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Reducing Noise and Sound From Coming in and going OUT!

DfgDfg Admin
edited December 2011 in Spurious Generalities
This is in no way an article or guide, it's just a thread where I ask ways in which I can avoid fucking my neighbors, obviously lowering the volume helps and just roaming around your place and checking how much sound levels affect others, but when you're listening to something in the middle of the night, the sound seems to reach way further. I am looking for CHEAP, CREATIVE ways to doing this with minimum infrastructure cost. Again, using headphones would be a lot easier but fuck me, 5.1 Surround!!!!

Tips, ideas. I will try to implement them and make something out of it. Expect from creative DIY projects coming your way. My legs still hurt, got to get a desk soon.
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  • SpinsterSpinster Regular
    edited November 2011
    Turn the bass down, sad but true
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  • fagfag Regular
    edited November 2011
    It's incredibly difficult to soundproof a room. I fortified the fuck out of a room, and the best I got was for the reverb to deaden, and outside sound to dampen down maybe 60%. Your best bet is moving somewhere without neighbors. Or a set of headphones.
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  • chippychippy <b style="color:pink;">Global Moderator</b>
    edited November 2011
    Tell them all you're deaf. They may be more understanding.
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  • GoingNowhereGoingNowhere Global Moderator
    edited November 2011
    Aye, a set of headphones is the only way forward unfortunately, and for you may I suggest wireless headphones. I keep having to move over to the semi-detached part of the house to practice my clarinet and that totally sucks! :)
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  • JackedJacked Regular
    edited November 2011
    Clarinet lol
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  • Darth BeaverDarth Beaver Meine Ehre heißt Treue
    edited November 2011
    Dfg wrote: »
    This is in no way an article or guide, it's just a thread where I ask ways in which I can avoid fucking my neighbors, obviously lowering the volume helps and just roaming around your place and checking how much sound levels affect others, but when you're listening to something in the middle of the night, the sound seems to reach way further. I am looking for CHEAP, CREATIVE ways to doing this with minimum infrastructure cost. Again, using headphones would be a lot easier but fuck me, 5.1 Surround!!!!

    Tips, ideas. I will try to implement them and make something out of it. Expect from creative DIY projects coming your way. My legs still hurt, got to get a desk soon.


    [h=1]TRITTON AX Pro Dolby Digital 5.1 True Surround Sound Headset With 8 Precision Speakers – XBOX/PS3/PC[/h]
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  • OsirisOsiris Acolyte
    edited November 2011
    I think it might be easier to soundproof one room than a whole place. Check craigslist for free mattresses and pin them against the wall. There are alot of free mattresses in the usa. You could go two layers deep and cut them up to fit against the whole wall. Put layers of empty egg cartons between the mattresses and immediately against the wall. Then for the exterior you might want this shape /I_/I_/I_/I , the vertical parts would been 8 inches and their base would be 3 (approximately) These pieces are directly above and below all around every wall _/I_/I_/I_

    8 and 3 inches if you go with centimeters make it 30 and 12

    I'm trying to think of a cheap way to make the exterior, all I can think of is finding scrap wood on craigslist and such, or getting a bunch of free hardback books. I've seen dumpsters with bunches of books.
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  • DfgDfg Admin
    edited November 2011
    Osiris wrote: »
    I think it might be easier to soundproof one room than a whole place. Check craigslist for free mattresses and pin them against the wall. There are alot of free mattresses in the usa. You could go two layers deep and cut them up to fit against the whole wall. Put layers of empty egg cartons between the mattresses and immediately against the wall. Then for the exterior you might want this shape /I_/I_/I_/I , the vertical parts would been 8 inches and their base would be 3 (approximately) These pieces are directly above and below all around every wall _/I_/I_/I_

    8 and 3 inches if you go with centimeters make it 30 and 12

    I'm trying to think of a cheap way to make the exterior, all I can think of is finding scrap wood on craigslist and such, or getting a bunch of free hardback books. I've seen dumpsters with bunches of books.


    Awesome, I am going to try this!
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  • bornkillerbornkiller Administrator In your girlfriends snatch
    edited December 2011
    Paper_Egg_Tray_Egg_Carton.jpg
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  • SpinsterSpinster Regular
    edited December 2011
    I think we talked abot egg cartons in another thread. they dont block out noise they just stop echos and sound bouncing off walls. like for recording.
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  • bornkillerbornkiller Administrator In your girlfriends snatch
    edited December 2011
    Spinster wrote: »
    I think we talked abot egg cartons in another thread. they dont block out noise they just stop echos and sound bouncing off walls. like for recording.
    OOooo....I see....Thanks for the heads up before I covered my jam room in the ugly things. ;)
    We had a sound engineer come in and do some recording once. He covered all the mirrors in a sheet before setting up. Said they caused sound bounce, no absorption.
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  • SpinsterSpinster Regular
    edited December 2011
    probly make your sound system sound quite good though. the environment really messes with sound quility, thats why people go to huge lenghs with sound deadening with their cars.

    yeh I think curtains, windows, carpet and cusions are the worst offenders, and of course mirrors
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  • OsirisOsiris Acolyte
    edited December 2011
    Spinster wrote: »
    I think we talked abot egg cartons in another thread. they dont block out noise they just stop echos and sound bouncing off walls. like for recording.

