I have an upstairs bedroom where I intend to practice but the sound bleeds over a lot to the room downstairs and annoys the family. I have sealed the door and that certainly helped with sound leaking into the hallway but no big improvement downstairs where especially the bass tones go right through the plywood-under-cheap-carpet floor.
Have any of you actually worked to make a room more soundproof? I have browsed around the web and find all sorts of solutions, from special products to egg cartons (although that might now work well on the floor!). Any real life experience you can off would be appreciated! I don’t mind spending some money on this project but then again I don’t want to go so far as to build the room-in-a-room things. Plus I am interested in keeping sound from going out of the room, especially downstairs, and not worried about enhancing the sound in the room for recording purposes.
Well, I sold the last booster a long time ago. But seriously, the thing is the sound going down through the floor, which I can’t put foam panels on. The foam might help keep the sound from going through the walls but not the floor, I fear.
If the room is dedicated for practice and small enough to make the following idea practical, you could possibly go some distance in sound containment for the floor: Using no nails or glue, completely cover the floor with rigid or semi-rigid foam - the thicker the better, no doubt - next plywood on top of that, throw on carpeting, and you have a nomadic-grade raised floor. The plywood easily ought to be a stable enough surface for practice, which is all you really need. Sure, it ain’t the Taj Mahal, but if it works and isn’t going to spill the beer, you’re set.
Who could possibly complain about the dulcet tones from your gorgeous K&Q set John??? Maybe your family should have their hearing tested. Other than that, I have no serious suggestions. I practice out in my office, which is in a separate building 150’ away from the house - but that is more to control humidity than for noise abatement.
Good luck with it at any rate, and see you at O’Flaherty in October.
Sound deadening is all about decoupling the energy transfer to the surrounding rooms. Foam/carpet on the floors helps with the transfer to the floor below, but unless you add damping between you and the room walls, the same energy will transfer into the walls, and the structure of the house. Egg cartons, etc. attached to the room walls will break up (somewhat) the room resonances, but do little to reduce energy transfer into the walls.
Another option, albeit somewhat more expensive, is to add blown-in insulation to the floor/ceiling space as well as to the interior walls of the room, if any (assuming that any exterior walls will already be insulated). This isn’t as effective as acoustic insulation, but it should cut down the sound transmittal considerably. Add to that a foam rubber layer under the carpeting, and it might solve your problem.
Of course, you could simply distribute foam earplugs to the non-piping occupants but that does tend to cut down on conversation…
Hi you,
not by experience with my pipes but as a professional engineer - you can only reduce transferring noise energy by putting heavy material between the source and the to be protected space, which in your case will probably be difficult. Material of choice would be concrete, 20 to 40 mm plaster board or similar stuff.
This is what I did. I am no expert in sound treating, but this worked well for me. This is just what I did in general.
Gotta keep the wife somewhat
Here is what I did not reduce sound from my office/chillpad/music room. I have two nice stereos that I run all the time and my uilleann pipes which my wife would probably like to burn. My wife is very chill but I did not want the sound to carry as I play music all the time.
The most effective I did was to treat the ducts. Go to Home Depot or Lowes and get a bat of fiberglass insulation. Tear this into thin strips that are around 1.5” thick. Line ALL ducts to the adjacent rooms with the fiberglass. Next if there is a junction cut a piece of wood and staple some fiberglass to it. You want to make a little junction wall in the duct so there is not clear shot to the other room. The sound must hit the pad. A wood stick is handy to persuade/wack the fiberglass in place. You don’t have to adhere it with anything. It will stay in place if you do a good job. You don’t have to line the whole duct. Just get as far as you possibly can. I saw a MAJOR improvement from this. House ducts carry sound all over the place. My wife always hangs out in the room across from mine and even with my stereo going hard the sound very thin.
Next if your door is a cheap hollow door you will want to put a better door on.
This was my initial treatment. Costs almost nothing for the duct treatment. You just gotta get down and dirty with your duct work. I saw no reduction in airflow to my rooms from this BTW.
Treating your room for sound will improve your sound overall. This is a must for accurate sound. I bought some Auralex wall pads and put these where the sound is and 6 large bass corner traps that suck up lots of bass. Ebay is your friend when buying this stuff. You can also make some nice panels with fiberglass. Auralex sells a special spray to mount the panels to your wall.
Now I can blast pipes/music and it is only a light din the the next room My stereo in my living room on the other hand will never be tamed
A very effective easy trap is to get or build a big box and fill it with activated carbon. This will not be cheap but you can buy big bags of the stuff. Shove this in a corner and will absorb bass.
This may sound silly, but you could construct a raised platform with treatment. This is how you decouple speakers. You might consider your placement in the room. Play away from the walls. This is HUGE. Your pipes transfer energy. It is like when you put a speaker against the wall or the corner of a room and it sounds like a muddy mess.
My stereo in my living room on the other hand will never be tamed 