I don't know if what I'm going to say was mentioned(though I read the thread, but not too thoroughly). Never designed an acoustic space or soundproofed an airport, etc'. I just soundproofed my own practice space and treated it so it'll sound nice.

I think it's really important to isolate as much as you can the stage from the floor or at least isolate the drummer from the floor. I noticed that what you hear the most is the snare and kick(when standing in the floor above where the band is playing) and that's because you're hitting them the hardest. Hitting them is making the hardware(snare stand for example) to vibrate and that's making the whole place vibrate.
have a friend hold a snare drum in the air, in a a treated room with heavy, sealed doors and windows. hit the snare as hard as you can, the people standing outside of that room, say, on the floor above, won't hear the snare, or they'll hear it very faintly. Place the snare on a stand and hit it with the same power, it's gonna be much louder for the people outside. It'll also help you estimate how much a floating floor is going to help in your situation. It will be the best to make this "experiment" with a kick drum, but I can't see how someone is holding a kick drum in the air and you(or anyone else) kicking the beater hard..

Again, I'm not an acoustician, but I did read on the subject and what I wrote above fits into the logic I've "adopted" after reading and creating my own space.

really there are two main issues.

one is that any open pathways will let *all* the sound through. anywhere light can pass through from one space to another might as well be a piece of paper. the spaces under doors are primary offenders in almost all cases, as are the spaces where the door should be forming a tight seal against the frame but doesn't.

shared heating ductwork is kinda the same deal, it's an open, unobstructed path for the sound to travel. if your basement and first and second floors all are on the same furnace, with interconnected ductwork, you're kinda screwed there.

after you've got all that stuff taken care of, you shouldn't have any problems with midrange and treble frequencies. the bass, on the other hand, likes to go right through walls, floors, doors, you name it. as mentioned already, if you can force the bass to go through a solid surface (like an airtight drop ceiling) with some mass to it (fibreglass batt insulation is great at simulating mass without being super heavy) and then go through a space of air, and then another solid, airtight surface (like the floor of the level above), this is gonna be your best defense against bass making it up to the next level.

vibrations getting into the basement floor and walls are a silly place to focus, unless these aspects are all in excellent order. the ductwork is probably such that no matter what you do to the basement ceiling and all doorways from the basement to upper floors, you're still going to have a bunch of sound going through the ducts to the point where the other treatments are of little use.

if you turn off all the lights in the basement and cover all exterior windows with something opaque so the basement is pitch black, can you see any light coming into the room, under a doorway to the stairs up to the first floor or (the worst) through spaces between the floorboards of the upper level? if there's any light leaking in, any at all, that's the first thing you've got to take care of, to seal up all those openings.

also, when you get into shit like this, sealing up openings, it becomes even more critical to have a functional carbon monoxide detector in all spaces. the less leaky openings you have, the better a space becomes at trapping not just sound but also whatever carbon monoxide might be coming up from the ground. don't fuck around with it, cause it will kill you.

dont drop bombs wrote:Any thoughts on how to best diminish sound without spending thousands of dollars?Any suggestions on how to go about working with this particular kind of space would be *very* much appreciated. Thanks!Forget being able to significantly reduce transmitted low frequencies. Without significant mass (ballast) and/or mechanical decoupling it just ain't gonna happen. Start thinking more about reducing level at the source. Using much smaller amps, having the drummer play with splits etc so the overall level isn't dictated by the snare drum level will have a much more positive effect than attempting to caulk or absorb using bats and sealers.

apop, I'm very curious about what you ended up doing as far as soundproofing the shop. I'm on the verge of buying a rowhouse in DC, and I intend to use a basement room as a studio/practice space. The basement has some serious mold issues, so if I am going to end up re-doing dry wall for the sake of soundproofing, now would be the time to do it.I'm not worried about noise traveling upstairs. My only concern is noise traveling to the two neighbouring basements that border my house on either side. The only substance that divides our houses is brick. I've done a lot of research and have read some conflicting reports on what works and what doesn't. I am indeed on a budget, but it's not as if I need an anechoic chamber. I just need to reduce the sound of drums & amps so that, to the neighbors, it sounds more like someone listening to a stereo at a normal volume than a full-on live band.It looks like Rock Wool is pretty pricey?Green glue doesn't seem as costly as Rock Wool?But does Green Glue work?And didn't someone mention putting sheetrock between two layers of dry wall?The room is about 8 feet high, 30 feet long, and 20 feet wide. There's a solid wooden door along one wall leading to the back yard. There's a staircase leading up into the house along another wall. There's a hot water heater and a furnace underneath the staircase, behind a door. Any thoughts on how to best diminish sound without spending thousands of dollars?Any suggestions on how to go about working with this particular kind of space would be *very* much appreciated. Thanks!

Room-within-a-room. I'm about 75% done with my studio, and I read this book front to back a few times before I started. I built isolated framing for all the interior walls and an isolated ceiling. 2 layers of 5/8" drywall with green glue between. Pink fiberglass insulation inside the walls.Soundproofing your walls would be a big waste of time and money if you neglect the ceiling. Isolated frame, or even RSIC clips and hat channel would be a good choice. If you don't do anything, you'll get a lot of flanking noise running through your ceiling joists and into the brick walls.

I've been slowly soundproofing my basement studio over the last few months by laying a new sheet of 1/2 " drywall over all the walls and ceiling with a tube's worth of Green Glue per sheet between the old surface and new drywall. The room was previously a basement apartment so all the pipes, vents, etc for the rest of the house were already boxed in, and the room's walls are detatched from the exterior wall of the house (a room within a room concept, roughly). Green Glue is about $15 a tube, but ultimately cheaper, faster, and less hassle than the other equivilent option of adding three layers of drywall over the existing walls. I'd be very paranoid about adding that much weight to the ceiling joists without getting some professional structural engineering input. I bought three cases to do my 14 x 14 room.For the doors that lead into the studio and the adjoining bathroom and kitchen, I'll be adding a layer of 3/4 MDF with Green Glue between them again. Lots of gap filling with acoustic caulk to come.I'd say the room is 80% complete and the sound level reduction is very noticible already. Once I get down to the final steps of plugging small gaps etc. I'm quite confident that drums will not be more than a dull thud through the rest of the house, thanks to Green Glue.I also recommend you check out Home Recording Studios by Rod (not Ricky) Gervais. It's recent, well written, and has a number of wall designs that would work for your situation.(Sheetrock and drywall are the same thing, btw)

Thanks a ton for all the info. Sheet rock and dry wall are the same thing? No wonder I've been confused!So it looks like the room within a room approach with green glue to bring it all together will ultimately be the best thing. It's just one room, so I imagine I can get this all done in a reasonable amount of time and be ready to roll. Also, thanks for the info on the RSIC clips- not a bad idea at all, from what I'm reading online.Thanks again. I now have a much more focused idea of what to do in order to keep things good with the neighbors and get some good recording in.

The expenses dont end at sheetrock and green glue -- dont forget to budget in modifications to HVAC (You were planning to be able to breathe in there, right?) and tying in power to your new room-in-room. If you plan to do recording and it's an old row house in DC, you may want to have an electrician in to look at putting in a new power service for your recording setup. Most of these houses are about 70-80 years old, and that typically includes all the household wiring.

excellent point! oxygen and electricity are both crucial elements to a studio. yeah, the house was built in 1909 and so it's just entered its centennial.

I think specialist materials are needed for good quality soundproofing.Check out http://soundproofingforum.co.uk/ for info, there is lots of info about the materials used and some stuff about soundproofing a drum practice room.