Sound Proofing

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Think laterally. It's probably easier to go around and break into all your neighbours' houses while they are asleep and puncture their eardrums with a knitting needle.

On second thoughts it is probably easier to just kill everyone within a quarter mile radius.

[zippyt]

[Aliantha]

You could try lining the walls with carpet or old mattresses. That's what a drummer friend of mine did when he was young and poor.

[footfootfoot]

I always wondered about velcro in tactical situations.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by glatt

What I'm trying to say is that you may piss off the neighbors, but getting into legal trouble is probably a lot harder than you might imagine.

Yeah, this is Montana. The city code is really easy to read.

Apparently they don't even have to measure the noise: "It shall be unlawful for any person to make or cause to be made any excessive or unusually loud noise or any noise measured or unmeasured which either annoys, disturbs, injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of any person within the limits of the city."

Very broad.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

On second thoughts it is probably easier to just kill everyone within a quarter mile radius.

Good idea. Maybe I can engineer a landslide that will destroy the neighborhood but leave my house standing...

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

So Perry, do you have photos of some blacksmithing projects you've done? I'd be interested to see.

I haven't done any yet. This is a brand new hobby. I'll be posting plenty of pictures as I go. I plan to blog the learning experience, too.

I'm going to buy the minimal set of tools and then learn by building out my toolset by hand. The first pictures I post will be of chisels and tongs and other such stuff. It'll probably be a few months before I start posting blades or ornamental stuff.

[glatt]

This is a really cool hobby. I'd be interested to see pictures too, once you get going.

[Flint]

Air-tight is sound-tight. If air can escape, sound can escape. So, every sound-proofing solution will include tubes and tubes of caulk applied to every seam.

Sheetrock walls on 2x4 frames are perfect sound-transmitting membranes. Sound frequencies applied to one side will be vibrated off the other side much in the same way as a speaker cone.

The construction of a sound-proof wall that I think would work best is to frame the wall on a 2x12, with supporting studs staggered from one side to the other, so no direct sound bridge passes from one membrane to the other.

The other way to prevent sound from being transmitted by the wall itself is to lower the resonant frequency of the wall to below the audible human hearing range. You can purchase expensive sheets of lead-impregnated vinyl for this purpose.

[footfootfoot]

There are also special clips for hanging sheetrock that bridge the board above the stud, thus deadening sound transmission.
http://www.soundproofing.org/sales/ssp.htm

[Perry Winkle]

Flint, I've also heard that uneven wall lengths helps and so does having no wall that is a multiple of another.

Thanks for the link, Feet. STC 60 would definitely do the job.

I got advice from a Filipino guy. He said that he built his sound-deadening building so that each wall is two layers of cinder blocks with a three-inch sand-filled space in between.

I can't imagine running power into a building like that, or ventilating smoke or other gases.

[monster]

Could you fill the walls with teenagers? Apparently their ears take in all sorts of yelling, but all is silent by the time it makes it to the brain.....

[gvidas]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

Yeah, this is Montana. The city code is really easy to read.

Apparently they don't even have to measure the noise: "It shall be unlawful for any person to make or cause to be made any excessive or unusually loud noise or any noise measured or unmeasured which either annoys, disturbs, injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of any person within the limits of the city."

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

I'm going to buy the minimal set of tools and then learn by building out my toolset by hand.

Speaking from the recent experience of building a very specialized studio, I would recommend continuing to do all the research you can about soundproofing, but not worry about it until everything else is already set up, or you know for a fact that you have at least one neighbor who is motivated enough to complain and is not deaf, indifferent, or inclined to think that the sound of an anvil hammering is 'quaint.'

It might be simpler to just bake a few apple pies and pay the occasional fine. Or hang some heavy blankets over all your interior walls.

[Undertoad]

I think uneven walls and egg crates are for recording and not soundproofing

[Clodfobble]

UT's right, the shaped stuff is to stop sound from reverberating inappropriately inside, not to stop it from getting outside. Flat absorption panels are the type of thing you'd be looking for, if you were determined to look in the professional equipment category. But I'm telling you, cinderblocks are the way to go.

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

I can't imagine running power into a building like that, or ventilating smoke or other gases.

Isn't this going to require, like, a giant furnace with bellows? You're going to need more than ventilation, you're going to need a full chimney.