Items that will help reduce volume of drums

To any of you that have had a similar issue and solved it, I am going to convert an office to a room for playing my drums. I am curious of things I can find that do a decent job of reducing the sound volume without spending a fortune soundproofing. I've realistic expectations, I know I can get rid of all or even most of it, but if I could reduce by 30%+ that would be fantastic.

Do those wedges you see in studios work for this, or are they for another purpose than volume?

Thanks!

If you're looking to treat the room, you'll end up spending a LOT of money. I'm not sure about the wedges you're talking about, but I think if you're on a budget then the best thing is to look at what you can do to the drums themselves to reduce the volume. For example:

Mesh heads and gen16 cymbals; or

Stuff all the drums with towels/pillows/etc; or

Thin drumheads, and rods instead of sticks.

What is your budget?

Vic Firth, Evans, and Ahead offer dense foam rubber pads for drums, kick & cymbals, which cut the volume by 80-90% I'd guess. Probably your best bet for retaining your current physical setup, and a reasonable feel from the whole kit. It will be quiet, but won't sound like a quiet kit. You won't have any attack or decay that defines tom and cymbal sounds, for example.

Bermuda

As somebody who has recently finished a from-scratch soundproofed studio build, I was strongly suggest that, unless you are willing and able to commit resources fully, spend the money on items like Bermuda mentioned. Soundproofing is incredibly difficult and expensive to do properly, especially on a room that is attached to a bigger structure, as in the case of an office room in a house.

A few key points:

1. Do NOT confuse acoustic treatment like foam tiles, corner wedges, or heavy blankets, with soundproofing. These items reduce echo and reverb within the room, but do NOTHING for reducing volume escaping the room.

2. The single most effective way to soundproof a room within a house is to build a fully isolated stud room within the room, with an inch or so air gap all the way around.

3. Cheap solutions do not work.

With these points in mind, I would reiterate, spend the money on the low volume drum heads, rubber mute pads, or a mesh kit.

For your reference, here's the vLog documenting the construction process of my studio. As you can see, all of this effort, and the result is good soundproofing, but still not 100% silent. This is in a purpose built, free standing room 30 feet from the house: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiIBi-86_El-8XiX0aCjTt6jWJvuGykpM

^ sage advice right there

Speaking as someone who has tried all the cheap solution, I have to agree with the above.

The only positive improvement I made is to create a riser on acoustic foam isolation strips. The effect of doing that minimised the vibration and low-end rumble from the kick drum. My wife can now work in the next room without the room shaking.

The biggest place for losing sound though is windows and doors. I have my windows all stuffed with foam and my neighbours can still hear it. The doors in my house are really thin and pathetic so sound is worse if in the hallway.

I looked at fitting a door that was soundproof but considering all the other ways that sound would escape, I thought this was too expensive a solution for inside a house.

Doing summat like Mighty Joker requires doors of this type but unless completely isolated like his, it's a pointless waste of money

If you're going to get pads to put on the drums to reduce volume you'll not go far wrong with the Aquarian SuperPads - they allowed me to play at all hours of the day or night without disturbing others in the household or neighbors. I had those DeadMutes on my cymbals but recently tried some of those Zildjian Low Volume cymbals and think I'll end up getting some of them soon.

geezer said:

I had those DeadMutes on my cymbals but recently tried some of those Zildjian Low Volume cymbals and think I'll end up getting some of them soon.

Click to expand...

Those Zildjian cymbals definitely feel better and possess a cymbal sound while really cutting the volume! Of course, they're quite a bit more expensive than the mutes.

I've been using evans realfeel pads on the drums and Cymbomutes on all my cymbals, they mute the cymbals by wrapping around the edge but retain the stick feel. They're pretty cheap too.