Hey all,
I'm looking for some inexpensive "soundproofing" ideas. Now I do understand that to achieve complete soundproofing I would need to spend quite a bit of time and money to build extended walls, and use some of the best material, but I'm just looking for some ideas to limit the amount of sound my roommates can hear on the floors above. I have my drums placed in 10x12 room located in the basement. Any ideas? Thanks!
It is more important to do the right thing than to buy the most expensive materials. What you need is a "box within a box" i.e. mass - absorber - mass as said below. So you need a double ceiling and, ideally, double walls and a double door. If you are renting the place, forget it, but if it's yours you should be able to do something decent.
If there's nobody underneath you, things are easier because the floor is hard to insulate. Basements are better than attics. What I did in my basement is build a double wall of gypsum blocks, put wooden beams on top all across the room and put a double ceiling of gypsum blocks on top of the beams. Don't have the double wall contact the other wall in any way whatsoever, same thing for the ceiling, otherwise noise will transmit. Rockwool between the gypsum blocks and the walls/ceiling and a second door in the gypsum wall where the other door is. You will want your gypsum walls to sit on something shock absorbing, not on the concrete floor or any vibrations will be transmitted too easily to the other wall. There is nothing magic about gypsum blocks, it's just that they are cheap and relatively "mass"y. A stone wall is even better.
Then you will also want to treat the walls with sound absorbing material, but that is more to control the sound within the room than to insulate it, because that won't capture any sound at lower (bass drum) frequencies.
It's necessary to be a bit anal because (rumor has it) noise easily leaks through the weakest link, so you will want to do a good insulation job around the door with rubber joints. If the room has a window, that might turn out to be the weakest link. You can buy sound insulation windows with double panes, the one pane being much thicker than the other one.
If you do it all yourself it will cost you about 50% to 100% of the price of a beginner drum kit.