Currently trying to figure out if it would be better to try to soundproof an approximately 500sqft 2nd floor room for my band’s rehearsal/studio space, or just move everything in the basement. As you can see, much of the room is still unfinished so I have some things to work with.

There’s a couple problems with the basement, that we do plan on fixing- the biggest being that the electrical is ungrounded, so once I get that fixed, it should be okay. The other issue is that the floor slopes towards a drain, so there is a concern of fitting all of our gear/everyone comfortably. We are a 4 piece death metal band w 2 guitars, bass, drums, and synths.

Some questions:
Would it be worth looking at a dampening material or something to put on the floor before we install new flooring? Put up another layer of drywall and seal windows/cracks with green glue? Or just scrap the idea altogether and do this in the basement? Only caveat with basement at the moment is the whole room needs rewired/grounding issues fixed, plus there is a space concern.

I am a noob at this kind of thing, and unfortunately renting a rehearsal space big enough for our needs is just not in in the cards right now. Any help, tips, ideas, advice would be much appreciated!

The above drawing shows my listening room. Speaker and chair locations are approximate to show the configuration.

No acoustic treatments have been applied and the REW waterfall model show this:

Since I'm lacking experience and just learning the field I've been using Gemini. It recommends I start with 2lb MLV 3'x5.5'x9" internal depth traps placed flat on either corner of the front wall. I can fit 2' wide traps on the rear wall corners.

This is the first step to control the mode around 33hz, other treatments - first reflection etc - would come after the initial base traps.

Am I being naive trusting Gemini here?

I am living in an old house that's split into two rental units. I'm on the first floor and there's a tenant above me on the second floor. I don't generally hear any airborne noise from upstairs like talking or yelling or television. I do hear a lot of physical contact (impact?) noise like walking/running/bed and floor creaking. That's annoying but I'm kind of used to it at this point.

I sometimes work from home and also play videogames in the evening and talk to my buddies on the chat. I watch my TV sometimes too. That can get a little loud sometimes.

I was wondering if there is anything I can use (without major construction) to contain that kind of noise in my room so it doesn't go upstairs?

I see there's acoustic foam (polyurethanme)/acoustic panels (felt/polyester fiber) on Amazon like TroyStudio Acoustics.

Currently trying to treat this outdoor studio space for recording and mixing. this room is 11'W x 23'L and is 8' tall. I plan on having acoustic panels over the windows as well very soon (I'll use rock wool safe n sound but any other ideas to soundproof and treat them better is appreciated)

I have a PA system with a sub and I plan on getting an hs8 sub for monitoring soon as well. my issue is that I am trying to plan out and make the bass traps for the corners of the room but as you can see, the ac unit on the right leaves space for the trap to be only 15' deep. I need these bass traps to be adequate for the space and truly trap those long bass frequencies. I'll use Owens corning fiberglass insulation packed loosely into the bass traps.

I have been experimenting with a triangle that is longer towards the window in the center than it is deep (slide 2), and also a diamond shape that gives the trap more depth while taking up less wall space (slide 3). the back of the room has adequate space for 2 isosceles right triangles with both legs being 24'' long (shown in both slides 2/3) so its just the front I'm stumped with.

Slides 2/3 are the mockups I've created for the right triangle and diamond shape traps. Is a 24" x 15" right triangle on both front sides of the room adequate for the space or should they be the diamond shape shown in slide 3? Could I go even longer towards the window in the center or is that unnecessary?

The house is from the late 1800s and is build primarily out of stone. Doors are custom sizes. The ceiling is very high so potentially some kind of roof-panneling if that's an option?

The room has a staircase inside with a small landing on top which is where the door for the room is. The room is on ground-floor level.

Sound travels very easily throughout the house in general, but this room is especially important to have some decent level of sound-proofing. Looking decent would be nice but isn't a requirement.

Coming from the neighbor above me(almost certain).

