Acoustic Foam Help!

the cheapest way to do it is by lining the room with heavy moving blankets. Use fiberglass insulation in the ceiling if possible. Foam rubber is expensive and it is also a nasty fire hazzard. This isn't sound proofing but more like "sound control"
 
So you want to reduce the reflected sound not trying to stop sound from getting out?

Heavy blankets, furniture, carpet, carpet padding pretty much anything like that help reduce sound reflections if you want foam check out http://www.foambymail.com/Products.html
 
If your trying to keep the sound from in the garage from getting out to your neighbors and the rest of the house, you have a whole different set of problems.The only thing that stops sound in it's tracks is mass and lots of it.

So for your sake< I hope your just trying to clean up the sound reflections inside the garage. If so the above suggestions will work.

If your trying to contain it in the garage and prevent it from escaping into the outside world, you've got a lot of work ahead of you.
 
Xalky said:
If your trying to keep the sound from in the garage from getting out to your neighbors and the rest of the house, you have a whole different set of problems.The only thing that stops sound in it's tracks is mass and lots of it.

So for your sake< I hope your just trying to clean up the sound reflections inside the garage. If so the above suggestions will work.

If your trying to contain it in the garage and prevent it from escaping into the outside world, you've got a lot of work ahead of you.
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What could you use to prevent it from escaping to the outside world then?
 
5/8" sheetrock on the walls, on the garage door and a heavy door. Weatherstripping on all the door openings. If there's windows they'll also need to be blocked off with sheetrock. You can make it to be removable on the windows. Why 5/8" sheetrock? you ask. Because it's the cheapest heaviest thing you can buy, and it so happens that it's a building material thats plentiful. Mass stops sound. end of story.

The alternative would be cement blocks or concrete. There are also lots of other things like lead sheets and other exotic materials. But sheetrock will give you the most bang for your buck.

It's actually a little more involved than above.

I've built a couple of home studios and I did lots of research before I started. I have lotsa links if anyones interested in the particulars.

BTW: low bass notes, aka; bass drum are the hardest to keep confined.
 
Mass and air are the two things that help reduce sound transmission aka sound getting out. A garage is an incredibly difficult thing to keep sound from getting out because of it's design and the the fact you really can't drywall the entire thing. My best advice, learn to play with dynamics if you are concerned about the noise with your neighbors. Either that or find a spot in a basement if you have one
 
ok great responses guys. i will provide you will some more information. The garage door is not a problem we recently bought a new one which is custom fitted and has no gaps, there are flaps which fold over the edges so there is no gaps :) The door is also 2" thick with "sound proofing properties". All i want to do is improve the acoustics with in the garage which will kill some of the mid to low frequencies anyway right? I want to know where the best place to put the foam is. I read somewhere not to treat opposite walls? Also weather to be high, low, in the center of the wall ect...


Calum
 
It'll kill some of the High to mid frequencies, the lows will go thru virtually untouched. The lows are the bitch to contain.

The corners are a good place to hang some heavy blankets about a foot out from each corner which will give you some bass traps. Bass tends to accumulate and reverberate in corners.

I would try putting foam on 1 of each opposing wall. Theres no need to do the whole wall start with 1/3 coverage, probably the middle third of the wall. Most studio guys like to treat the ceiling instead of the floor with absorptive material, but in your case it might be simpler to put some cheap carpet on the floor.

Instead of buying expensive accoustic foam. A good heavy rebond carpet pad will work wonders on the wall for at least 1/5th the price. Not quite as pretty but almost as effective and a lot cheaper.
 
Xalky said:
It'll kill some of the High to mid frequencies, the lows will go thru virtually untouched. The lows are the bitch to contain.

The corners are a good place to hang some heavy blankets about a foot out from each corner which will give you some bass traps. Bass tends to accumulate and reverberate in corners.

I would try putting foam on 1 of each opposing wall. Theres no need to do the whole wall start with 1/3 coverage, probably the middle third of the wall. Most studio guys like to treat the ceiling instead of the floor with absorptive material, but in your case it might be simpler to put some cheap carpet on the floor.