    They send the sound waves into all directions and deplete energy by canceling out other sound waves. All the sound waves must be absorbed or diffused so that they do not leave the room, the more energy you cancel out and waste by diffusion, less energy will need absorbed. Blocking out noise and stopping echo's go hand in hand because by trying to block out noise you are inadvertently trying to block out echos, a product of noise.

    Anechoic_chamber.jpg

    Here is a picture of a what I was talking about for the exterior with a cooler design.
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  • chippychippy <b style="color:pink;">Global Moderator</b>
    edited December 2011
    we've been through this before. The egg carton scenario will produce an anechoic chamber. All this does is make the music in the room sound unnaturally dead. The reduction in noise leaving the room is negligible. The only way to reduce noise effectively is mass. High density rubber or concrete are the best ways. Soft furnishings that absorb noise work to some effect with high frequencies but as you know it's the bass that carries. Usually the bass is transmitted mechanically, not through the air. Ceilings act as sound boards transmitting sound through the joists and onto the floor above which re transmits the sound to the air in the room above. fitting a high density false ceiling that has no mechanical connection to the original ceiling works well. Floors work just the same for rooms below you. A false floor floating on an acoustic foam underlay are the answer here. Solid walls don't transmit sound as well as floors and ceilings as they are denser, but they can be made more soundproof with acoustic rubber sheet. One thing a lot of people overlook is that joists can transmit sound through a wall. The floor acts as a sound board, transmitting the sound via the joists into the adjacent room. this can be avoided by lifting the floor at the edges of the room, building a support wall under the joists near the external wall and cutting the joists between this and the original wall.

    To reiterate, egg boxes or the like, stop echo and muffle high frequencies. They make the music sound dead. This is why they are used in recording studio's. They record the pure dead sound of the instrument and add the echo and reverb they want. To soundproof a room takes a lot more effort.

    This information comes to you from an audio engineer of 11 years experience installing sound systems in pubs and clubs all over the UK, and keeping the noise pollution to within building regulations.
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  • OsirisOsiris Acolyte
    edited December 2011
    The amount of energy stopped from leaving the room in the picture above would not be negligible, the egg cartons would not be as effective but if they deaden the sound then they are reducing the amount of energy the sound wave has and lightening the load that the mass has to absorb. Absorption does most of the work but I believe that using it in tandem with diffusion would have better results.

    You could also build a room within a room with plexiglass, and soundproof that room. That way it would never come into contact with the walls or ceiling and you could build a false floor as mentioned in chippy's post.
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  • chippychippy <b style="color:pink;">Global Moderator</b>
    edited December 2011
    Sorry to harp on about egg boxes, but if you went next door you would find all the high and a good proportion of the mid range frequencies had been absorbed by the walls. As these are the frequencies affected by egg cartons, the difference would hardly be noticeable if at all. Egg cartons will not affect the low frequencies at all. The only effect egg cartons will have is within the room. The power of sound waves drops off exponentially with frequency. High frequencies are easy to absorb, low frequencies are not. The only way to stop noise next door is to absorb the low frequencies which requires mass and mechanical decoupling
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  • Darth BeaverDarth Beaver Meine Ehre heißt Treue
    edited December 2011
    I don't know about the noise coming in but as for the noise going out if you got your fiber problem sorted out there would be less outbound noise.
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  • DfgDfg Admin
    edited December 2011
    TheDarkRodent wrote: »
    I don't know about the noise coming in but as for the noise going out if you got your fiber problem sorted out there would be less outbound noise.
    I see what you did there. Thanks Chippy and Osiris for the information and the rest. I will probably just keep a low volumn and EAT TONS OF FIBER!
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  • GoingNowhereGoingNowhere Global Moderator
    edited December 2011
    And a quick google search came up with this: http://www.mixonline.com/online_extras/sound_absorbing_materials/

    The walls absorb sound in the recording studio in college, as well as having two glass doors and windows between each room :)
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  • chippychippy <b style="color:pink;">Global Moderator</b>
    edited December 2011
    As a joiner, part of my job is dealing with Part E building regulations.

    http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/BR_PDF_ADE_2003.pdf
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