Best way to insulate you room?

[heycheckit]

is it possible?

[fep]

No

It's really difficult and expensive to soundproof a room. For example, 'float' a room inside a room with massively dense walls - like concrete on the outside walls - and the ceiling/roof need really dense insulation (you won't find this type of insulation at home depot), big time expense. Doing things like putting a matress in front of a window will do little to nothing to keep low notes from disturbing your neighbors.

Much cheaper to get something like a digitech gnx3000 a couple alesis monitor one speakers, and simulate the sound of an amp at lower volumes. It really is not necessary to play loud.

[NSJ]

Cheapest solution?

Egg cartons.

[Bill C]

you might investigate whether you can use something like this with your amp between the amp and speaker sections. Then add a pair of headphones and you're done ...

https://taweber.powweb.com/weber/hpa50.htm

[lpdeluxe]

Originally Posted by NSJ

Cheapest solution?

Egg cartons.

Tests have shown that egg cartons are totally ineffective. They neither scatter sound nor absorb it, and your cholesterol is higher from eating all those eggs.

Acoustic treatment can help, but it'll cost several hundred dollars and not really keep all the sound from interfering with your recording.

When I built my studio from a converted garage apartment, I heavily insulated the entire building with fiberglass and solid insulation. It still wasn't 100% effective. The better path (which I then took) was to control the damage the outside noise was doing by building bass traps and acoustic treatment inside the room.

A much better solution is to find a space where you can record that's naturally quiet. There is no inexpensive or easy way to magically transform a noisy room into a pristine, noise-free studio. If it were, we'd all have 'em.

And forget egg cartons: they just look ugly. Carpeting's very little better, because the areas that cause most of the problems are the intruding lower frequencies from passing trucks, overhead airplanes, and the like, and for that you'll need dedicated bass traps designed to capture and dissipate the long bass waves. Google "bass trap" and you'll find a lot of resources -- but if you're trying to record in a small bedroom, your options are pretty limited.

[Bill C]

Just to add to what lpdeluxe said, it's important not to confuse acoustic treatment (make the recording space sound better) with soundproofing (stop noise getting out/in) ...

[lindydanny]

Well, about the only thing I can contribute to this would be trying to put this up like sheet-rock in the entire room (including the ceiling). But, like everyone has said, that won't be 100%. You probably won't be able to do 100% on this without having a studio budget. But, if you try the insulation sheathing and weather-strip the door jam (don't forget sheathing on the door) and cover up the window with sheathing as well, you may be able to reduce a lot of the sound.

Again, it isn't a 100% fix and even the sheathing will run $25 a 4x8 sheet. So, it may not be an inexpensive option either.

~DB

P.S.: You could always try hanging a bunch of blankets around all of your walls... But that might just make it warmer.

[lpdeluxe]

Originally Posted by lindydanny

You could always try hanging a bunch of blankets around all of your walls... But that might just make it warmer.

That's something I forgot about -- thanks for bringing it up. You can make simple PVC pipe racks to hang the blankets and they are quite effective -- the spaces in between act as additional insulation. The drawback is that it's hard to set something like that up as semi-permanent, but I have resorted to blankets when recording a live, electric band in an enclosed space without high ceilings. But they are reusable if you design the racks to pull apart so they can be stored as lengths of pipe in the garage or unused space.

[derek]

Originally Posted by fep

No

It's really difficult and expensive to soundproof a room. For example, 'float' a room inside a room with massively dense walls - like concrete on the outside walls - and the ceiling/roof need really dense insulation (you won't find this type of insulation at home depot), big time expense. Doing things like putting a matress in front of a window will do little to nothing to keep low notes from disturbing your neighbors.

Much cheaper to get something like a digitech gnx3000 a couple alesis monitor one speakers, and simulate the sound of an amp at lower volumes. It really is not necessary to play loud.

fep and lpdeluxe are correct. Trying to soundproof an existing room is very expensive and not worth the effort imo. Guys wind up spending thousands finishing basement studios to keep the sound contained in there, and not thru the whole house. That is with only basically a ceiling to leak, as the floor and walls are buried for the most part.

If you are in an apt with neighbors all around, forget it. fep's suggestion of a small system that is usable with or without headphones would be the ticket. Good luck with it.