One 12 foot wall is drywall and the rest are cinder block. Builder painte the walls and installed indoor/outdoor carpet. Got several 4X8 foam panels from LOWE'S. Covered them with burlap and hung them on the walls, creating more corners and angles to trap sound. My wife's Uncle lives with us and his bedroom is right above the practice studio. He says band rehearsal is no louder than being in the doctor's waiting room.
I've been wanking away down there and the wife didn't know that I was home.
One heating dust in the room. When I need to, I close the louvers and rubberband a piece of foam over it.

[Tele-Bob]

shunka, if you were ever to go into a pro recording studio and tear into the wall between the control room and the ensemble room, you will find nothing but air inside there. They don't put insulation in there because the insulation actually transfers the sound. Dead air space between walls is a very good sound attenuator. Same reason they'll use two or three sheets of glass for the control room window.

[Tele-Bob]

I did a little checking around and found this simple, interesting site on soundproofing a room. It does say to put insulation between the walls, but it also cautions against packing it tightly as it will eat up "air space" and then begin to conduct the sound. I learn something new every day.

Here's a link: www.drumdojo.com/tech/soundpro.htm

[Gravity Jim]

The amount of air space (six inches, thee inches) or whether or not you put in light insualtion isn't that big an issue, as I understand it. What DOES matter is that there is no mechanical connection between the face of the outer wall and the face of the inner wall.

We don't have a big sound control problem in my studio... it's in a basement, in a house where there is very little upstairs noise during the day. I don't record any really loud stuff, so isolation was not the problem. And as a result, we opted to just build solid 2x4 walls filled with R-13 pink insualtion, and use fixed triple pane windows for line-of-sight. But in the voice-over booth (a small, 6' x 8' isolation space on one side of the live room) I was faced with a special problem... on the other side of what would become the booth's back wall are the mechanicals for the building... HVAC, sump pumps, etc. That junk is loud, and it rumbles. There was just no other good way to lay out the space, so...

We made that wall into a "staggered" wall, or what my framing guy called a "confessional." A 2 x 6 top plate, with 2x4 studs 16" on center on one side, and a second set of 2x4 studs 16" on center (but offset by 8") on the other.

We threaded R-13 "sound control/basement" pink insulation back and forth through the resulting channel....covered both sides with 1/2" vinyl-coated wallboard, and on the booth side tacked up sheets of thin noeporene and then attached a layer of 1/2" "soundboard" (the sheetrock with the fuzzy grey "carpet" on it you see in music practice rooms).

The result is that neither side of the wall is mechanically attached to the other... there is always a 2" gap between the stud that the wall is nailed to and the wall board on the other side. You can stand in the mechnical room while someone is screaming in the booth and you can't hear them. And with that wall AND the VO booth between the live room and the mechanicals, it is dead silent in there.

[Hcochoa]

Rudutch,

I have built several studios. some with shoe string budgets (mine) some with modest budgets.

Yes air space is the best way to provide sound control. But unfortunately it adds a tremendous amount to your materials and labor budget.

AND,

not to mention SPACE.

When I built my studio, I realized that I live right next to a busy road and I was hearing alot of road noise in the room.

My live room is 15x15....

Under some consultation, the idea arose of making a 15x4 room as a FOYER in the front of the room closest to the road..

That would reduce my live room to 11x15.....

Even though I know that that would be the best solution, I am just not ready to give up that space without trying some other possibilities..

I may try a little 5x5 or 4x6 small room closer to the control room or something as a vocal room. (That is really them only thing I am worried about. Nothing will over power a loud drum kit or guitar amp.)

But as far as stopping sound, try layers of different density materials...

ie Fiberglass insullation, rigid board styrofoam insullation, high density particle board, medium density particle board and finally 5/8" sheetrock.

The key is to have as many different densities as possible. What one material won't stop, the others will.

pack it as tight as you can and glue stuff to the walls, studs and between every layer with constuction adhesive. This is to stop the walls from acting like an acoustic guitar or drum.

