Sound proofing Idea

MrDean

Junior Member
So I will be moving into a town home soon, and I have a chance to dampen the sound a bit in a room that does not share walls with a neighbor.

I was curious how effective it would be to combine a drum isolation booth(1) and wall to wall sound foam (2) with sound blankets at the door and window.
I Also plan on decoupling the whole set underneath as well too.

Could this combination reduce the noise to at least to the low 50's DB from a set that could get as loud as 85DB?

Does this seem reasonable?
and has anyone tried this?

Thanks for your time!


1. http://www.drumperfect.com/htdocs/images/silencerallani.gif
2. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512fwYs-iUL._SY300_.jpg
 
Interesting proposal, Im sure you could reduce the sound a decent amount by using a booth, and some heavy duty sound barriers over the windows and doors, but the foam won't do much unless the room is incredibly reflective.

Sweetwater says those drum booths reduce sound by 50-60%, so 10db, and a standard single layer drywall in a house might reduce sound by roughly 15-20db depending on what insulation is in the walls. I would think a drum set is louder than 85db too.

The biggest thing you should worry about is how the ceiling and wall joints have been designed in case your town house shares a roof with the neighbour. If the walls stop at the ceiling, then you can have a lot of sound travel through the ceiling space of your house.
 
So much of your success or not with this approach depends on how the town house is built.

I look at town homes as part of my living, and there are so many variables with town homes, how their foundations are built, thickness of walls, insulation, etc, it's just impossible to really say without being there.

Your best approach is buy/beg/borrow a copy of "Built it Like the Pros" by Rod Grieves and read the whole thing.
 
I think your best bet is to locate a sound deadening brand of sheetrock (like they use in THX movie theaters) and layer your walls with a two sheet thickness all around the room.

Hang or install some sound deadening panels over the windows and doors. Acoustic foam only tames the frequencies within a room when properly applied, but won't cut the dBs.

This won't sound proof your room, but it might reduce the dBs to an acceptable level. As others have mentioned there are a number of building variables that factor in as to how much noise will escape and travel to your neighbors.

Any money left over from the project should be invested in some mesh drumheads for practice purposes in your town home.
 
35dB attenuation is pretty tough. That plexi room isn't going to do it.

Is the intended room on the ground floor? On a slab? Not sure how you intended to isolate the kit underneath but that's really difficult.

If you have non-common walls and are on a slab, and can mess with the interior construction, you have a shot at 30 dB or so. Remove all the drywall from the room. Fill with R19 insulation. Install iso clips on the walls and ceiling joists, put up hat channel into the clips and put two layers of 5/8's type X drywall with Green Glue in between. The QuietRock stuff is basically the same thing but costs a fortune in comparison. One sheet that has two 3/8's bits laminated together is like $45 around here. That adds up fast. The thicker stuff gets up around $100. Two heavy weight sheets of 5/8s has way more mass and costs maybe $20 plus $5-10 of Green glue. If you're doing a whole room, buy the bucket and applicator. It's way more cost effective than the boxes of tubes.

Get the Rod Gervais book and read how to manage doors (the real weak point) electrical, ventilation and the rest.

If you can't mess with your building then you'll have to build a real iso booth in the room. Isolated inner and outer walls with insulation in between. This will by nature condense the space you have to probably something like that church booth. It will cut the transmission to the outside world but probably sound pretty bad inside. You'll probably want to put damping all over to cut the harshness which will make everything sound dead. Since you expect the drums to put out 85dB it doesn't sound like you're a rock basher. The bigger you can make this booth while still fitting it into the room the better. But don't make it really close to the walls. Again, read the Gervais book on multiple leaf constructions and how they transmit more noise than simpler systems.

This sound reduction stuff really needs to be a sticky.
 
FYI: Foam is more expensive than standard batt insulation and has WORSE performance for sound damping and sound proofing.

If you really want some good damping look into making your own acoustic panels with Ultratouch insulation. It's made from recycled blue jeans and has an NRC of 1+ through the whole EQ band. It's non toxic, and has top rating for fire safety.
 
Have to look into that UltraTouch stuff for bass traps where you want different densities.

Typical damping panels are made from Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass insulation. This is what you see on the walls of theaters and pro studios. You can buy the stuff from a contractor supply. I paid around $100 for a carton of 10 2" sheets. So similar in price. I think a carton of 20 1" sheets is around the same which would be similar in density and damping to that recycled jeans material. And the rigid fiberglass is self supporting. Although you do have to cover it with something. I suppose you could leave the denim exposed for an interesting look.
 
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