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Re: OT: DIY Music Room sound-proofing
Several years ago, when I was playing in a very loud power trio in a
basement of a rented house, I had the challenge of sound proofing the
rehearsal room - even more so because I had some asshole neighbors who
didn't like loud rock n' roll. I had to buy a db meter and do some
research
on what the city ordinance requirements were for volume, etc. Inside the
practice room, I measuring db levels in the range of 100-115db, and
roughly
90db when I put the meter a few inches from the glass window that
separated
the basement practice room from the neighbors bedroom window. When I
finished my project, I had the level immediately outside the window down
to
40-60db, and 60db is roughly the level of an air conditioner. From the
perspective of the neighbors house, it was almost inaudible with other
competing natural sounds. My neighbors had an air conditioner directly
across from in their window, so it was a good standard of comparison.
How I did it? I learned that the university library was remodeling and
discovered that they were tearing out several thousand square feed of
ceiling, which was made entirely of acoustic tile. This is the standard
rectangular tiles that we see in most office ceilings. This stuff
normally
sells for $6 a sheet in the US. I got about 200 tiles for free, but had to
carry them down 3 floors on my back (4 at time), in 100F degree weather!
Fortunately, the basement practice room was unfinished, and had not sheet
rock over the ceiling rafters or the wall frames. This was the key to my
success, because during my research I learned that the key to
soundproofing
was in having layers of soundblocking material, followed by a compartment
of
air, followed by more soundblocking material. It is the sandwich approach.
The sound waves hit the first soundblocking/absorbing material, some of
which make it to the compartment of air and are dispersed more. Then what
is
remaining hits the second layer of soundblocking/absorbing material. By
this
time, very little gets to the outside. I basically put acoustic tiles in
between the ceiling and wall rafters, and then I put another layer of
acoustic tile nailed to the outside of the rafters, like normal sheet
rock.
I did the same thing in the window, but added 6 inches of foam in between
the acoustic tile.
The results were amazing, almost uncanny. The room was almost too
soundproofed and sounded very weird.
Kris