Soundproofing on a budget
Hey guys just like the title says any suggestions for sound proofing in a budget. I recently did a show with a drummer and now were looking to do it again but we want to practice. What’s the Easiest way?
Okay. If you wana be very ghetto, cardboard egg-trays are cheap and (so i hear) reasonable effective. Look it up on Google. Google is your friend.
Id line the room with a couple of boards thick of soundproofing gyprock - decent thick stuff not the cheap crap. And dont forget the cieling !!
A great simple way is go to a charity shop, clearence ware house etc and get some really thick (as heay as possible) curtains, drapes, even blankets and then hang them from the top of the wall. Make sure they don’t hang flat either, you need to make sure they have ruffles or folds all the way along them as the flater the surface the less the sound deadening will work.
They can be old, new whatever as long as they aren’t full of holes and need to be the length of the wall.
We did this at a mates house and it worked a treat, may not be as cheap as the egg box idea but will still not cost a lot and means you don’t have to sit there for hours individually sticking boxes to the wall, plus if you mount them on hooks, if needs be, it is easy to take them down or put them back up if you need the room for something else.
We went to a salvation army warehouse and picked up about 10 meters worth of old velvet curtains for £15 ($20) and sourced a bit more from other places, whole lot probably cost about £30 ($40) including the mountings and hooks to put them into the wall.
Only thing this doesn’t do is the ceiling but there are a couple of suggestions above that will work with that.
Edit: extra little tip, we mounted them on a wooden strips that we drilled into the wall all the top, that meant the was about an inch gap between the curtain and the wall when they were hung, this definitely helped I’m sure.
Egg Boxes won’t do shit!..trust me!
Heavy Curtains worked for me…to get a better sound…but not to sound proof.
As Bento said…Boards with Gyprock.
Leave a gap between walls, floor and ceiling.
Whether you can really cut noise from an acoustic drum depends on a few things.
First and hardest to do anything about is the bass drum. These low frequencies (some of which are transported through the pedal into the floor) can be transmitted through the foundation of the building. This means that if you are playing in the basement, they are Amplified on the top floor! There are two solutions I have read that work. The real way is by having a LOT of mass, basically tons of concrete. Not practical. The other is to make a sprung platform, often done with tennis balls. Look it up in google, there loads of info out there.
Next is the medium and high frequencies, these can be slightly reduced with the heavy curtain method. But the real solution is to build a room with a room. Bento is right about double layering 5/8 gyp rock, and this can be greatly improved with sound deadening material directly on the structure. So 3 layers.
Drums make a LOT of dB. If you are in a small room in an apartment building, forget it. Even electronic drums require sound deadening from stick noise and the dreaded bass pedal thump.
I did some research a couple of years ago, does it show? LOL
Phil.
my mate has JUST finished building his studio in his new house.
and its FUCKING well sound proofed. His trick was to make sure his veiling was done and the floor, really well. The floor especially. As Pilmat said…its a sprung floor.
Tennis balls or something like that will create a space between the real floor and the new little rooms floor.
This makes a HUGE difference.
Drums is a tough one tho…specially on a budget.
As much as I totally agree with what you guys have suggest I think the key point to the post was budget, building a room within a room maybe be stretching slightly 
I think the raised platform is a good idea as that wouldn’t be too hard to knock up if they had money for the materials. Possibly you could look at picking up a second hand dining table and chop the legs off and make the tennis ball mod round the remaining edge?
Although I agree with Phil trying to sound proof drums is going to be difficult at best, you will never get rid of all of it, the bass kicker will always be present.
As for the curtain method I can definitely vouch for it, we did a “before” and “after” test and the deading was very noticable outside the room, again you will never eliminate all of the sound like this but it will make it alot quieter. We were only using it for a room to DJ in and it helped alot 
What actually is the budget dude and maybe we can come to a collective answer?
One way to hang curtains would be to get clothes line wire and stretch it between walls. You could also stretch it across the ceiling and then drape them across the ceiling. If it’s something that can be more permanent maybe check with carpet stores that might be throwing away old carpet padding. Putting this up on the wall behind the curtains couldn’t hurt.
really, the only thing that cuts down on sound is mass. eggcrates etc, those are for cutting down reflections INSIDE the room. adding mass to the walls will help, thats why the curtains did. The extra air inbetween the curtains and the walls helps too. really, you need more drywall. they make lead impregnated neoprene sheets you can put on the waslls, but its pricy.
Old carpet scraps work pretty well to. And if you go to a carpet store, they will usually hook you up.
+1 on carpet. hang it with a few inches of space between the wall and carpet, if possible. I’ve used carpet in several garages for my punk band to practice in and it works pretty well. The drum riser is a good idea as well.
Another good idea is to warn your neighbors and ask them to call you instead of the cops if it’s too loud. 
Is it possible to add pics to this thread, guys?
(Would love to see some home made solutions & studios! 
)
Soon ima be knock down a wall joining my bedroom and stuio room, then im going to soundproof the thing and add some serious room treatment.
Still reasearching exact how ima pull it off so ill keep an eye on this thread for sure
When im done ill start a new thread with pics n stuff of exactly how i pulled everything off.
Me and my wife are looking into houses she doesn’t know it yet but I won’t look at a house that doesn’t have some kind of studio space like area that I can convert I like the carpet idea that is what I would do for a budget I mean you they have to have heaps of the stuff. I tried looking up gyprock and looked at there site it looks just like sheetrock or something I couldn’t quite tell what the soundproofing features were of it.
gyprock is like sheetrock. sheetrock is decent at soundproofing. It has mass. If it has mass, it dampens sound. If it has mass, and sealed airports as well, its even better.
Hey guys great suggestions here, I should note we’re in a condo unit and we’re at the end of the unit. It’s decent because our place has concrete between us the next place so I think my main concern is the ceiling really. I think i’ll go with the idea of heavy blankets, the ceiling isn’t finished in the basement so you can see the wood and what not, would some thick ghetto cushions work?
Well, almost the same here, only my fiancee is looking harder for me to have my own studio in our new house.
Thick Curtains with large valleys in them.