soundproofing

[Rosscoe]

does anyone know of good (and most importantly cheap) ways of soundproofing a room. One of my mates is moving into a new flat and has a spare room which he wants to use for a decks room, so as to minimise potential complaints he wants to soundproof it. It would be mostly low end frequencies i would imagine as the biggest problem as they tend to travel furthest and that is always what you hear when you walk past a party and the music is blaring rather than high or mid frequencies.

any help would be appreciated as i know at least a couple of you guys know a lot about this kinda stuff

[Chris P]

Corners of rooms are always were bass gets stuck. If you can find a way of making all the 90 degree corners of the room 45 degrees instead, its stops the corner from collecting a cochophany of bass and making the sound subbier than it actually is.

[chriscv]

in a nutshell... no. not cheaply.

[Rosscoe]

right so i realise its not gonna be able to be done "on the cheap" but if there are readily available materials i.e diy/builders materials that would work to a reasonable standard. i mean its not gonna be for production or recording but just something to reduce the noise sufficiently to reduce any neighbour complaints or from waking the baby to easily. i heard carpet on the wall works but i reckon this may not be as good as the people i have heard use it say.

[mrfaze]

I was thinking about this the other day, and i thought maybe to do it on the cheap you could board the walls up, staple on loft insulation and then board over the top of that? Would become like a thick sandwiched pilow on the walls then.....i would have thought that would muffle the noise alot, maybe not completely soundproof....but would be fairly cheap?

[chriscv]

simply lining the room with carpet or foam won't do much.. it'll dampen the high frequencies a little but you need heavy duty stuff for the bass...

basically you need to do what faze is saying..

build a room inside a room.. and fill the space between the room walls with thick insulation...

you need to get rid of any solid contact between the inner room and the outside.. so windows are generally frowned upon in a sound proofed room...

you got to think about it like car suspension.... if there were no springs in the suspension you feel every shock coming through every bump.. you need springs and dampeners to absorb the bumps.. the same goes for sound you need materials and layers to absorb the energy of the sound waves..

if you're worried about your neighbour it might be best to build and insulating wall against the neighbour connected wall..

try and have the speakers floating or not connected to and hard surface so vibrations aren't directly transmitted...

[chriscv]

failing building an insulated room inside a room... apparently you can now use latex...

get a big multi pack of condoms, some frequency attuned buttons and stack them up
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... nline-news