General Music Chat

I am looking to apply acoustic tiles in my music room. But its very expensive, so I have backed off that idea and decided that any buffering is better than none! Anybody got a cheap source for 3" eggcrate foam?

Koy Carson
West Texas

**60th Anniversary American Strat
**Carvin AC175 Thinline Acoustic
**Ibanez EW20ZW Electric/Acoustic
**Arbor AJ145CR Jazz
**Fender Marcus Miller 5 String Bass
**Fender Geddy Lee Signature Bass
**Warwick Corvette 4 string Bass
**Tradition Fretless Bass
**Takamine Hollow body Bass
**Digitech JamMan

http://www.myspace.com/k5koy


The "PickPocket" The ORIGINAL Guitar Accessory
http://www.waxpatterns.com/customguitarpick.htm

No source for that but I've seen blankets and carpet on the walls used. Both work pretty well, our practice room in Houston was lined with 4 layers of carpet padding and 3 of carpet, (bass player was a carpet layer by trade) and his wife could sit in the living room 15 feet away and talk on the phone no matter how loud we played. Sounded very good too, no echoes at all, probably some dead spots here and there but it seemed to work pretty well.

When he first tested it he went next door and asked the neighbor to call him if it was too loud on his front porch. They played a couple of songs while his wife waited for the phone to ring, afterward he went back to ask about it, the neighbor said "well, when are you going to start?" It was in his 2 car garage about 30 feet from the neighbor's house. They had cranked it louder than normal just for the sake of the trial run, the neighbor never knew they were playing loud as hell 30 feet away.

If you can find a commercial building being gutted, office building or store or some such, you may be able to get the 2'x4' suspended ceiling tiles, those should work well too, but you might have to be a little inventive to find a way to attach them to the walls.

I've seen & used those ceiling tiles, & they're okay...about as good as egg crates, maybe. Carpet works, too, as does carpet padding (a pretty reasonably-priced way to go, btw - I used to install carpet, too, Pete).

If you're gonna use those tiles, may I suggest putting a little space between them & the walls, using carpet foam padding. Just screw them into the walls, but don't squish the padding. It really does a good job.

Sticky cork tiles on the doors helps, too, if you run out of the ceiling ones. You can get them up to about 3/4 inch thick if you look for them.

If there are windows, I've used styrofoam sheets over them, then add the foam padding & carpet or tiles or whatever over that. These are places where the sound really seems to leak out & in - doors & windows.

I know a guy who's planning on making a sound-proof room in his basement by building a double wall & blowing insulation between them. Seems like a good idea, as long as he can ventilate the room when it isn't in use. That blown-in insulation is relatively cheap, too, & he only needs to build 6 walls instead of 8 if he puts it in a corner.

Yep I used carpet on the walls of my finished two-car garage. It's still loud as hell but it works pretty well.

Used carpet can be found for free, or at least very, very cheaply.
Find someone who works w/ carpets - tell them what you want, and the next time they rip-up an old carpet, you may save them from paying for a trip to the dump.
You get free sound-insulation - everyone wins . . .
I've used 3 layers to deaden the sound, works pretty good . . . windows can be a problem, though.

And as tempting as that sounds, I kind of need it to be asthetically pleasing as well. Dont know about mixing & matching smelly old used carpet in my music room!. Great suggestion though...

Koy Carson
West Texas

**60th Anniversary American Strat
**Carvin AC175 Thinline Acoustic
**Ibanez EW20ZW Electric/Acoustic
**Arbor AJ145CR Jazz
**Fender Marcus Miller 5 String Bass
**Fender Geddy Lee Signature Bass
**Warwick Corvette 4 string Bass
**Tradition Fretless Bass
**Takamine Hollow body Bass
**Digitech JamMan

http://www.myspace.com/k5koy


The "PickPocket" The ORIGINAL Guitar Accessory
http://www.waxpatterns.com/CustomGuitarPick.htm

A lot of the "old carpet" that gets thrown out is very nice and barley used especially if a lot of new construction is going on. Locate a few of your local flooring shops and keep an eye on the dumpster. You may be surprised what the idle rich throw away. You can cut it into 24" squares to store and then mix match in an astheticly pleasing fashion.

