Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Currently in the middle of re-building my basement and I thought it would be cool to have a soundproof jam space or studio.

Do you guys know if that spray foam insulation stuff would work to sound proof the room if I insulate all walls and the ceiling?

any construction guys in this forum?

cheers!

John

I have pads on interior walls of my studio room that knock the volume down from the rest of the house. I live in the country, so I don't care of volumes escaping the house. I have pads I got from fitness gyms, much like wrestling mats. Putting them directly on the walls still has vibration they will transmit if you don't create a space between the pads and the walls. You can buy mattress covers that are made of foam rubber and have the little points to cover large portions. There is a sound deadness with this. No natural reverb. Basements are great because it is not so square where you don't, (or can't), get a secondary repeat sound from a square shaped room (being elongated). Ask Starfish. He will tell you everything there is to know about the construction of space.

As a "Custom Guitar Builder", (call me nuts, but...), I would not have a whammy bar guitar as my icon missing the whammy bar.

JMZCustomGuitars wrote:Currently in the middle of re-building my basement and I thought it would be cool to have a soundproof jam space or studio.

Do you guys know if that spray foam insulation stuff would work to sound proof the room if I insulate all walls and the ceiling?

any construction guys in this forum?

cheers!

John

I have a home studio complete with main room and vocal/guitar booth. "Soundproof" is a tall order and probably not necessary. "Tuned and attenuated" works perfectly fine for most applications. Lots of good links on the net for room tuning, bass traps, and home studio design.

Tracking live drums is the loudest and most difficult to contain so just schedule that when it won't bother anyone. Everything else can be done at "home stereo" levels for good results.

Free PDF download that explains it all. CDBaby has (free) great DIY resources for just about anything, btw.


http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/03/b ... pdf-guide/

Soundproof = no external sound gets in and no internal sound gets out - almost impossible unless you build from scratch.
A 'room within a room' - floating floor, etc, are needed. Spray foam insulation does nothing for you.
You need to use sound insulation (Roxul, or Owens Corning 703 or 705).
Build bass traps for corners, avoid 'acoustic foam', it doesn't do much except tame the highs, so good for a 'cloud' over the drums, if you have sheetrock ceiling, but otherwise not real effective.

Go to the forums at Homerecording.com and the section on studio building. lots of knowledge there, including quite a few professional sound engineers.

crunchysoundbite wrote:As a "Custom Guitar Builder", (call me nuts, but...), I would not have a whammy bar guitar as my icon missing the whammy bar.

haha yeah, well i'm sort of nuts myself

cheers!

John

crunchysoundbite wrote:As a "Custom Guitar Builder", (call me nuts, but...), I would not have a whammy bar guitar as my icon missing the whammy bar.

haha yeah, well i'm sort of nuts myself

cheers!

John

GuitarMikeB wrote:Soiundproof = no external sound gets in and no internal sound gets out - almost impossible unless you build from scratch.
A 'room within a room' - floating floor, etc, are needed. Spray foam insulation does nothing for you.
You need to use sound insulation (Roxul, or Owens Corning 703 or 705).
Build bass traps for corners, avoid 'acoustic foam', it doesn't do much except tame the highs, so good for a 'cloud' over the drums, if you have sheetrock ceiling, but otherwise not real effective.

Go to the forums at Homerecording.com and the section on studio building. lots of knowledge there, including quite a few professional sound engineers.

thanks dude. Good info

Cheers!

John

JMZ the spray on foam insulation wont do much by itself.

I have set up rooms with those egg crate things and they do ok to deaden a room to the outside.

I guess Im curious what all you will have playing in the room? Drums, loud guitar amps.

Honestly for a good studio recording space I prefer a lively room, in fact Im just using my great room which has hardwood floors and is a very alive space.

Some one mentioned dead air space. What I have seen done, is to make a false wall with carpet, put about 6 inches off the existing wall, this will kill a lot of noise from escaping the room.

Best one I've seen was done by a bass player in a band years ago who was also a carpet layer by trade.

