Sound insulation

Anyone out there had any experiences with insulating for sound? I am looking to insulate a bedroom to use as a music practice room any info much appreciated. Ben.

Reply to
Ben Da Menda
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Hi Ben Have a google search for a question I asked some time ago, title 'Cheap Sound Installation'. The advice was excellent. ta

Reply to
gna03633

I used to work for dear old Thames TV at their Teddington Studios. The walls were 3 foot thick with a further foot or so of insulation on the insides. Doors had an 'airlock' of about 6ft followed by another door - and the doors were heavy.

Point is that sound insulation is extremely expensive. It basically involves adding mass.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

You can buy a foam material which has a surface comprised of pyramids, the idea being that the surface area is much greater - looks a bit like an egg box.

Useful site

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Reply to
david lang

Ben Da Menda said the following on 07/11/2005 15:21:

A good introductory book on the subject is "The Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F Alton Everest.

From Amazon:

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should do some serious Googling as well.

A little advice before you start. There are two fundamental considerations for a music room (whether it be for practice or recording). The first is acoustic isolation (i.e. soundproofing) and the second is acoustic treatment (i.e. the reverberation characteristics of the space).

You need to understand that these are separate engineering problems and, whilst your final solution will to some extent address both together, they are in fact quite distinct.

To soundproof a space, you generally need lots of mass, "decoupling" to isolate the room from the rest of the building, and you need to make the room airtight (and then worry about ventilation).

Acoustic treatment will alter how the room "sounds" (i.e. "live" or "dead") and will, in itself, have little effect on the soundproofing.

You also need to think about standing waves, which cause resonances at specific wavelengths (bad) and which are dealt with by carefully fiddling about with the relative dimensions of the room, creating non-parallel surfaces and employing devices such as Helmholtz resonators.

Note that stuff you may have seen in rehearsal rooms/studios like acoustic tiles, eggcrates, hessian sacking, fabric-covered perforated hardboard with rockwool, heavy drapes, matresses, etc is mainly acoustic treament - not soundproofing.

HTH and have fun.

Reply to
Rumble

Foam tiles of that sort reduce echo, they don't stop sound passing through walls. See the previous thread for more detail.

Reply to
Roly

I've used Sheffield Insulations Rock Wool Slab. It comes as 75mm. or

100mm. thick. It is fairly stiff and not like the old ashioned Rock Wool. You get six slabs in a bale. Cut it with a Bread Knife about a quarter inch oversize so that it holds itself between studs or whatever you use.

Chris.

Reply to
mcbrien410

Hi Ben, it would help to know what instrument you play, whether you're trying to insulate yourself from the rest of the house or just from the outside world and also a description of the house - terrace, semi etc. The most difficult instruments are drums and bass cabinets, which transmit vibrations through floor & walls - if you can isolate the instrument/speaker from the fabric of the house somehow, you'll cut out a lot of the transmission. A slight aside: as mentioned in other replies, the various foam & fluffy wall coverings available won't stop much sound transmission but just reduce reflections within the room - that might be your intention, particularly if recording, but I find a dead room very unsatisfying to play in so tend to blow (sax) louder. Hope that helps, Al.

Reply to
Al, Cambridge, UK

Search for "camden partition". Basically, you construct a stud wall 1 inch inside the current wall, and line the gap will fibreglass insulation (like the loft insulation stuff). A couple of thicknesses of plasterboard with the joints staggered, and your there. Pretty good performance. However, any contact points will transmit the vibration, so isolate them with rubber. The best you could do would be construct a "cupboard" only touching the floor via a big rubber pad. Build the cupboard like a camden partition. You have to make it air-tight as the slightest air path will allow the sound out. But then you need air to breathe. Studios use complex air-con with baffles etc for this. You could go in, and make sure you open the door every 10 minutes ! Anyway, I hope all this gives you the right idea. Simon.

Reply to
sm_jamieson

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