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Anybody have suggestions for sound blocking/absorption on a ceiling?


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My wife can hear my tap-tap-taping on my V-drums at night in my basement studio, so I can't play them after she goes to bed. I'd also like to play my acoustic guitar, but she'll hear that too.

 

The room directly above my studio has hardwood floors and she's hearing it in our bedroom next door.

 

I'm guessing the lack of carpet lets the sound travel up to the hardwood-floor room, so I figure the best place to start would be to soundproof the ceiling in my studio.

 

I don't have the time or money to do some serious DIY soundproofing with drywall or anything like that.

 

Anybody have suggestions/experience with a good option for this scenario? Foam, panels, etc?

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My wife can hear my tap-tap-taping on my V-drums at night in my basement studio, so I can't play them after she goes to bed. I'd also like to play my acoustic guitar, but she'll hear that too.


The room directly above my studio has hardwood floors and she's hearing it in our bedroom next door.


I'm guessing the lack of carpet lets the sound travel up to the hardwood-floor room, so I figure the best place to start would be to soundproof the ceiling in my studio.


I don't have the time or money to do some serious DIY soundproofing with drywall or anything like that.


Anybody have suggestions/experience with a good option for this scenario? Foam, panels, etc?

 

 

Since you're not making sound per se, and really only creating vibrations conducting through the structure, isolate the drums from the floor! Easy and wayyyyyyy cheaper.

 

Check out this DIY unit fashioned from a ply/tennis ball sandwich. Clever and cheap.

 

http://vdrums.com/forum/showthread.php?45889-Tennis-Ball-Impact-Noise-Isolating-Platform

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Since you're not making sound per se, and really only creating vibrations conducting through the structure, isolate the drums from the floor! Easy and wayyyyyyy cheaper.


Check out this DIY unit fashioned from a ply/tennis ball sandwich. Clever and cheap.


 

 

Isn't that more for if I was upstairs and I didn't want to disturb people below me?

 

The tap-tap-tapping and tok-tok noise of the sticks and beater on the pads and symbals is what she's hearing, not vibration.

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If your wife is hearing noise mechanically conducted by the house (rather than acoustically transmitted) then removing your drums from a conducting surface is the answer. That's why that link should work.

 

But if there's still acoustic noise being transmitted through the basement ceiling (or up the stairs and through the door?), it would have to be dealt with in other ways.

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Are there visible joists above you that the upstairs flooring sits on? If so you can pack fiberglass insulation batting in the spaces between each joist and cover those with sheets of Celotex, effectively laying in a ceiling. The Celotex is light so it's easy to hang overhead. Much easier than drywall.....which is way heavy. I did this in my studio. I screwed the Celotex on with drywall screws and fender washers. It ends up a little "industrial" looking but does the job and is cheap. Once up, I painted my "ceiling" and glued Auralex acoustic foam up there as well.

 

I would definitely do what the guys have said and isolate the drums from the floor too. I did not look at that link with the tennis balls but if you are on concrete you could just lay some of the densest carpet under foam down and simply put a sheet of plywood over that. This stuff is called rebond or bonded urethane. Or you could frame out a piece of flooring big enough for the kit ....like a very low riser....say 2" or so.......and put U-Boats on the frame so no part of it contacts the slab. U-Boats are made by Auralex. In the open portions of the frame you can also use fiberglass batting so when the plywood cap goes on it also becomes sort of a bass trap.

 

Lastly I would use something on the walls if they are cinderblock...either way...drywall....to kill reflections and absorb some of the sticking sounds. Celotex works great also. If it is cinderblock you can glue it on with any number of types of glue. Liquid nails will work. I'd do 2" or 3" circular globs and space them so removal is easier than if you schmear glue over the whole thing.

 

Do you understand what I mean by the riser? Let's say that you want 8' square for the kit to sit on. So use 2"X2" lumber and build an 8' square. Then use more 2x2 to create an even grid....so now you have a bunch of squares. Fill the squares with the batting...it's easy, you just staple it on.....maybe the paper side facing up. Lay some 1/2" or 3/4" plywood on and use drywall screws to secure it to the frame, creating the floor or deck. Place the U-Boats onto the 2X2's all around and lay the whole thing down on the U boats making sure it is stable....not wobbling. Move it around etc 'til you find the sweet spot. Now you can staple or glue on some industrial carpet which will help deaden sound even more.

 

Take a look at Ethan Winer's website for some excellent DIY bass traps.