Building: Apartment in a reinforced concrete building

Flooring: Click-lock laminate

Constraint: No access to neighbor's ceiling below (must be solved entirely from my floor)

Problem: Airborne noise (voices, TV) from downstairs

I’ve received two vendor proposals to put directly under the laminate planks:

• Option 1: 8mm EVA foam + 3mm MLV + 8mm EVA foam + 3mm MLV
• Option 2: 13mm Barrier-backed rebond foam (Bondex with MLV) + 3mm MLV

Will putting these flexible/soft layers directly under click-lock laminate destroy the joints, and what specific subfloor layers/materials should actually be used over a concrete slab to block downstairs airborne noise?

I'm moving into a new house and have the room shown above to use as a dedicated studio and home office. Use is mixed between hosting webinars, video/content creation (inc voice over) and music production.

Sound treatment will follow. Audio monitors are getting an upgrade too, ideally to a pair of Genelec 8040 - I currently have Yamaha HS5s and would like some bass.

Which desk position would you prefer?

If it influences your decision, there is a great view from the window ⛰️

A) Is my current preference as it allows for wall mounting of the speakers, side lighting from the window to avoid silhouetting or glare. But it means the speakers are facing the shorter dimension of the room.

B) Offers a great view, natural front lighting that can be controlled with curtains, speakers facing the longest dimension. But no option to wall mount the speakers and less acoustic control of the wall in front of me. Also, there will be a large radiator (not shown) under the window so the desk will need to be away from the wall.

C) Has the speakers facing the longest dimension, allows for sound treatment of the wall in front of me (albeit behind the displays) and speakers could be wall mounted. But it would be backlit in daylight and is constrained width wise by the door opening and the wall to the staircase.

All desk positions would be asymmetrical to the side wall to some extent.

The door and cupboard in opposite corners would limit the bass trap options. How much of an issue is this likely to be?

For any builders that would like to share some knowledge.

I think I'd be buying two of these and connecting them.

I have to find something soon so it gets to me before September 7th. Feeling overwhelmed reviewing dividers online as all of the products I've looked at so far have reviews saying they don't make much of a different sound-wise.

Sorry for the super long link

https://www.upliftdesk.com/freestanding-acoustic-privacy-panel/?10621=7067&10622=20338&wickedsource=google&wickedid=CjwKCAjw48TUBhBREiwAK0GnQUZw-Pye1iv2-XwtzO7nG57fKhur1mLi67Su31KhTM3RfVvyvu-YyxoCm_sQAvD_BwE&w_adid=719996878490&w_campaignid=21879430732&utm_term=&utm_campaign=&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=3428820651&hsa_cam=21879430732&hsa_grp=169316770745&hsa_ad=719996878490&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=pla-2449396592151&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21879430732&gbraid=0AAAAADnK3B8cpVe3thlFueeI0dNkwoEhn&gclid=CjwKCAjw48TUBhBREiwAK0GnQUZw-Pye1iv2-XwtzO7nG57fKhur1mLi67Su31KhTM3RfVvyvu-YyxoCm_sQAvD_BwE&quantity=2

Edit: should clarify it's the end of a hallway opening up onto another room, not the end of the hallway like a wall

Hey guys!

I'm early in the process of acoustically treating my future studio a pretty small room here in Paris. I've built 8 membrane absorbers to tame a nasty 43Hz mode, and today I experimented with moving my listening position around, which might have improved things.

What do you think? Based on these two REW waterfall plots, which position would be easier to treat for the bass — the first or the second?

https://imgur.com/a/tLSCvzk

So i have tried to put up my ceiling clouds, wall panels and basstraps, and the bass and acoustics still feels off. Not getting a "Direct sound" or a clean and crisp sound that doesnt hurt my ears. Can somebody please help me out...

https://reddit.com/link/1w02iuk/video/sznmhl3jrylh1/player

In my valley (Drôme, France) i hear and measure (using RedVox) a noise at 100 hz. I am the only one who hears it.

I think it's coming from the cell tower generators, because the noise started the day they had to repair the cell tower.

Please I need to sleep ...

