Electronic Music 411 - cheap/easy soundproofing for apt?

05/11/08 + Juice

me and my special lady friend are looking to move into a 2 bedroom apt in august with the 2nd smaller bedroom supposed to be set aside for my studio...

i'd love to be able to have my drumset/amps/monitors and what not at full volume if possible, and i'm wondering how easy it is to soundproof(or at least dim/muffle the sound)in a single room on a budget... i don't care at all how it looks... just don't want to get kicked out/told i can't play my drums(is this even possible?)

for the last year i've lived in a 360sqft apt with my girlfriend and hardly made any music and i'm downright sick of it...

help!

is there any hope for me?

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05/11/08 + papergoose

eh, I dunno man. Depends on the apt. I guess.

I just moved out of my apt early so that I could get into a house so I could be loud again.

It's very hard to be creative when you feel like you have to limit yourself and your noise.

I have no real answer for you... turn down the bass. Auralex on the walls may help, but it's not cheap. No subs on the floor, etc.

Recent blogs: Personal Contract for the Composition of Music, BIROTRON- The 8-track Mellotron Clone, SiCKO

05/11/08 + dkarma

ok you can get that waffle foam looking stuff but I hear that stuff is hella expensive so what I'd do is go buy a bunch of 2' square ceiling tiles and line every surface with them... I just bought some for an apartment that I have and got them for 1.20 each.
at that rate you could probably do that entire room for under 100$.

otherwise nail a bunch of ratty old blankets to the walls and ceiling.

05/11/08 + jarvis

foam and blankets dampen but do not soundproof. if you really want to be able to play worry-free you need to build a room-inside-a-room. even then, your downstairs neighbors may not like the vibrations of your feet stomping on the kick and hihat pedals.

Recent blogs: Non-standard midi keyboard, janko

05/11/08 + nagrom

You'd do better to try to find an isolated apartment. I'm moving into an all-brick loft with neighbors two stories up next month -- and it wasn't easy to find. But they exist (well, depending on where you are).
link
Bottom line is that you need to obtain large quantities of thick, dense material and make sure there are no cracks. Blankets will do almost nothing for sound insulation.

Recent blogs: NeXT-step, Interview: Mark N./Bloody Fist Records, Je Suis en Montreal

05/11/08 + Roshi

There's no cheap solution, sorry. You're looking at at least 3 or 4 thousand

Here's an article about people who did it with green glue: link

Recent blogs: Summer Reading - The rest is noise, oogazer set, Origins of Butterzone?

05/11/08 + Juice

egg cartons/fast food cup containers...

these don't really do anything? myths?

we'd be on the bottom floor so i don't really have to worry about downstairs neighbors

Recent blogs: New York this weekend, happy birthday me, I(Juice) and J-Chot played out last nite

05/11/08 + dylan

a friend of mine sound-proofed his basement with big panels of fiber-glass that he had cut at a hardware store. he then covered them with burlap bags that he got from a coffee shop. it made a real difference and wasn't that expensive from what i understand.

dunno about the kick drum though. that shit will most definitely annoy the neighbors to no end. i don't think you can really sound-proof that without having the room completely isolated.

Recent blogs: Performing without a Laptop, Creative Commons Licensing, MIDI NES (Defunct?)

05/11/08 + astroid

electronic drumset.

im just sayin

Recent blogs: it WAS my birthday yesterday, wetf, 2 new things in my life

05/11/08 + j_chot

you have several options:

-hang quilts/rugs from the walls with a gap of 1-2 inches between the wall and the fabric (the airpocket helps)
-glue a thousand styrofoam cups to the walls (bottom of cup, not the rim to the wall) (this one looks really cool)

-find deaf neighbors

Recent blogs: the reason I'm not on em411 lately...., Mom's Fridge doesn't cut it, machine drum observations

05/11/08 + dylan

astroid said: " electronic drumset.

im just sayin "

actually, a friend of mine had an electronic drum set (the roland v-drums) and the kick still was the most problematic in terms of noise. he got berated by his neighbor for it being too loud; apparently there were vibrations that ran up the wall of his bottom floor apartment.

Recent blogs: Performing without a Laptop, Creative Commons Licensing, MIDI NES (Defunct?)

05/12/08 + astroid

im sure that could be solved easier than a whole kick drum tho. find a way to float the whole rig, maybe, like on a thick rug with some plywood on top. if it doesn't connect to the floor, it shouldn't go through the walls.

Recent blogs: it WAS my birthday yesterday, wetf, 2 new things in my life

05/12/08 + nagrom

will styrofoam cups really isolate a room? that sounds like bs to me.

Recent blogs: NeXT-step, Interview: Mark N./Bloody Fist Records, Je Suis en Montreal

05/12/08 + implexgrace

morgan, they will do a better job than having bare walls that are flat. egg cartons too. dampening yes, soundproof no.
also, rent a storage space for a while. it's not that expensive and sure beats bitchy neighbors.

05/12/08 + dkarma

this place has some solutions, but the iso pak for the drums runs about 2k alone...

link

check out their tutorials, etc.