I realize that you can't really do too much without spending a ton of money to dampen sound, but if anyone has any suggestions I'd like to hear them.

This is the situation. Our Store (Apop Records) frequently has shows in the basement of the building. Above the store we have three apartments. For the most part It doesnt get too loud for them, but we'd prefer to not intrude on them any more then necessary.

In the basment the floor joists of the upstairs floor are exposede, I've attached 1/2" boards to the joists and have been filling the space between the boards at the upstairs floor with magazines and unwanted records, and whatever else I can find to fill the space. I was thinking of trying to fill in any other space with that expanding foam used to insulate houses. I can synthesize the chemicals myself so it would be cheap for me to do, but I dont know if it would actually do any good. Would it be a waste of time?

This looks interesting:

http://www.greengluecompany.com/

Maybe see if you can synthesize something similar.

Depending on the type of lease you have, and the type of finances, Rock Wool insulation in both the basement and the store above is a good bet. --Unfortunately, it involves ripping out walls and ceilings to the studs/rafters, and re-rocking/ painting, which is not only expensive, but time consuming, and messy as hell.

best way for me to figure it out is to build a diorama of the room out of boxes and hold small scale sound experiments to see what the shapes do.


did a bunch of that the other day.

kerble wrote:best way for me to figure it out is to build a diorama of the room out of boxes and hold small scale sound experiments to see what the shapes do.


did a bunch of that the other day.

Wait, are you to be making the fun are is this fer'real?

Can I come round and play with you?

I've looked into green glue and may try it, and can maybe try figure out how to make my own. Anyone have any experience using it ?

Ripping out drywall is not an option. Just don't have the time for such a job, not to mention it would require us shutting down the store for the duration of the work, which is something I don't want to do .
Adding the rockwool insultion to the basement is something I can try though.

Rimbaud III wrote:

kerble wrote:best way for me to figure it out is to build a diorama of the room out of boxes and hold small scale sound experiments to see what the shapes do.


did a bunch of that the other day.

Wait, are you to be making the fun are is this fer'real?

Can I come round and play with you?

I'm not fucking around. I really did. I'll post some photos here. I already built the Brown Note box set's prototype. It's fucking awesome.

and yeah, we should play. wait until you see my place.

apop_records wrote:In the basment the floor joists of the upstairs floor are exposede, I've attached 1/2" boards to the joists and have been filling the space between the boards at the upstairs floor with magazines and unwanted records, and whatever else I can find to fill the space.

Awesome! Good luck with filing an insurance claim after the catastrophic fire, now that you've publicly declared that you're filling this fake ceiling with flammable stuff.

This is really not so good an idea what you've done here.

You should fill the space beteen the joists with fibreglass batt insulation, probably like R19 or so. Then hang two sheets of drywall on the underside of the joists. If you wanna get fancy with it, go for the floating ceiling thing by using that J-channel stuff. Make sure all your seals are airtight, where the ceiling meets the walls.

In short, hire an acoustical consultant.

And get all that flammable shit out of the ceiling. Seriously, do it today. Unless you're looking to kill a bunch of people.

scott wrote:
You should fill the space beteen the joists with fibreglass batt insulation, probably like R19 or so. Then hang two sheets of drywall on the underside of the joists. If you wanna get fancy with it, go for the floating ceiling thing by using that J-channel stuff. Make sure all your seals are airtight, where the ceiling meets the walls.

Rock Wool is the stuff that's usually used for sound deadening/soundproofing, whereas Fiberglass batting is usually just used for insulation.

I hear the green glue works but I've never tried it.