He got remnants from various jobs, and put 4 layers of carpet padding and 3 layers of carpet all around, floor and ceiling included, in a 2 car garage. You could sit outside the door and talk on the phone with the band playing 6 feet away full tilt. I think ceiling and floor only had 3 layers total. He tried it with the band when he first finished it, had everyone turn it up LOUD and had his next door neighbor sit on his front porch, 50 feet away while they played a song. He came back out and the neighbor asked him when he was going to start...His wife told us she sat in the living room, 20 feet away and watched TV and talked on the phone all the time during band practice, and at times we got really loud, louder than some of the clubs we played in. I was using my Peavey MX, usually ran the volume around 4 to 5 in clubs, sometimes I pushed it to 6 or 7 in the band room...

First time I came over for practice, audition actually, we didn't stop at 10pm like most bands have to do. That's when he told me about the neighbor...so we could play till midnight and did sometimes, no worries.

crunchysoundbite wrote:I have pads on interior walls of my studio room that knock the volume down from the rest of the house. I live in the country, so I don't care of volumes escaping the house. I have pads I got from fitness gyms, much like wrestling mats. Putting them directly on the walls still has vibration they will transmit if you don't create a space between the pads and the walls. You can buy mattress covers that are made of foam rubber and have the little points to cover large portions. There is a sound deadness with this. No natural reverb. Basements are great because it is not so square where you don't, (or can't), get a secondary repeat sound from a square shaped room (being elongated). Ask Starfish. He will tell you everything there is to know about the construction of space.

LOL You can suck my left nut, you crazy bastard....

Crunchy I was wondering how long it would take you to slink back in here like a dog with his tail between his crazy ass legs.

I guess you feel better today now that you have more meds...

That thin 'egg crate' foam you buy as a mattress pad is useless for sound dampening.
I urge anyone wanting to do serious sound treatment for studio or practice room to head over to the homerecording.com forum section on Studio Building. There are a couple of TRUE acoustic experts there to advise, and plenty of links. I'm certainly glad I didn't waste the money on 'acoustic foam' that would have done absolutely nothing for my music room.
If you can truly 'deaden' the sound being transmitted to your adjoining house with some carpet padding, or moving blankets, great - you probably have good isolation from your wall construction already. Carpet padding and blankets and thin foam will not abosrb or stop bass frequencies at all - what you end up with is a 'dead room' - all the highs are absorbed, but the bass and low mids bounce around making a very muddy sound.

jw123 wrote:JMZ the spray on foam insulation wont do much by itself.

I have set up rooms with those egg crate things and they do ok to deaden a room to the outside.

I guess Im curious what all you will have playing in the room? Drums, loud guitar amps.

Honestly for a good studio recording space I prefer a lively room, in fact Im just using my great room which has hardwood floors and is a very alive space.

Some one mentioned dead air space. What I have seen done, is to make a false wall with carpet, put about 6 inches off the existing wall, this will kill a lot of noise from escaping the room.

Spray foam wont work eh? well its a good thing you mention that here ( I will still do my due diligence of course) as that was one of my top contenders AND ITS SOO OVER PRICED!

I am gonna basically have a full jam space set up drums, bass, PA and all so I am looking to both have a cool jam space and preserve the sanity of my home at the same time

cheers!

John

GuitarMikeB wrote:That thin 'egg crate' foam you buy as a mattress pad is useless for sound dampening.
I urge anyone wanting to do serious sound treatment for studio or practice room to head over to the homerecording.com forum section on Studio Building. There are a couple of TRUE acoustic experts there to advise, and plenty of links. I'm certainly glad I didn't waste the money on 'acoustic foam' that would have done absolutely nothing for my music room.
If you can truly 'deaden' the sound being transmitted to your adjoining house with some carpet padding, or moving blankets, great - you probably have good isolation from your wall construction already. Carpet padding and blankets and thin foam will not abosrb or stop bass frequencies at all - what you end up with is a 'dead room' - all the highs are absorbed, but the bass and low mids bounce around making a very muddy sound.

cool....well check out homerecording.com. Thanks for the link!

John