Sound Proofing

[Jared the Great]

Hi Guys,

Me and my band have just started playing in a solid brick garage. The fact that it is double brick seems to amplify the sound as there is nothing there to obsorb it. I'm looking for some ideas and feedback on how to sound proof the garage to minimise the impact on the neighbours. I have heard about egg cartons does this really work.

Thanks for your help.

[jeffhx]

yep...egg cartons are the cheapest...it's effective...

[Kevin Taylor]

Actually.. hate to disagree but egg cartons do virtually nothing to prevent sound from leaving a room.
They do a minimal job of reducing room reflections and they do nothing on low frequencies. You might be able to cut back a bit of mic feedback or deaden the room slightly for recording, but that's about it.
There's only two ways to stop sound from escaping a room and that's with distance and mass. You need something like a second wall that doesn't touch the outside wall and insulation between them.

[jeffhx]

hmm...it seemed to work for my mates...he covered most of the walls in egg cartons...there was still sound in his studio but toletrable...

[Kevin Taylor]

What can I say... do a search on Google or just look at any acoustics book and you'll see the same opinion...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=egg+cartons+sound+proofing&meta=

[Akira]

You could get some curtain rails up around the outside of the room, and hang some really thick rugs from them for a temporary solution. I don't know how much this actually works however... schmange?

[Kevin Taylor]

It might help, but it won't be great.
Any gaps will just let the sound through.
... think of it like playing a really loud stereo in your bedroom with the window closed. Then open the window just a few inches and see how much louder it gets outside.
In an old rehearsal room of ours we used 4" thick foam padding on all the walls, and then sleeping bags over that. Even the door was about 4" thick and had to be squeezed shut ... the neighbors still complained.

[Akira]

It might help, but it won't be great.
Any gaps will just let the sound through.
... think of it like playing a really loud stereo in your bedroom with the window closed. Then open the window just a few inches and see how much louder it gets outside.
In an old rehearsal room of ours we used 4" thick foam padding on all the walls, and then sleeping bags over that. Even the door was about 4" thick and had to be squeezed shut ... the neighbors still complained.

Ahh, well it was just something that came off the top of my head. Better luck next time I guess? :p

[Lordathestrings]

>This (http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/bsi/85-3_e.html)< may give you some idea of what you're up against.

[Kevin Taylor]

yeah... I'm going to England soon to start renovating my studio there.
Like, completely gutting the entire place... building an inside wall that's not parellal so you don't get reflections... building up the floor with multiple layers of rock, rubber etc.... isolating the inside wall from the outside wall and floating it free so that it doesn't contact the outside wall in any way...
major rewiring to get rid of that constant a/c hum buzz I keep getting...
isolating the computer and sound equipment... monster cable.

I'm totally freaked with how much research is required. One of the main problems is the place I own is semi-detached... actually, all the units are attached along the coast. And most of the neighbors are exremely elderly.

pic:

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/CornwallHouseFront.jpg

[Lordathestrings]

You'll note that for all of the learned dissertation on the relative merits of various building materials and techniques, they didn't even mention the real skull-buster:

How the heck do you ventilate the place???? :confused:

[magicninja]

You'll note that for all of the learned dissertation on the relative merits of various building materials and techniques, they didn't even mention the real skull-buster:

How the heck do you ventilate the place???? :confused:

haha! When I worked at a studio here in town we had a vocal booth that was thick carpet like material and the foam stuff Schmange was talking about. It was probably 6lx6wx8h not very big. It had a ventalation fan that we would turn on between takes and off while recording. There were a few times when this was overlooked and the person inside would be like....It's getting hot in here!.....oh yeah.....ventilation is key.

[Kevin Taylor]

Yeah... that was a major hassle for me up hear in my Holland Landing studio.
I've got air conditioning but there's no way you can have it running while you're doing vocals. So you boil your ass off cause you have to turn it off.

In my cornwall studio, I'm reading up on it so I can run an air conditioner when necessary so that it ventilates the place but doesn't cause any noise.
The weather down there isn't so much a problem cause it generally hovers around 70 deg in summer. If it gets overly hot, you can open the front and rear doors and the ocean breeze totally airs the place out.

In Canada though, I just use a remote control air conditioner and turn it off whenever I'm doing vocals or acoustic guitar. The rest of the time all the instruments are self contained so it isn't a problem.
The vocal booth is the major hassle. All you can do is ventilate it while it's not in use and then stagger your sessions so that you don't overheat.

In our old rehearsal studio it was torture.
During the winter, we had to use a propane heater and it stunk like hell.
The place was freezing.
Then in summer, it was so hot you were literally streaming sweat.