John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Ok, I'm a complete amateur as far as studio design and sound proofing goes. I am located in Ontario Canada and I am enquiring about ANY options that I may have to improve the sound proofing of my basement that my son's band plays in. They play loud, heavy metal music. We just moved into a two level, poured concrete frame bungalow that is about 40 years old.

The basement room that they play in is 33 feet long, 10 feet wide and has a 7.1 foot ceiling. There is a normal inner wooden door on the room. One of the 33 feet lengths of the room is an outer wall. There are 3 windows on this outer wall that we have been plugging with insulated bags that we constructed. There is a 2 inch wooden subfloor in the room; the walls are not hung and are 5/8's drywall and between the studs is safe and sound insulation. The ceiling is also 5/8's drywall and has been painted with popcorn paint. There are 2 small vents in the ceiling. The permimeter of the ceiling was insulated with safe and sound. There is industrial grade carpet on the sub floor. For all intents and purposes the room is finished.

The boys play LOUD metal music. We just moved and my concern is the low frequencies travelling into our neighbours basements. We are 14 feet away from the closest neighbour. I am looking to NOT attack the walls if it's at all possible and as far as money goes I;m willing to spend 1-2000 dollars on it.

SO, my questions are these:

1. With the current condition of the room, would tearing up the floor and installing a floating floor be worth the trouble? Would it have much affect on the low frequencies considering that the walls were not really built for sound proofing?

2. I've read about just floating drum kits and bass amplifiers. Would this help?

3. If I seperated the floor from the walls by say an inch around the perimeter would laying Neoprine across the subfloor work in the same way that it works under the floor?

Thank you for your time and please help an old guy out.

Welcome to the forum, Glenn.

Be sure to read the "Before you Post" announcement and follow all of its points, including the "edit your profile with a location" part.

I believe you would be wise to take your eyes off the floor for now and instead focus on the walls and ceiling. A floating floor isn't useless, of course, but they're most beneficial when the noise is upstairs and you want it to keep from getting downstairs. While a floating floor would help minimize structure-borne noise from transmitting from floor to walls and then outside, most likely your walls and celing are the weak links in your chain. You could spend thousands on a floating floor and get a zero percent improvement if you don't address the walls and ceiling.

Your basement "bucket" has a lot of holes -- go after the biggest ones first.

A drum or bass amp rise will do probably no good. You need to control airborne noise, not impact noise.

There are a lot of projects here, some completed, some not completed, that share similarities with your challenge. Spend some time (days, even weeks) researching the forum. You'll get an idea not only of what works and what doesn't, but what kinds of details are necessary in order for appropriate advice to be given. We'll need details of your current construction in order to be able to provide specific advice for your situation.

I hope that helps get things started.

--Keith