A question about testing how soundproof my rooms are

[SonicClang]

I've got a question about how to actually test how soundproof my rooms are. I'll be testing:
1) From my control room to my live room.
2) from my live room to my vocal booth.
3) From my control room to my vocal booth.
4) From all rooms to the upstairs of my house.

My first thought on how to test this, and stop me if I'm wrong, would be to grab two identical mics (as identical as you can get anyway). Have one in the room with the sound source and one in the other room. Then hit record/play, recording the volume of the sound with each mic in both rooms. The mic by the sound source would be the control, and you'd then compare what you see in that to the one in the other room. This would obviously be a fairly crude way of testing it, and mostly rely on you visually looking at the two waves to compare, but could this at least give me some useful information on how well I did building my walls?

If this isn't the way, exactly how do you end up testing your skills when you're all done?

[Touched By Music]

Well that would be very basic but the concept as such is ok.

For High End Measurements, you'll probably want to use specialised equipment for sound measurement and measure not only one signal but for example 1/3 band noise to see how good the insulation is in which frequency range. Specialised equipment will also take the reverbation of the rooms themself into account etc.

One manufacturer popular here in Europe for such kind of equipment is Brüel & Kjaer, in some countries you can also rent equipment for a day or so.

hope this helps

[SonicClang]

Well I'm not too worried about renting pro equipment to test my rooms. I'll use the sensors God gave me along with a mic so I have something to show people.

[knightfly]

Another way, without the need for multi-thousand$ B&K stuff - something like the Radio Shack SLM, either analog or digital; this meter won't respond to low enough levels to tell what's OUTSIDE, but you can crank up your source INSIDE til someone OUTSIDE can barely hear it, then measure the SPL INSIDE - this will at least tell you how loud it can get inside before it's audible. Same way for room-to-room.

Cell phones can help with this 2-person method... Steve

[SonicClang]

Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Throughout the building process we've always done yelling tests and drum tests. We did a yell test between the inside to the outside of the house before we started construction and we could easily carry on a conversation without raising our voices. Now I can bang a drum and it's hardly audible at the sidewalk which is about 30 feet away. We also hooked up a dual 15" subwoofer cab before a party and cranked the volume to see how much we could hear outside. Inside it literally shook the hair on our heads and we couldn't hear each other talk. Outside we could hardly hear it. So between yelling, banging on a drum, and the subwoofer cranking out some major low freq's, I think I'm probably covered as far as stopping sound from going outside is concerned.

I haven't really been able to test between rooms yet though because the doors and glass aren't up.

[Wurlitzer]

I've got a question about how to actually test how soundproof my rooms are. I'll be testing:
1) From my control room to my live room.
2) from my live room to my vocal booth.
3) From my control room to my vocal booth.
4) From all rooms to the upstairs of my house.

My first thought on how to test this, and stop me if I'm wrong, would be to grab two identical mics (as identical as you can get anyway). Have one in the room with the sound source and one in the other room. Then hit record/play, recording the volume of the sound with each mic in both rooms. The mic by the sound source would be the control, and you'd then compare what you see in that to the one in the other room. This would obviously be a fairly crude way of testing it, and mostly rely on you visually looking at the two waves to compare, but could this at least give me some useful information on how well I did building my walls?

Why would it rely on "visually looking" (sic) at the two waves? Surely after making such a recording, you could use any audio recording and/or mastering software to measure the amplitude of the waves at any given point, and the difference between them would be the TL of the wall. Record a series of sine waves over different frequencies, and you'll have the TL at each frequency.

[SonicClang]

Ok yeah, what I should have said was "compare the difference between the two recordings using a yet to be determined analytical method". Better?

[Wurlitzer]

Ok yeah, what I should have said was "compare the difference between the two recordings using a yet to be determined analytical method". Better?

Sure. My point was simply that it wouldn't be a crude way of testing it at all - it would be as accurate as any other method I could think of, as the computer itself would be measuring the amplitude (and thus the TL), not the naked eye.

[SonicClang]

No I get it, it's a good idea. I can't wait to get everything sealed up and try it.