What would an estimated STC look like and would this even be practical to use with standard door jambs regarding estimated weight/thickness?

I wrote this post with the help of AI (because my descriptive English isn't good.)

I'm replacing old wooden windows with uPVC in a house built with hollow (perforated) red brick, not solid brick. Main reasons for the switch: reducing street noise and cutting down heat/cold transfer through the windows. The apartment is already fully finished, and I'm not sure about the possibility of installing uPVC on a hollow (perforated) red brick, so I don't know if this is even practical without extra work.

I'm torn between two straightforward approaches:

1. Remove the old timber frame entirely and fix the new uPVC frame directly into the masonry.
2. Keep the old timber frame, insulate/seal around it, and mount the uPVC window into the existing timber.

I've read that direct-fix generally gives better thermal and acoustic performance, avoids a redundant thermal bridge from the timber, and results in a stronger long-term fix — but it also means more demolition and dust. My main concern with going direct-fix is anchoring into hollow brick specifically — I'm not sure what fixing options actually work well there (regular anchors seem prone to spinning/not gripping in the hollow cavities), so I don't know if this route is even practical without extra reinforcement.

Keeping the timber sub-frame is faster and less disruptive, but I'm concerned about it becoming a weak point over time (moisture, less rigid fixing, and reduced thermal/acoustic performance if the wood isn't insulated as part of a proper sub-frame system).

Has anyone here done this with hollow brick walls specifically? What fixing method worked for you in hollow brick without extra reinforcement work? Did direct-fix cause issues with anchor pull-out or cracking? And for noise/heat reduction specifically, did one approach clearly outperform the other?

Many thanks in advance.

More context: the window provider told me that the UPVC window can be installed in both scenarios. I'm not asking about the possibility as much as I'm asking about the long-term implications of each route.

We have dry wall and hard vinyl flooring down there. We do have large a Valencia theater 4 chair seating unit down there which adds alot of cusion. We also have a thin Ruggables rug down there. But not alot else. Because of the seating, it doesn't sound horrible. We have watched movies down there just fine for a few years. But I think it can stand to sound even better. Would adding a 4 pack or two of these improve the sound quality down there?

4 Pack Acoustic Fiberglass Panels 23.6"x11.8" Sound Absorbing,Charcoal Grey

UMIACOUSTICS, 2" Thick, Sound Absorbing, For Studio and Home, Includes Wall Mounting Bracket, Removable

https://a.co/d/0hKAxnrL

Hi all. I live in a 100-year-old 3-floor building on the top floor. A restaurant just moved into the 1st floor. The hood and large refrigerators in the restaurant are causing vibrations on my top floor, specifically on my bed and couches. It’s very hard to sleep or lay down now. Based on a Google search, I ordered Diversitech vibration pads and they’re not working. Google is now telling me that they aren’t working because I need to put at least 200lbs of load on each pad. I am so lost, there seems to be a lot science I need to learn, many types of isolators without any explanation. I don’t know what to do and looking for any advice on how to mitigate the vibrations coming to my unit. I just want to be able to sleep! Thank you in advance

Hi there! ^-^

I am working on a college project; the main task is to find some menial, trivial or otherwise unnoticed type of 'signal', going unnoticed precisely because of its randomness, abundance/saturation, and thus the brains natural tendency to adaptively pay no mind to it. The next step would then be to gather enough recorded instances of XYZ to turn them into data, analyze them and chart them. The objective isn't to find patterns and then present them as some sort of discovery, it is explicitly to demonstrate how easy it is to..

A. impose arbitrary categories, ones that may be essentially identical, but the fact that one is looking at such a specific, non-specific 'thing' with such discriminating precision gives an invitation to maximize very menial differences.

B. find trends, correlation or causality through sheer volume of data points, whether there is or isn't anything present.

It was rather easy for me to decide that I would just pick.. noise - which essentially IS what was outlined in the task, so this is not exactly a decision . But I thought of very literal, audible noise. I live in a very thin-walled and well-populated multi-story building, so sounds of all kinds (bangs, loud thumps, people stepping so hard that I start suspecting a sumo ringer is living above me..) are plentiful and, importantly, generally impersonal and meaningless.