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Or, she could just sleep with a fan on. :idk:

 

Seriously, though, some of the suggestions above are massive overkill for a V Drum Set. Biggest noise is likely the kick and hi hat pedals. As others have said, put the drumset on a thick carpet. The stick clicks are high frequency sound so pretty easy to block either on the ceiling of your basement or by putting down a rug in the bedroom.

 

I assume your basement has a door and it's shut?

 

Acoustic guitar would be much more difficult to treat, if she can actually hear the much quieter taps on your V Drum set. If you have room, it might be a good idea to invest in making a little "room within a room" or iso booth for both instruments. That or just play an electric with headphones.

 

Terry D.

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Seriously, though, some of the suggestions above are
massive overkill
for a V Drum Set........
If you have room, it might be a good idea to invest in making a little "room within a room" or iso booth for both instruments.

 

Okay......:lol:

 

As for electric....when I had my studio in the house.....even though I used headphones at night, my wife could hear the sound of my pick hitting the strings when I was running my practice routines......on the other side of the house. It was traveling through the air conditioning duct. I had her tickle the wires and I went to listen and was surprised how loud it was. This is like 50' away.

 

Actually Terry....you will be surprised how loud the kick trigger pad on my Drumkat is....thumps pretty good.

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While the point about isolating the drums from the floor is generally a good one, if you're in a basement with a poured concrete floor and cinderblock walls, I doubt much of the sound is being transmitted from the floor to the walls to the rest of the house. I've played in basements for decades, and the big issue is transmission through the ceiling.

 

You say "tapping" on V-drums as though it's light like a feather. If you're a swing jazz player with a light touch, maybe. If you're playing hard rock, most likely you're smacking those pads but good. I've played with a drummer with an e-kit, and with the amp turned off, it's still quite loud, when someone's trying to sleep.

 

Treating the ceiling is the first thing to do. Above someone made a good suggestion, but then said to use light material to hold in the insulation. The problem with that is that the lighter the material, the more it'll transmit bass. No, you're not playing bass guitar ... but the thumps on the pads are remarkably full-spectrum, and will have a large bass component you'll want to eliminate. So, get the *heaveiest* material you can find at low cost that you can attach to the ceiling, and ideally, the less coupled it is with the floor joists, the better. (However, currently your biggest issue is the floor, not the joists, so doing the insulation first is a really good idea, regardless of what you use to hold it up.)

 

Also, as mentioned above, treating the walls to help avoid rather than bounce sound is a good idea. I used to always be on the lookout for discarded carpet, and any I found that didn't reek of animal stains, I scooped up, for floor/wall/ceiling treatments in various basement studios over the years. Works wonders. Actually, if you're going to record with mikes, you have to be careful about going too far. I once overdid a garage studio, and it ended up way too dead. During rehearsal, everyone said they had trouble hearing other people, and mic recordings were lifeless and dull. Of course, for your case, that might be OK.

 

Also, be aware of ductwork if you have forced air HVAC. As Huh points out, they can really transmit the sound. You have to insulate those extra.

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The "room within a room" is the ultimate solution, but also the most involved and costly and space-consuming. But the results are the best, by far. Hopefully you don't need to go that far. Start with insulating the ceiling and see where that gets you. If you end up doing room-within-a-room, you'd still insulate the ceiling, so nothing's wasted.

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We need more information about he basement. Is the ceiling finished? If not, get a bunch of fiberglass insulation (preferably rigid, but fluffy might be enough) and back the space between the joists, then drywall over or. Is there an air conditioning vent? When I was a kid I could hear my dad on the rowing machine in the basement, and my bedroom was two stories above that. So you might need to make ghetto removeable covers out of rigid fiberglass for the air vent(s) in your practice room.

 

Floating the drums is silly. If it's a basement the floor is concrete and the relatively low energy of hitting V Drums is not going to make it vibrate into the studs and up the walls.

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Cheapest solution: have her put in earplugs when she goes to bed.

 

 

This is very smart.

Having just studied studio design for a couple/few years, and having mostly built a large expensive complicated structure and now knowing all the things that could go wrong by building incorrectly, understanding flanking noise etc..... just buy her some nice cushy soft plugs and give her a back rub and go practice for a while.

Spend the other money on nice dinners and holidays.

