JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Recording Studio and Gear Forum soundproofing

hey everyone
i am about to embark on a new journey. i am getting ready to have a one and a quarter car garage down from a two. but i want to do it right and cheap. so what does everyone use for soundproofing. i have heard of egg flats and that egg crate bedding. does anyone hang felt from the ceiling? or have a vocal corner? also i am still undecided about room size so any help on size vs. acoustics would help too. my setup is currently in a room that's about 10x13.

thanks for any help
jt

I can give you a bit of help. Maybe others have more varied experience.

1. Avoid room dimensions that are multiples of each other - or an equal-sided box shape. 10x13 is better than 10x15, for example. 10x10 is REALLY BAD. If you have an 8 foot ceiling, then 8x8x8 is probably the worst. If you can angle one of the walls slightly (even 2" on one end), it will also help.

By avoiding related dimensions and parallel walls, you minimize the buildup of room nodes where certain frequencies will be very attenuated or be very loud.

2. A pretty cheap sound dampener (not soundproofing - that's different) that can be found at Home Depot or other places similar is to use carpet remnants nailed to the wall. I got some 2x4' remnants for about $15-20 each. I still have them on the back wall of my studio. I use more traditional Auralex for the front and sides.

3. For soundproofing, nothing will take the place of MASS and variable DENSITY. Two layers of sheetrock are better than one thick, 3/4" layer, for instance. Make sure the seams DON'T line up for the best isolation - and seal the seams. Even mixing 3/8" and 1/2" soundboard or sheetrock is better than two of the same thicknesses because they will absorb different frequencies better based on their thicknesses.

Hope that helps!



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Larry
www.audibleresponse.com

thnks larry,
i figured you would know.
jt

I assume you are going to build walls?
I used to do my recording in a bedroom that was 10 by 13 feet by 8 feet high. I remember doing the calculations (which I forget how to do right now - duh)for room modes for that size, and the result was pretty good. The only thing you need to watch with a room that size is that it's just a little too small to reinforce the lowest bass frequencies really well, so you might have to do a little fiddling with speaker placement and bass traps to get your monitors to sound really good in there.
Everything Larry said is true; you'll have to isolate your work area from the garage door because garage doors let a lot of sound through.
Oh, you might think about building up the floor so that it's level, using a wood stud frame with a plywood top, fibreglas stuffed under the floor. I wish every day that my garage floor were level.

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Later,

Pat

[This message has been edited by Patrick Bryant (edited 09-15-2002).]

I recently finished building a studio in my former two car garage, roughly 18x19. Now it's more like 17x18. I put insulation into the walls, then resilliant sound channel followed by a layer of plywood, then a layer of 5/8" sheetrock, then 1/2" sheetrock. I also built a 5x8 isobooth using much the same method.

The beauty of it is, you cannot hear it when you walk 10 feet away from the garage. So now I can record at all hours of the night and not bother the neighbors.

But here's the rub with what you mention...

Egg crate doesn't work. Mattresses don't work. Plain old carpet isn't going to do a great job either. Sound proofing is not an easy task, nor one to be taken lightly. I failed in my first attempt, mostly out of attempting to save money and cut corners. After all was said and done I had to go back and do it again and do it right.

You should have a minimum of two layers of wall. Best if separated with resilliant sound channel or mounted on sound channel. It will need to be sealed around the cracks. Sound channel is pretty cheap and easy to install. It takes a little advanced planning but done right it will make a really good sound proof studio.

Best of luck.

Jody

Yes, there is a big difference between sound absorption and sound PROOFING. Besides not working at all for sound proofing (and minimally for absorption or diffusion), egg crates are UGLY!


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Larry
www.audibleresponse.com


[This message has been edited by Lwilliam (edited 09-16-2002).]

BTW, I remembered that Auralex has an incredible site for learning about acoustics. They even call it www.acoustics101.com

If you go to their main web site, www.auralex.com, it refers to Auralex University and the Acoustics101 site.

You can learn a lot just grazing through their published articles on acoustics.

Here's a few other places to get educated on the subject:

www.faqs.org/faqs/physics-faq/acoustics/

Of course, there are also articles on the Sonex web site: http://www.illbruck-sonex.com/ (mostly sound CONTROL, not soundproofing)


Here are some others:

http://w3.one.net/~robgrow/helmhltz/helmhltz.html

http://homerecording.about.com/cs/studiodesign/

http://www.ahisee.com/content/rsdpart1.html


The following is a great site worth spending some time reading their articles.

http://soundproofing.org/

THAT should keep you busy learning for a while! Have fun and post again when you figure out what you're going to do!



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Larry
www.audibleresponse.com

thanks for the input as always jpf kicks out the info you're looking for.
thanks to all
jt