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.

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

In article ,
Ben Da Menda wrote:
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.

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.

--
*The most common name in the world is Mohammed *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Ben Da Menda wrote:
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.

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 http://www.soundstop.co.uk/solutions/wall_solutions/

Dave

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



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

From Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9wc8c

You 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.

david lang wrote:

Ben Da Menda wrote:
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.

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 http://www.soundstop.co.uk/solutions/wall_solutions/

Dave

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

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.

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.

Ben Da Menda wrote:
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.

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.