Inexpensive ways to soundproof a studio

[BigRedX]

17 hours ago, TheGreek said:

Thank you people - please keep the suggestions coming.

You'd get more useful and usable suggestions if you were able to give us more details about the space and it's location, neighbours and actual usage. "A Studio" even in the musical sense is pretty vague and can encompass lots of different things all of which will have different requirements and compromises.

[SubsonicSimpleton]

22 hours ago, TheGreek said:

Organisation I work for (supported housing for Substance misusers/ care leavers/vulnerable people) have funding for a studio - not thousands of pounds but a decent budget (we think).

We looked at those acoustic tiles - prices vary considerably.

Does anybody have any suggestions (please, not egg crates) for an inexpensive alternative??

Studio can cover a whole range of potential scenarios, between a basic undivided space where you might set up a computer and record vocals/acoustic guitar with a mic,  DI guitar/bass and use an electronic drumkit to feed midi data to your DAW, versus attempting to multitrack multiple loud acoustic sources (drums/cranked amps). The cost of any buildout is usually way more expensive than you might expect if you are looking at your budget and eyeing the purchase cost of individual pieces of equipment such as monitors/desks/mics/interfaces etc.

If you are entertaining notions of recording any loud acoustic sources, before you spend any money it is a good idea to conduct a real world test of how bad the noise problem is without conducting any soundproofing - realistically without a big budget, you are unlikely to reduce bass frequencies by much, so setting up looper into a bass amp in the room in question and then adjusting the volume until it is at an acceptable level in any adjoining rooms/properties will give you a reasonable idea of how loud you can get. Even if you spend money addressing obvious weakpoints for sound leakage such as flimsy internal doors and old single glazed windows, structural transmission of sound is much more difficult to address.

The most cost effective way to address soundproofing is to relocate to a location where it doesn't matter if you need to be noisy, or address the problem at source rather than trying to contain it.

 

In your position I would be thinking along the lines of basic PC + copy of Reason or Fruityloops + basic interface + basic midi keys + headphones as a basis to get however many people you could comfortably fit in the space making music without causing noise problems at minimum cost, and then have a edrum kit and a couple of mics/stands available as and when required (but not left out for unsupervised use).

[Count Bassy]

As already said, to a large extent sound proof also means airtight. This means sealling all the joints!  Its, worth noting that if you build a 6 x 2m stud wall but leave a 1mm gap all round its like having a 144 (5.5") diameter hole in the wall, which you wouldn't expect to be sound proof!  The weak points are doors and windows. Double glazing helps, but use a panel that has different thicknesses of glass (so they don't both resonate at the same frequency), and you may need a further secondary unit (different thickness again). Door needs to be very substantial (I built one on staggered stud design - a two man lift) and multiple seals around the edges. Alternatively have two well sealed doors with the wall thickness air gap in between.

Cavity walls are not as good as you might think, and are probably now the weak point in my set up, in particular the inner skin transmits the sound to adjacent rooms in the house. However no complaints from neighbours, so I'll leave those alone.

My solution to the ventilation problem is to take a break and leave the door open when ever it gets too stuffy.

 

[sammybee]

I hear that boxes of peanut dust work wonders, well that's what Chabuddy G did for Kurrupt FM & they never had complaints about noise.