House hunting for musicians/band practice without disturbing the neighbors/Soundproofing

[jb44]

Create a practice room that's in total vacuum. LOL.

Use tons of thick foam baffles mang.

 

[PiggySmallz]

Yes! I forgot resilient channel. My "studio" room (den) is Sonopan ( canadian product, marketed as sound board), resilient channel, 2 layers of 5/8 and only two holes in the ceiling enough to pass electrical through. I've got Two ducts but I used flexi duct and ran them too long in order to create turns and double back which cuts db ( in theory). Everything has to be sealed around the edges. ( around ducts, around the holes for electrical) Essentially sound is like water. Then it is also vibration. Two very hard things to control where penetration is concerned.

I researched the hell out of the project before starting and if I were to start today, I'd do it differently but budgets are real. Am I recording Taylor Swift down here? No. I'm recording dad rock and I never finish a song so..this should do. I really just want to crank amps a bit and play acoustic drums.

LOL same here. Put a 250lbs door on there too. Left my ac vents as well but they have a good length run with a couple of turns so it isn't my source of leak. Sealed around vents too. My biggest issue is transmission between walls and joists. I have a bathroom with half inch sheet rock on the other side. I was more concerned about waking my son up. The exterior wall is solid concrete block. I get some leak in the windows but I don't care if the neighbors hear it. They let their maniac kids run around screaming at 11pm.

If anyone is serious about building a room out you should run isolated 20 amp electrical circuits too while the walls are down. Always good to have your gear on isolated circuits away from lighting and anything else that can introduce noise...especially while I'm sitting there pretending I'll actually record music or something

 

[PiggySmallz]

Create a practice room that's in total vacuum. LOL.

Use tons of thick foam baffles mang.

Foam won't help. It'll help treat the room to an extent but stopping sound from getting out or into a room is a good combination of decoupling, leaving an air gap, and mass.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

LOL same here. Put a 250lbs door on there too. Left my ac vents as well but they have a good length run with a couple of turns so it isn't my source of leak. Sealed around vents too. My biggest issue is transmission between walls and joists. I have a bathroom with half inch sheet rock on the other side. I was more concerned about waking my son up. The exterior wall is solid concrete block. I get some leak in the windows but I don't care if the neighbors hear it. They let their maniac kids run around screaming at 11pm.

If anyone is serious about building a room out you should run isolated 20 amp electrical circuits too while the walls are down. Always good to have your gear on isolated circuits away from lighting and anything else that can introduce noise...especially while I'm sitting there pretending I'll actually record music or something

Thanks for the electrical reminder.. yes this. I didn't do 20 amp but I do have a 15 amp on its own circuit and lights on another. The electricians told me that's standard practice now given all the tech garbage people run in their homes but my outlets are also separate from the rest of the basement. It's crazy how much you have to think about and how much the costs go up as you add things to the list. Insulation like roxul ain't cheap anymore either.

 

[dawnofdreamx97]

my drum kit with the RTOM black hole mesh heads and Zildijian low volume cymbals are great, you'd barely hear them being played in the next room with the door shut and they sound and feel real.

Ditto to this , I even put triggers on my rtom heads and use slate trigger with my real drum sounds from my kit. I put everyone direct with plugins or modelers and silent rehearsal with the ability to demo and multi track record on the spot. Works awesome

 

[RaceU4her]

Ditto to this , I even put triggers on my rtom heads and use slate trigger with my real drum sounds from my kit. I put everyone direct with plugins or modelers and silent rehearsal with the ability to demo and multi track record on the spot. Works awesome

Yeah that’s a great setup, I think i saw rtom makes them now with the trigger built in. So glad I went that route instead of buying an Ekit

 

[Chubbs]

I’d also add… look for something brick. Houses with vynl siding leak an insane amount of sound. Your much better off with brick. 2nd, a house with newer windows is gonna be better. Old windows leak a ton of sound.
That being said it’s still probably going to be too loud. I’m a good 200 yards from my closest neighbor and “medium” volumes are still loud outside.

 

[VonBonfire]

I’d also add… look for something brick. Houses with vynl siding leak an insane amount of sound. Your much better off with brick. 2nd, a house with newer windows is gonna be better. Old windows leak a ton of sound.
That being said it’s still probably going to be too loud. I’m a good 200 yards from my closest neighbor and “medium” volumes are still loud outside.

Some of those closed cell foam 4x8 boards cut to size and doubled or tripled up in the windows will really cut down on a lot of sound transmission to the outdoors IME.

 

[boltzthrower]

my drum kit with the RTOM black hole mesh heads and Zildijian low volume cymbals are great, you'd barely hear them being played in the next room with the door shut and they sound and feel real.

Do the low volume cymbals sound alright recorded?

 

[RaceU4her]

Do the low volume cymbals sound alright recorded?

you know, thats a good question, i never really tried just because i keep my kit mic'd up so if i do want to record its just take the rtoms off, which are literally just a ring that sits on top of hoop, switch the cymbals back and in two minutes im recording my real kit. check out this video, it perfectly demonstrates the volume difference at the beginning.