Sound Proofing Please Help!

[AdultSwim815]

Alright, here is my situation. My grand parents are moving in for the cold season, and my grandpa is not a fan of my drumming. He thinks of it as noise with out rhythm (which for me could be true, why I need to practice) so basically my drum set is going to be leaving it's nice little room and will be going into my bed room. My room is about 13x13 and the only thing it has going for it is 4 walls the room I had before had the stairs going into it. I was woundering what ideas you might have for me as a cheap solution. I was thinking maybe I could get some carpet padding and instead of putting it all over my walls, as that would annoy the piss outta me, perhaps I could make a backboard for them, and then put em on that. Then hang the board from my walls. My walls wouldn't be full of the padding, just would have it on the top half of the wall, along the 2 walls that are connected to other rooms. I'm not sure if what I'm saying is making any sense or not. But really just looking for ideas and input. I'm sure I'll find some info that I need. Just keep in mind, I don't want my room to be a cave of carpet padding and my budget for this is going to be about $50 (I work at Menards so I can get carpet padding a little cheaper than most people)

[spirit]

The only way I know of to properly sound "proof" a room is by making a room within a room, that is to say by having a pocket of air between two walls. Any other measures are in fact compromised versions of this idea, often utililsing sound dampening materials where space is an issue.

To be honest, I'm not sure how much help I can give, but I would like to ask a couple of things for clarification;

Is your room on the ground floor?

Are you grandparents going to be in all the time?

Is there any way you can reach an agreement with them over time and duration of practise?

Is there something you do with the kit (school band, orchestra etc.) that could "validate" your practise to them?

On an slightly unrelated matter, do your grandparents like any sort of music? If so, you could perhaps persuade them that you were interested in practising that style. I'll admit it may not be your favourite style of music, but all styles have complexity to them, you just have to find it, and all practise is worthwhile.

Just some thoughts.

[AdultSwim815]

Eh country is the only style they like really. But my room is on the 2nd floor, and my grandma will probably be in most of the time, but my dad thinks she wont mind. But I know my drums are loud and I don't want to annoy her too much because I want to start practicing for atleast 30 minutes a day. But yeah I know about the room inside of a room but I was thinking maybe 2" of carpet padding in the area of my drum set might help to silent the drums. I really just want to try to drop the drums down 10-20dB which probably is still pretty hard to do. But I'm just trying to think of some stuff that I could do. Erg, this kind of sucks a lot right now.

[crazyguy832]

10-20dB is the kind of reduction you get from quality ear plugs, not from carpet. Purely hypothetically, all carpet would do is cut some of the highs and, maybe, muffle some of the lows. The biggest problem with drums is actually the bass drum, that's really what carries. You could use this time to practice jazz, for one. You could also over-stuff your bass drum and pick up some hot rods or similar. Or, you could practice jazz, for one (just a suggestion, haha).

A carpet isn't all that thick, either. What you really need to do is have your whole drum kit sitting on top of a whole lot of soft objects (like pillows... MOUNDS of pillows). Obviously, this isn't very realistic. Unfortunately, it's really one of the only few things that works, especially with low frequencies like your kick.

[Charlie Daniels]

To be honest, it takes a lot of time, effort and money to even make a minute difference. Unfortunately, it's neot really a feasible idea. It really sucks and makes practising hard. Thankfully when I lived at home my parents were very supportive and took my practise as more important than the 'older relatives' requests.

My suggestions would be:

* Try and convince them to bear it for 30 minutes a day.

Or...

* Use it as an opputunity to work on building your hand tachnique on a pad.

:-/

Sorry.

[Aaron]

Best way to reduce it by the volume by 10db is to play quieter. You have the ability to reduce your volume yourself, and it's a good way to work on technique. Buy a db meter and use it as a constructive task.

[an_original_name]

Like people have said, the only way to fully soundproof a room is to create a room within a room, leaving a pocket of air between them. Very expensive and a lot of work. Another option you could consider is buying some silencing pads or whatever they're called. I know the rebound and overall feel will change, but it's probably the cheapest option. You can remove them all in a matter of minutes as well so if your grandparents do go out for an hour or so you can take them straight off and practice at normal volume levels.

T

[ant_182]

Put silencer pads on the kit? Or just do padwork for the next few months?

[Talos]

Im surprised no one has mentioned this yet, get yourself a pair of hot rods - theyre about $15 which is nothing really and they really do make the whole kit quieter [apart from the bass drum] but if it comes to it then take the beater out of the pedal so it doesnt make any noise at all. I dunno what you can do for the bass drum but the hot rods are the cheapest option you have.

[Aaron]

^ I love you.

[Retarded Chipple]

I'm pretty sure CrazyGuy suggested Hot Rods already......read the thread (Talos!)



You might be able to get a practice kit? I recently bought a DW Go Anywhere kit (cos my neighbours are grumpy assholes) and it was a real wise purchase! 30 minutes practice a day when you have a kit like that.

