Yet another HGTV show with bad advice on music practice rooms.

[Packard]

I cannot count the number of times I have seen a home improvement show with bad advice on music practice rooms.

Without fail they add sound absorbing materials to the walls, floors and ceilings.  This is exactly what they should not be doing.

Musicians like to hear what they are producing.  Putting up the sound absorbing materials simply results in them playing louder. 

People love to sing in the shower.  There are two reasons:  No audience.  So no embarrassment.  And the tiled walls reflect the sound so they sound fuller, richer and louder.

So the interior surfaces in a music practice room should be hard and reflective.  Putting tile on the walls would prevent the walls from becoming resonant and transmitting the sound.

If the noise outside the music room is problematic (and that is probably why people add the sound deadening materials to the inside of the room) then there are effective ways to deal with that.

The most effective way is to build a room within a room.  With the “interior” room completely isolated from the exterior walls.  Sound deadening materials can be added to the surfaces in the space the separates the interior walls from the exterior walls.

Many years ago, I checked into a Holiday Inn in Newburgh, NY.  It was adjacent to the airport and directly in the flight path.  One wing of the hotel was open, the other was under construction.  I was able to see how they were soundproofing the walls.

They used 2 x 6 top and sill plates for the walls and they staggered the 2” x 4”s.  So every 14” there was a 2 x 4 mounted flush to the interior side.  And in between there were 2 x 4s mounted on 14” centers to the exterior side.

They were stapling up and weaving between the staggered studs what looked like felt carpet under padding, but was probably some specialized acoustic padding.

They then closed it up with two (2) layers of sheet rock. 

That isolated the interior from the exterior to eliminate resonance and the two thicknesses of sheet rock eliminated the tendency for the flat sheets to act as drum heads and vibrate.

The net result was that I slept well and did not hear the jets flying overhead. 

They probably have better materials now (that was in 1972) but the principles are the same. 

1.  Isolate the interior from the exterior
2.  Add acoustic insulation between the interior and exterior
3.  Make sure that the interior wall will not resonate like a drum head.

They did have carpeting and acoustic ceilings which are sound absorbing, but that would (in my opinion) not be a good idea for a music practice room.  The exception might be for a soloist practice room where no reflected sounds were wanted.  But it your kids want to play the drums or be part of a bar band, then reflective surfaces are the way to go.

 

[squall_line]

I did a built-in bookshelf salvage at an old law office, I think the interior was done in the 60's, that had the same staggered-stud interior walls surrounding each office for privacy.  And then either the walls went all the way up to the ceiling or there was additional insulation inside the drop ceiling (that had already been removed when I got there, so I didn't see).

I work in a co-working space that has "phone booths" for people to get away from noise or "have private conversations".  Those rooms are simple sheetrock over metal studs, with a drop ceiling at 9-ish feet, but only 10-foot walls that don't reach the 12-foot true ceiling, so they're only minimally useful from a quiet/privacy standpoint.

There is also a small "recording studio" style room in the space that's built the same way but with eggshell foam on the walls.  Someone recently went in there to practice an instrument and immediately drew complaints from the entire floor, for many of the reasons you mention, as well as because the walls don't go to the true ceiling to trap any sound whatsoever.

 

[Vondawg]

As to the soundproofing comments…..it’s sounds like they mixed up a practice room with a Recording room , where you isolate different instruments for a mix

 

[Packard]

I’m not a musician, but I would imagine that for recording you would want the pure tones without any reflected tones.  For that application, you would want the sound absorbing, non-reflective surfaces.

It always escaped my understanding why TGIF (Thanks God It’s Friday—a bar/restaurant chain in the USA) uses tin ceilings in the bar area.  As soon as you entered the bar area, the din of overlapping conversations reflecting off the ceiling was deafening. It really became loud white noise making normal conversations difficult. 

The restaurant area had much higher ceilings without the tin in the locations I had visited.

 

[Sparktrician]

It always escaped my understanding why TGIF (Thanks God It’s Friday—a bar/restaurant chain in the USA) uses tin ceilings in the bar area.

The "enhanced noise" makes people drink more, enhancing the take in the till. 

 

[GoingMyWay]

Here are the videos that were linked in the previous post:



The full URL (youtube.com) and not the shortened URL (youtu.be) need to be used in order for the video to load properly on the forum.

 

[AlexMcgrath]

I came across this older discussion and wanted to add that a lot of players I know prefer a mix of reflection and just enough absorption to keep things comfortable. Too much deadening feels unnatural. Has anyone here tried using diffusers or angled surfaces instead of piling on soft materials? It might be interesting to hear what setups have actually worked well for folks.

 

[Packard]

My guess is (and it is only a guess), that in a thoroughly sound-deadened room, musicians would tend to play louder to improve their musical experience.

If I am right, then a sound-deadened, but not sound-isolated room would be largely self-defeating. (And would result in my using lots of hyphens.)

In any case, from my experience, people singing in the shower are rarely heard outside the bathroom. The reflective surfaces of the shower make the singing seem louder to the singer, and the tile, mastic and cement board makes a non-resonating surface. And the shower is essentially a room-within-a-room. (Again with those pesky hyphens.)

In any case, if you need a music practice room in you home, concentrate on isolating the room, not on sound deadening. Also consider non-resonating surfaces. So thicker, or two layer sheet rock installations will resonate less and transmit less sound. Also, suspended ceilings, especially if the panels are just painted sheets of 1/4” plywood, or light gage sheet rock, would be good. (Though sheet rock panels might weigh too much for most systems.)

 

[Packard]

I came across this older discussion and wanted to add that a lot of players I know prefer a mix of reflection and just enough absorption to keep things comfortable. Too much deadening feels unnatural. Has anyone here tried using diffusers or angled surfaces instead of piling on soft materials? It might be interesting to hear what setups have actually worked well for folks.

Welcome to the FOG.

No one seems to mention their musical aptitudes, so I don’t know if you will get much of an answer in FOG.