My Son’s Band Practice Room
The Problem:
We are in need of some good economical suggestions and came across your website.
Here is the situation: Our teenage son has a 7 piece drum set, 4 guitars, ½ stack, 2 amplifiers, 3 mics, and 2 PA/monitor speakers all in his small 9X11 room. Too tight. We do not have a basement or the ability to knock out walls. We are considering moving all of that to our 24 X 12 Florida room. There are double paned windows on one whole side of the room w/louvers on the outside that can be pulled for extra sound proofing. The Florida room is separated from the living room and the rest of the house w/a set of French doors (framing edges 75 in wide X 87 in high) and an open air picture window (no glass) holding a 55 gal fish tank on the window seat (framing edges 113 in wide X 64 in high). I would love the room to be open to see the back yard whenever it is not in use. Then I would like to roll down sound proofing material that attaches to the frames when they want to jam. The goal is that my husband and I can still enjoy watching a movie while the teenagers are jamming away. Unfortunately, we are not made of $$ and need some really economical suggestions.
Can you help?
Thank you,
S.G.
My reply to S.G. is in the comments below.
1 Comment
Ted W
My Reply:
S.G.,
Thank you for the E-mail. It looks like a bit of a tough situation simply because the products that block sound are generally fairly expensive. Do you have a digital camera? Could you take some pictures of the space for me so that I can get an idea of what you are starting with, which usually greatly helps me recommend a solution.
The first thing that came to mind was to seal all of the air gaps in the French doors. Unfortunately, the door seals that I offer are for standard doors, like a bedroom or office door. I will do some research to determine weather or not we can make a door seal kit work with French doors. Any kind of an air gap that would connect the two rooms is going to lead a very large percentage of the noise from one room to another, so sealing up all of the air gaps is going to be the most effective solution, hands down. The picture will help me make a recommendation.
Secondly, I would suggest one of our Quilted Acoustical Curtains, which are not really “curtains” in the traditional sense of the word, they are more like a very heavy acoustical blanket or panel. We usually sell them for industrial uses where someone has a noisy machine in a manufacturing plant. They can, however, be dressed up with more decorative finished facing for a more of a residential use. They are usually hung from a heavy-duty roller track and rolled in and out of the way like a hospital curtain. The curtains are not only going to absorb some of the reflective sound in the room, but are rated with an STC (Sound Transmission Coefficient) of 29, which is a little better than a regular 2×4 wall with sheet rock on either side. Unfortunately in acoustics, 1+1 does not equal two, so it will not “double” the amount of sound that would normally leave a room, but it will greatly improve it. Also, keep in mind that the bass or lower frequencies are going to bother you no matter what you do. It is an unfortunate truth that the lower the frequency, the easier it passes through anything which is why you can hear a car with a sub-woofer 3 blocks away.
I will get back to you with what I can come up with for the French-door seal kits, but if you want to ballpark the price for the quilted curtain, the approximate square foot price is around $13.00 for a panel with the sailcloth facing. This price does not include a track system or the shipping.
Here is a link to the product spec page on our website: //www.acousticalsurfaces.com/curtan_stop/curt_absorb.htm?d=12
I look forward to hearing back from you. Feel free to call me if you have time.
Thank you,
Ted