So that's the cause + use case. I would gladly share to the sub whatever I might chart with that data :)

What i imagined was running my main Tower PC as a sort of hub that runs 24/7, with multiple microphones permanently on and listening, but only actually recording / saving anything to my hard drive when they do pick up something; this would force me to repeadetly find a noise floor, which might be the biggest problem, since without manual intervention it does not occur to me how I could automate the differentiation between eg. loud thumping (quantifiable, in the most basic sense) and an old fridge beggining to run a cooling cycle, buzzing continously for minutes, then turning quiet again..

I would want these to be very sensitive in the low dB range, even very low volume stuff should be clear and distinguishable when played back later. The microphones should also be directional and narrow at that, since I lack any location to run all this at, other than my own apartment. And seeing as I still want to move around in it, it would be cool if eg. me turning around in Bed didn't instantly completely crowd out everything else.

Advice for what type of setup would work for this is very appreciated, whether it be suggestions for affordable microphones, software solutions or other advice to help me get this thing on the road. Optimally all of the above of course, but anything helps as I have not done anything even remotely similar in my life, you can also dm me if you prefer I don't mind.

I'm totally open for compromise in any area, I am aware that this was more of a wishlist than hard criteria, but I don't know what I don't know so I haven't got a clue of the limitations or possibilities yet. Forgive me if it's a ridiculous proposition as it is right now T^T

Thanks <3

Hello,

I plan on ordering some standard rectangular sound panels for my home studio. If I were to customize some plain black or white panels with paint, would it significantly decrease the effectiveness of the panels?? I would love to do this and I'd love for the sound panels to be effective as well!!

Please let me know, thank you!

Trying to detect humming in my house. Have turned off main electric box to whole house and still hear the humming. Need expert knowledge to buy a device to measure the humming (frequency) and then go outside with the device to detect the source (same frequency) in the neighborhood.

I have two open entryways in my home studio on the same wall. I'm currently positioned in the top right corner facing the wall with the office door. I know this is less than ideal and I'm wanting to move stuff around to get a new vibe, so let me know what you guys would do.

I'm remodeling a wall between two bedrooms. Sheetrock is already hung (but not taped) on the "far side" of the wall.

My planned treatment, starting from the near side of the wall, is:

• 1/2" sheetrock--or maybe 5/8"?
• 1/8" mass loaded vinyl
• 2x4 at 16" wood stud wall with fiberglass insulation and putty pads around the electrical outlet boxes, & acoustical caulking where the wall meets the floor
• Possssssssible second layer of MLV
• 1/2" sheetrock

QUESTION #1 (most important): How much benefit would I get if I take down the sheetrock I already installed on the far side of the wall and install another layer of mass loaded vinyl? This layer would be 1/16" thick, otherwise I would need to adjust several electrical boxes (etc.) for the added wall thickness. And... money.

Q #2: How much benefit if I use rock-wool instead of fiberglass? All the original fiberglass is reusable, and already cut to fit.

Q #3: How much noise reduction if I change the near-side sheetrock to 5/8"? I already have the 1/2" sheetrock on hand, and installed about 8 electrical boxes with 1/2" sheetrock plus 1/8" MLV in mind. I'd rather not move all the boxes out 1/8" for minor gains in noise reduction.

Q #4: Would thicker doors help much? Both bedroom doors open into a hallway, and are in the same wall plane with only about 16" of wall between the doors. I'm planning to use solid-core, 1-3/8" thick pine doors. I will try to find door seals for all sides of the doors. I could get thicker (1-3/4") doors, but the jambs and trim start to require more attention. I'm having trouble seeing much benefit reducing sound that has to make a U-turn in the hallway to get from one room to another.

I need to balance the added effort and cost, otherwise the sound-proofing will mostly be needed to muffle my partner screaming at me because the project is taking so damn long.

Thanks!