[Charlie Daniels]

Just to clarify, the suggestion that building a "Room Within A Room" will be soundproof is misleading. Just literally building another "room" inside the room isn't going to do much ( you can still hear drums through 2 standard house walls can't you?) It just reduces the volume a little more. The room within a room is usually good enough for keeping ambeint sound (traffic noises, birds, etc.) from getting in if you are doing fine recording but it won't stop something like drums from getting out.

And while hot rods make you quieter, it still is going to be quite audible through the house. :-/

[Chippy569]

hot rods are sweet... but they don't play like normal sticks so just fyi.

Soundproofing the room will take a hella lot of money, so don't bother even thinking about it.

those drum silencers would work well, too.

[Chippy569]

Just to clarify, the suggestion that building a "Room Within A Room" will be soundproof is misleading. Just literally building another "room" inside the room isn't going to do much ( you can still hear drums through 2 standard house walls can't you?) It just reduces the volume a little more. The room within a room is usually good enough for keeping ambeint sound (traffic noises, birds, etc.) from getting in if you are doing fine recording but it won't stop something like drums from getting out.

And while hot rods make you quieter, it still is going to be quite audible through the house. :-/

the "room inside a room" soundproofing principle is a little more complicated, yes, but if done correctly, there's extremely few paths for sound to transfer from the inner room to the out (and then to your house). However this entails building essentially a vacuum between the inner and outer rooms, plus floating the floor and ceiling, and that gets expensive.

the above is how studio tracking rooms are soundproofed. They're not perfect, sure, but the nicer ones can have upwards of a 60dB cut!

[Talos]

Oh sorry I didnt read CrazyGuy's post haha, it was tl;dr.

[AdultSwim815]

Taking the beater off of my bass drum eh? Well that actually makes me happy, I can practice double with a metronome late at night now :) I don't know, I'm going to drum my *** off for now, and if comes down to it I guess I'll be stuck with my drum pad.
Although I do remember that on popular mechanics for kids back when I was 6, the geeky guy did a cheap "sound proof" room. I'm sure it was a dramatization but what they did was put up some thick fabric up around the room, kind of loose too so it had folds in it about 6 inches away from the way. Then put egg cartons up on the ceiling and putting clothes on the furniture. I'm not sure how well exactly it'd work for me as I'm on the 2nd floor of the house.

[Talos]

It will be hard when youre on the second floor cus it could just go straight through the floor and into the rooms below. And as already said, a room within a room isnt as easy as it sounds, theres more to it. Egg boxes/cartons dont sound proof at all, the improve the acoustics thats all, sometimes if you go to a recording studio theyll have foam all around the walls with groves in like an eggbox but it doesnt sound proof it.
In my local rehearsal studio the whole room is carpeted and the rooms have two doors both of which are concrete and extremely thick, probably almost a foot thick [I havent measured or been there in a while] and theyre both carpeted as well. Theyre not entirely sound proof but they dont need to be, the music from bands nearby isnt loud enough to put you off and you can talk over the level leaking through the room [basically its not very loud at all and the room is almost sound proof]

Ive only ever been to one place that is 100% sound proof was at BBC [TV/Radio] studio were they record some of the stuff they air. That had this weird type of foam that had almost like a triangular prisms coming out, its hard to explain but ill try and find a picture, but yeah it was really dead in there and it was weird to even just talk inside it because everything sounded so dead and dampened. I imagine playing drums in there would be really awesome though.

[AdultSwim815]

I think I've seen a picture of that. I know I've seen a picture with a ton of foam triangles and they were about a foot high from what I remember.

[ace76543]

make as many odd angles as you can in the room. round off corners etc. for the room inside a room to work, both "rooms" should have some sort of insulation batting within the walls (fiberglass does well, apparently), then drywall over them.

[ace76543]

http://www.soundprooffoam.com/soundproofing-a-wall.html?page_type=Soundproofing&submenu=wall

http://www.soundprooffoam.com/ceiling-products.html?page_type=Soundproofing&submenu=ceiling&submenu=ceiling

http://www.soundprooffoam.com/flooring-underlayment.html?page_type=Soundproofing&submenu=floor

http://www.soundprooffoam.com/door-soundproofing.html?page_type=Soundproofing&submenu=door&submenu=door

[SkaRabbit]

i cut the noise escaping from my room by pulling up the floorboards and stuffing them full of insulation. putting paint on the walls which is specialy made to cut anywhere from 1 - 5 Dbs out. putting thick curtains up on my windows and hanging sheets around my walls and ceiling.

obviously it doesnt cut it all. but i like to make noise in my room without bothering others

[Berk]

my grandpa is not a fan of my drumming. He thinks of it as noise with out rhythm

htf does that work:confused:

[Aaron]

Yeah. Drums are rhythm.

[Disco Adult]

Yeah. Drums are rhythm.

Are you high? Drums aren't rhythm. Drums are drums. Rhythm is rhythm.

[ace76543]

Are you high? Drums aren't rhythm. Drums are drums. Rhythm is rhythm.

fail

[AdultSwim815]

No he can't pick up the rhythm from the drums. He thinks it's just noise. Even if I were to play the simple little rock beat, he'd still think of it as noise.

[ace76543]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWVq0u_uk6s


show him that