Instead of buying expensive accoustic foam. A good heavy rebond carpet pad will work wonders on the wall for at least 1/5th the price. Not quite as pretty but almost as effective and a lot cheaper.
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Thanks, I have carpet on the floor which is good, i cant access the corners because of the door... I am going to order the foam tonight because they have a sale on. 30 tiles for £30, You get 5.46 meters sq which i think is a deal! I cant hang heavy blankets as my mum wants it to look half decent. I was thinking 3 tiles by 3 tiles on the two walls and one the ceiling then i will have 3 left to maybe put close to the corners?
 
sorry to jump in on this thread with my own question but
i am thinking of getting a prefab, all those studios around me are expensive and i would prefer to have a practice space for bands, but also a place where i can teach and play at almost anytime i want. but what would be the best insulation for a prefab?i want to stop sound from getting out...i have seen a pic, but the stuff looks expensive!

http://www.foambed.com/merchant/images/eggcrate1.jpg
 
Bosphorus said:
sorry to jump in on this thread with my own question but
i am thinking of getting a prefab, all those studios around me are expensive and i would prefer to have a practice space for bands, but also a place where i can teach and play at almost anytime i want. but what would be the best insulation for a prefab?i want to stop sound from getting out...i have seen a pic, but the stuff looks expensive!

http://www.foambed.com/merchant/images/eggcrate1.jpg
Click to expand...

You're making a very common mistake. That foam is designed for sound treatment which is acoustic treatment and sound proofing that prevents any sound to escape. True sound proofing is a very expensive business (see Brundlefly's thread) and often provides serious structural work to rooms to seal doors. The best method is to create a room inside a room to decouple the structure and use air gaps to isolate the room from the rest of the house.

The sound foam you've linked is designed for sound treatment. It is not designed in itself for proofing, it needs to be used in conjunction with everything else to achieve that.
 
Yes, the word "soundproofing" is a Very misused word when it comes to foam. Any of the companies I currently use, Sonex, Auralex and Markertek are for frequency treatment only. In other words they work wonders only in a properly built quiet room and they are useful in a limited frequency range compared to that of the human hearing spectrum. If you delve into the specifications of acoustical foam, the initials NRC will pop up. This stands for "noise reduction coefficient" which relates to the effectiveness in sound reduction at particular frequencies. These frequencies will be in the range of 125 cycles to about 4000 cycles with an NRC of only .75 to maybe a little over 1.0. This is a Very minor amount of noise absorption, probably much lower than what is needed for your "rough" installation.

An analogy would be using a number 40 grit sandpaper ( the properly built room) and adding the Sonex or other foam (400 grit sandpaper) to finish off the frequency peaks or slap echo in the room. It's virtually impossible to finish off rough lumber with 400 paper.

Dennis
 
Bosphorus said:
sorry to jump in on this thread with my own question but
i am thinking of getting a prefab, all those studios around me are expensive and i would prefer to have a practice space for bands, but also a place where i can teach and play at almost anytime i want. but what would be the best insulation for a prefab?i want to stop sound from getting out...i have seen a pic, but the stuff looks expensive!

http://www.foambed.com/merchant/images/eggcrate1.jpg
Click to expand...

I've done this twice. The 1st time didn't work out so well for me.

The 2nd time I read these two books:

Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros by Rod Gervais
It's long, lots of technical jargon, and some of it will go over your head, but it's full of good info.

and
KEEP THE PEACE! THE MUSICIAN'S GUIDE TO SOUNDPROOFING by Mark Parsons, which is more straightforward, and also written geared to drummers.

Some of the info in the two books contradicts each other, and neither book accommodates every circumstance you might encounter, but none the less, I read both books several times over when building my studio.

I also ended up using products made by Quite Solution, which are expensive, but do the job really well.
http://www.quietsolution.com/

Simply putting up some dry wall, insulation and foam isn't going to do much unless it's properly planned and thought out.
 
thanks for the replies. I guess i can ask a guy at a studio i go to....even though studios aren't sound proofed, they are there to control the sound. he may have experience aswell. Thanks, i would have made a big mistake!
 
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