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Just get owens corning insulation from home depot. Some of it comes in perforated plastic bags so you don't have loose fiberglass. or Anderson ceiling tiles you can liquid nail em straight to the rafters you don't need to install a drop ceiling frame or anything. Fiberglass will be a better absorber, but I think either one is more than enough. And seriously, vibrations thru your basement floor up the wall and into the upstairs hardwood seems completely far fetched.

 

Some of the suggestions are way overkill, Its not like you are playing a guitar or bass amp.

 

Oh and cover or close any HVAC vents you may have in basement. Sound likes to travel thru air ducts.

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Just get owens corning insulation from home depot. Some of it comes in perforated plastic bags so you don't have loose fiberglass. or Anderson ceiling tiles you can liquid nail em straight to the rafters you don't need to install a drop ceiling frame or anything. Fiberglass will be a better absorber, but I think either one is more than enough. And seriously, vibrations thru your basement floor up the wall and into the upstairs hardwood seems completely far fetched.


Some of the suggestions are way overkill, Its not like you are playing a guitar or bass amp.


Oh and cover or close any HVAC vents you may have in basement. Sound likes to travel thru air ducts.

 

 

Sorry man this is false information.

Flanking noise, is significant.

sound travels through structure like no ones business AND THROUGH WOOD FASTER THAN AIR..

And you are confusing absorption with stopping sound.

Stopping sound travel between rooms requires mass that is air tight.

703 is for absorption to some degree and only at higher frequencies unless built into a trap of some sort. But that is not the same concept as stopping sound from traveling through a wall, absorption has to do with how the sound lives in the room it originated in.

Blocking sound room to room requires mass and proper decoupling for a start.

Just layers of drywall which is airtight will help but might not be the best approach for your dollar.

At best a mass air mass system (double wall with layers of drywall on the outside layers and an air space and the cavity filled with insulation) preferably the 2 layers framed separately and at least only sharing a top and bottom plate.

On the ceiling you are looking at more complicated stuff, hat track etc.

 

Acoustic work requires study and time and lots of research, it is not intuitive, so don't waste a bunch on dough unless you are sure about the right way to do things.

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Roomjello, the reasons the walls aren't a big issue here is because they're cinder-block. In my experience with underground basement studios with cinderblock walls, the vast majority of sound transmission is through the ceiling and ducts, not the walls. Treat the ceiling and ducts first, and then see what remains.

 

For new construction of interior walls, you're right that the best construction to reduce sound transmission is separate framing for each side, insulated between. That's nearly double the cost of a normal wall (framing costs are about double, drywall costs are the same, plus insulation costs). The next step up in both cost and effectiveness is the box-within-a-box method, which also uses up a lot of space.

 

In this case, I can say with complete confidence that insulating the ceiling and ducts will help dramatically, and at a rather low cost.

 

Don't glue ceiling tiles to the floor joists unless you're sure you won't ever need to remove them. Construction adhesive is a mess if you ever have to get behind the ceiling tile, or replace the tiles.

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Playing an electronic drum kit makes quite a bit of noise, in a quiet house. (So does playing an acoustic guitar.) It may not seem like much, but when trying to sleep, a little goes a long way. Actually, when we can't sleep for other reasons, we tend to blame whatever we can hear, no matter how quiet.

 

As I said, start with the insulation. Even if you put up the drywall, you'll want the insulation between, and it's easy and not very expensive. Drywall would be my 2nd step. Or, do both at the same time to avoid having to figure out how to fasten the insulation in place. Hanging overhead drywall is a bit of a PITA, though.

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Playing an electronic drum kit makes quite a bit of noise, in a quiet house. (So does playing an acoustic guitar.) It may not seem like much, but when trying to sleep, a little goes a long way. Actually, when we can't sleep for other reasons, we tend to blame whatever we can hear, no matter how quiet.


As I said, start with the insulation. Even if you put up the drywall, you'll want the insulation between, and it's easy and not very expensive. Drywall would be my 2nd step. Or, do both at the same time to avoid having to figure out how to fasten the insulation in place. Hanging overhead drywall is a bit of a PITA, though.

 

Good points. I used one of these...

 

FH04FEB_DRYWAL_01.JPG

 

Regarding the fiberglass. It's been found that packing the cavity actually lowers your sound transmission loss. Some is good. But pack it, or even lightly fill it, and you are "shorting out" to a degree your isolation. Sealed air is the best. The pink stuff on;y kills the resonance inside and isn't really effective as a sound barrier. Once you fill the cavity, you're creating a path from the diaphragm of the rock, to the joists to the sub floor. The solution is to fill halfway and leave air.

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