And as tempting as that sounds, I kind of need it to be asthetically pleasing as well.

You might be surprised how good it looks if you do a good job of it and are careful about the colors, or are able to get all one color. The room we practiced in was a dark red, all new stuff pulled when someone had it installed then decided it was the wrong color, didn't stay on the floor a day or two and the bulk of it was never even cut off the original roll. Looked very good though. He just went over windows and all. Door was covered too, and in fact my Kustom 2x12 cabinet came from a side room I didn't even know existed, the door was covered and blended in so well.

I did my own room in my house. I'll show you what I did man.



First I bought the blue looking Styrofoam looking stuff. It was DIRT cheap at Lowes. $5 a 4x8 sheet or something like that.

I used screws with washers to get them on the wall.
That way I had a surface to use the Foam contact adhesive on, rather than spraying directly to my walls.

Then I installed the foam using a special spray that wouldn't eat the foam, and screws and washers in the corners and sides.

I got the 3" foam (and spray) at a local upholstery shop. It wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be.

I did a fairly good size bedroom for $350. HaleAmanO now practices here. There are 6 of us in the band, and we fit in this room just fine.

The room sounds great man.





Eventually, I used leftover scraps to cover the windows as well. You can't hear S**T outside. My neighbors are totally cool with it no matter how loud we play.

BTW, I'm sure you can cut the cost down by going with 1" or 2" foam.

GREAT JOB Man!..
Man, that looks nice! Did you just use the flat foam?

Koy Carson
West Texas

**60th Anniversary American Strat
**Carvin AC175 Thinline Acoustic
**Ibanez EW20ZW Electric/Acoustic
**Arbor AJ145CR Jazz
**Fender Marcus Miller 5 String Bass
**Fender Geddy Lee Signature Bass
**Warwick Corvette 4 string Bass
**Tradition Fretless Bass
**Takamine Hollow body Bass
**Digitech JamMan

http://www.myspace.com/k5koy


The "PickPocket" The ORIGINAL Guitar Accessory
http://www.waxpatterns.com/CustomGuitarPick.htm

No, it's crated. But in actuality, that foam was cheaper than bed foam from Wal Mart.

The tiny air pockets dissipate the sound much better than a flat foam would.

Yes, that sounds better..Do you know what its called? Was it a national chain fabric store? I would like to get a closer look at that stuff....

Koy Carson
West Texas

**60th Anniversary American Strat
**Carvin AC175 Thinline Acoustic
**Ibanez EW20ZW Electric/Acoustic
**Arbor AJ145CR Jazz
**Fender Marcus Miller 5 String Bass
**Fender Geddy Lee Signature Bass
**Warwick Corvette 4 string Bass
**Tradition Fretless Bass
**Takamine Hollow body Bass
**Digitech JamMan
http://www.myspace.com/k5koy


The "PickPocket" The ORIGINAL Guitar Accessory
http://www.waxpatterns.com/CustomGuitarPick.htm

I did a quick search for "Lubbock Upholstery supplies" and found this:
http://www.industrynet.com/info.asp?CID=152258

It looks like there's a place there called "Berry's" that might have it.

I got mine at "Galaxy Foam and Upholstery supplies" here in Vegas. The cool thing is, a sheet of foam from an upholstery supply place comes in 6' x 8' and sometimes 8' x 8' sheets.

Do some searching for upholstery supply places in your area. I'm not so sure there are chains. Check your phone book, or search online. I'm sure you'll eventually find one.

That looks pretty dang cool shredd. I'd like to do my shop like that.
But first I'll have to get a real job.

If you are carpening the wall it will make the musik sound like outside! You can achive the most natural sound!
I found a cheap carpet that was perfect for the studio of my sister.