The Steel Guitar Forum

Howdy Folks;

Could anybody give me some ideas of how to soundproof a room without spending a lot of money?
My music room is next to my livingroom and aparently the wall is thin enough so as when I practice the sound is bothersome to anybody who is watching tv in the living room.
Give me your thoughts on this.

Thanks;
Pete

No good or cheap way of doing this. I spent a grand on lumbar to make my last isolation box... it weighs 750 lbs.

DON'T go buy Aurolex foam or any foam padding. It won't help one bit. That stuff is to make a room sound better... not stop sound from getting out.

The only real thing that will do it is MASS. A couple of extra layers of drywall and an air gap but I think that is more than you are looking for.

Get a pod for practice.
b

I have used foam that you get at a fabric store and layers of burlap and that absorbs a bunch of sound.

Get a friend in a good breakfast restaurant and get those 18 x 18 egg crates they toss stacks of em.
Or.. get a little head phone set up.

As mentioned previously, the only thing that stops sound is mass. Most of the nicest studios that I have used in the past have multiple layers of Sheet Lead installed in the walls & ceiling. For home studio use, I have found Durock/Cement Board/Tile Backer Board type products to be useful. You can buy your self a little sound proofing without breaking the bank & ruining your home by running some 1x2 tack strips along the shared wall and floating on 2 or 3 layers of drywall or durock. This will not stop all the sound but it should have a significant affect on the amount of sound coming through. It also give you a "sacrificial" wall that you can hang blankets or other materials from to improve the room sound.

With this system, if you have to move in the future, you can take the floating drywall down, and all you have to do is spackle the screw holes & paint.

The egg cartons, acoustic foam, etc... are not designed to soundproof. They are to change sound relections within a room, to provide for better sound quality.

1. Try practicing at 2 or 3 in the morning when no one is watching TV.

2. Use headphones.

Yeah, unfortunately, there's no cheap way to soundproof a room - sorry!

Move the TV. Better yet, donate it to charity.

Headphones

Ben is correct.

Mass as well as decoupling (floating the walls, floors). In fact studios typically have multiple walls of different mass. Even the double windows are different thickness so they don't resonate.

Fiberglass or other wall treatments change the sound of the room (decay time, etc.) and do very little to stop sound from entering or leaving the room.

Wherever air can go sound can go....