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Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room
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Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room |
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Subject: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: KingBrilliant Date: 03 Jan 02 - 05:25 AM Hi all I've been taking singing lessons for a while now, and have exercises to practice. Whilst its nice that my voice has got much more powerful, I worry about p*ss*ing off the neighbours (I live in a terraced house - one side are elderly and won't mind, but the other side have 3 young children & much better hearing... I can hear them when they shout - so they must be able to hear me) I am finding it hard to really let fly with the practice because I am worried that it must be irritating. So the cunning plan is to soundproof a room if poss. Anyone got any idea what is the easiest & cheapest bodge method? Cheers'm'dears Kris |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: paddymac Date: 03 Jan 02 - 06:25 AM My suggestion would be to buy some of the "egg-crate" foam mattress pads and tack them to the common wall. (Flat side to the wall.) If they're sufficiently affordable, do the entire room, including the ceiling if you've got upstairs neighbors. They really soak up the sound, and eliminate most all reverberations. You'll probably hear your own voice differently, because you'll only hear what actually comes out of your mouth, sans harmonic relections. A small project, really. Good luck. |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: Gervase Date: 03 Jan 02 - 06:29 AM You want a cheapish bodge? Go to B&Q and look at their cheap cladding - 7.5mm tongue and groove planks at around £2.50 for a square metre. Buy enough of those to go over the walls you share with the neighbours, get some 2x2 battens on which to stick 'em, and between the cladding and the wall put some insulation - polystyrene sheeting's good for soundproofing but lethal as a fire risk, but glass wool/rockwool is pretty good too. You do lose some of the overall size of the room, but it should prevent the neighbours from killing you! You can also buy special anechoic foam from the more upmarket, anally-retentive hi-fi stores, but it's bloody ugly, attracts dust and makes you think you're living in a room lined with black tripe. |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: gnu Date: 03 Jan 02 - 07:27 AM Cover the ceiling and cover the floor (carpet) if it is hard surfaced, as these will transmit the vibrations too. The best is to build the structure Gervase suggests with no attachment to the existing, leaving a space between. If you want to go as cheap as possible at first, with the ability to upgrade later, build the frame and cover both sides with polyethelene, that cheap plastic sheet used for a vapour barrier (don't use an air barrier as it will not work as well... sometimes, these are confused). Again, bare poly is deadly in a fire. A substitute for planking is Gypsum Board. Is it common where you are ? Round here, it's the cheapest thing going, it's easy to work with, and it provides fire protection. If you need any construction details, I will be happy to provide them. Overall, I suppose Paddymac has provided the best alternative on a cost-benefit basis. |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: Skipjack K8 Date: 03 Jan 02 - 08:04 AM It sure as hail ain't pretty, but do egg trays soak up sound? Skipjack |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: gnu Date: 03 Jan 02 - 08:49 AM If you're talking about the pressed paper or cardboard type, yes, a bit. The main sound deadening of these, however, comes about in two ways. First, the spaces on the back side allow less transmission than a flat surface. Secondly, the irregular shape allows more sound reflection and also reflects the sound "toward itself", like a dish, thereby cancelling out some of the sound. I realize that's a snippet of an answer, but I think it gets the main points across. |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: KingBrilliant Date: 03 Jan 02 - 09:33 AM Thanks for all the advice - I wonder whether foam underlay for carpets might do the job? I can probably lay my hands on some of that quite easily. I was going to do this in my daughter's bedroom as its the one without a direct wall onto next door - but it looks as if it'll have to be the cats' room as its smaller and inhabited only be felines + gerbil (safely tanked, but hungrily coveted). Actually - I might be panicking unnecessarily - I think I'll do some experiments with the minidisc tonight to see how far the sound actually carries. I'll experiment with hanging some duvets around the room. I like the idea of those egg-boxes though. If they were painted bright colours in different planes they could be really psychedelic wallcoverings. Skipjack, you may have invented a thing of genius!! And then if you put LED lights into the hollows & wired them up to light up randomly - or in time to music.... Cheers Kris |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: Mr Red Date: 03 Jan 02 - 10:27 AM Make a room within a room. Don't let it touch too much of the structure of the house suspend it from the ceiling if poss (on elastic) line it with pyramidal sponge cones a la an anechoic chamber. It is very cloying inside such chambers so keep singing. In truth the chamber need not be that much bigger than your head but I doubt you could stand it that small. make it out of cardboard for lightness. It need not cover you body as long as the floor fits you torso approx If there was any way to amplify your voice and listen on headphones you would get the aural effect if not the right oral effect. tell us how it goes (quietly please **BG**) |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: KingBrilliant Date: 03 Jan 02 - 10:38 AM Mr Red!!! - are you winding me up? That sounds uncomfortably like "put a bag over your head" - but I have to give it a go! Not sure what you meant about the headphones though - does that mean I won't be able to hear myself unless I take it in thru mic to minidisk to earphones?? Please elaborate. Will put head in box tonight & report back on monday when I get back to my PC. Kris |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: Allan C. Date: 03 Jan 02 - 10:50 AM An inexpensive but not always unattractive means for limited soundproofing is to use carpet scraps to line the walls. It won't work quite as well as some of the other suggestions given above, but it beats nothing. |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: 53 Date: 03 Jan 02 - 11:42 AM my son is fixing to put in a studio in the basement of his home, and we were just talking about soundproofing yesterday, the egg crates, are a good idea, and he had several others but i'm to slow to understand all he was talking about, when you get old, you tend to slow down a bit. BOB |
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Subject: RE: Help: how to soundproof (ish) a room From: KingBrilliant Date: 07 Jan 02 - 06:00 AM I didn't try the box over the head thing in the end (Mark convinced me it was a bad idea, and since I do get mildly claustrophobic perhaps he's right...) - but I did try singing under duvets. My daughter piled on 3 duvets, 5 pillows and a 4 ft teddy bear before we reached what she considered was a reasonable reduction in sound. Then we tried just shutting some doors & covering the doors with a duvet. This she reckoned would be OK so long as no one had a headache. Thanks kid! On balance I've decided that its easier and cheaper to decide just not to worry about it too much. The sound of distant wailing can't be TOO bad can it? Kris |
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