Use exterior doors at all openings. This will help reduce sound from leaving the rooms.

If you can, make a foyer to go between the studio and the living space...
This will A, give you another room to stop noise from leaving, B, stop wife and kids from barging in during a session and C, give you another isolation booth if you ever need it.


Don't confuse sound proofing with acoustic treatment.

Acoustic treatment (ie carpets, blankets, egg-crate foam) is to deaden the room and reduce reflection. Not to sound proof the room. (you will be highly dissapointed if this is all you do to the room.)

Seal EVERYTHING as best as you can, use tons of caulk, expanding foam and fiberglass insullation stuff in with shims. (The room should be able to hold water when you're done)

Use weather gaskets around outlet and switch boxes, and build chases around utility pipes and ductwork. (well insullatied and layers of plywood and sheetrock.) Plastic 3" sewer lines tend to be very problematic for basements. replacing them with cast iron is ideal but if you can't swing the cost, box em and insullate as best as you can.


Good luck, have to goto work now.

[fezz parka]

Under some consultation, the idea arose of making a 15x4 room as a FOYER in the front of the room closest to the road..

VESTIBULE! :rofl

[Hcochoa]

right, that's what I meant, "Vestibule".

what the heck *is* a "vestibule" anyway?

[fezz parka]

It's a foyer...:rofl

Vestibule

[Gravity Jim]

I'm calling mine a "narthex."

[Tele-Bob]

Does it have an esplanade?

[rudutch]

I am planning on doing the resiliant wall plan. It makes the most sense to me.
The wall absorts the resonant frequencys and does not transmit them to the studs. I am at a loss what to do about the duct work and the main feeds and returns both run through this area. I am grateful for all the input and opinions, I will advise if my efforts result in a happy wife (that is the desired result)

[fezz parka]

I'm calling mine a "narthex."

When leaving the narthex, I put on some Carmex and bundle up in my Gortex before walking back up the esplanade. :lol

Does it have an esplanade?

I usually walk down the esplanade, then enter the anteroom.

I look forward to the day I can drive my Escalade on my esplanade. :rofl

[Tele-Bob]

"I look forward to the day I can drive my Escalade on my esplanade."

What an escapade!

[Gravity Jim]

What happens when a room and an anteroom collide?

I heard that it esplanodes.

Seriously, just to stay on topic, it's mechanical decoupling that does the trick (if the goal is to reduce the transmission of sound through a barrier like a wall).

[NeoFauve]

rudutch-
I don't know jack about building studios, but I installed a lot of HVAC ductwork many moons ago.
The high volume ducts were insulated on the inside w/ approx. 1/2-1" thick cloth backed fiberglass, depending on the size of the duct. Probabaly difficult to do as a retrofit. You might be able to get some insulation into short runs or before a duct turns up into the ceiling, this could deaden the sound a bit as it initially enters the ductwork.

You might want to investigate whether it's the supply duct or the return duct that's broadcasting to the rest of the house. A baffle in the supply duct could help.
The music's probably loud, but I'm not sure how well sound moves upstream when the AC is blowing. The return would suck the sound right up.
Stick a speaker in front of each and seperately see what happens.
It may turn out to be minimal compared to the issues everybody else is 'splaining.
Good luck.

BTW- There's NO PARKING on the esplanade in front of my house.

[rudutch]

Being the cheap hollander I am..
I had some commercial carpet with a very dense pad (and adhesive too)
I anchored that against the ductwork (or jammed it in between) and covered the cold air returns as well - an instant improvement. finished insulating (R13) all the open wall and above floor, put above said carpet on hollow wood door (one side) I think I have made a 25% reduction. I need
to have the gang over to give it the acid test.
Still need drywall and grid ceiling but I made progress.
more to follow (if anyone is interested)

-less of a dumass