How to soundproof a room for cheap (Steps)

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Yo What's going on people you're watching how to make beats with DeFaceless PROducer
and in this episode I'm going to show you how I built a cheap soundproof room that I
used as a recording studio. If you have a choice of rooms, you definitely
want to build on solid ground such as the ground floor or a basement. As we discussed,
mass and density is like an arch rival to sound, that means if you're in an apartment
on the second floor and the floorboards are creaky, you can guess that the floor is hollow
underneath and that will be a major weakness in your soundproofing. Remember, soundproofing
is like building a ship, doesn't matter how well you build it, if there's one hole somewhere...you
guess it! The room is basically as strong as its weakest link. There are things you
can do to reinforce the floor which we'll look at later.
Step 1, get timber and build the studwork. You need to take into account where your electrical
outlets and lights will be and also that the drywall will be staggered as mentioned earlier,
so that the seams don't align. It's best to plan how you will fix them to the studwork
in advance. A common spacing between the beams in your studwork is 60cm from the centre of
one to the other also known as 60cm oc or on centre. Drywall sheets are commonly 120cm
by 240cm high, since those measurements are directly divisible by 60, see the guide if
that doesn't really make sense to you. Step 2, complete any wiring and please, switch
off the mains. Don't kill yourself yeah, electricity is stronger than you! you think you're gangster
until you get shocked. Then fill the studwork with insulation wool
battens, they come in various densities and sizes, 120cm by 60cm is a common size that
will fit snugly into the studwork, so much so even the ones that you put into the ceiling
won't need any help to make them stay in place. Please wear protective clothing, PPE people!
If you don't, then...even after multiple showers, this sh*t will f**k you up for days, please
know this! Step 3, add the first layer of drywall, take
into account that you will need to leave space for the adjoining walls to create your corners.
The gaps can be filled with foam sealant, known as backer rod after each layer is laid.
It's important to note that not all drywall is made equal, they come in different densities
and thicknesses such as the common 12.5mm, there are specialist acoustic drywall but
the best value for money in my opinion is probably 15mm fireproof, it's nice and hefty
plus they're easy to cut if you need. If you have a high ceiling that is good, for acoustics
anyway and you can get longer lengths of drywall or just cut other drywall pieces to size.
Once in place you will need to seal all the corners and joins in the drywall with intumescent
that's basically fireproof, silicone adhesive, the acoustic type is the best, it creates
a soundproof seal along with the joint foam sealant, the backer rod that I mentioned.
At this stage you an optional choice, once the first layer is laid you can then add your
green glue and this will dampen the sound energy between the layers of drywall. Step
4, place the second layer of drywall making sure that the seams of this layer that your
doing now, don't align with the seams of the first layer that you laid. Step 5 is optional.
You can plaster and paint your new walls, that's a cosmetic thing, it will look nicer.
For doors acoustic perimeter seals or double smoke seals and draught stoppers aka weather
seals, these work well. You need to create a seal all the door, including underneath
as well I should add, I personally made a DIY threshold (plate)by fixing a piece of
wood to the ground underneath the door as close as possible to the bottom of the door
without interfering with its ability to open and close. Then I used a seal to close the
small gap that was left over, so that when the door was shut it created an airtight seal.
Also the door needs to be heavy, the denser it is the better at stopping sound. I mean
lets be real, most doors in domestic properties you can pretty much punch a hole with your
bare fists through most of these internal doors. Fire doors work well and you definitely
can't punch a hole through a fire door with your ...if you can do that please make a YouTube
video of this cause you've got special abilities! If you can't change the door consider adding
mass such as heavy wood panels to the door, you know keep in mind how it's anchored since
you don't want to rip the door off its hinges. Windows. On the inside you will have to make
a viewing panel aka a sealed transparent section to let the light in from your original window.
Ideally you want to have two layers of transparent material, you can use glass, you can use polycarbonate
material/plexiglass, whatever but you want an air gap similar to how double glazing works.
Also if the one of the pieces of transparent material can be a different thickness, that
will be better as well. Also be generous with the acoustic silicone sealant since this will
be weak point, which is why some people do not have a window! But that's a personal choice
you know, light is a great thing, it's great....really is. Let's have a moment for light!
yo! light! Anyway some people use deadsheets which is basically a very heavy absorbent
material such a s neoprene. I don't think that's so cheap but they use that to decouple
the sound from the original floor. The best solution is to build a pseudo floating floor
with the premise that you know, if the floor was floating in mid-air obviously then it
wouldn't be touching anything so then it would be decoupled but obviously it's not really
floating since you can't defy the laws of physics. If anyone can do that please holla
at me, I want to talk to you, not even just on a musical tip, just, I just want to talk
to you! You can decouple from the ground to a degree by building a DIY drum riser. I don't
think that's really going to stop the low frequencies unless you've done a phenomenal
job. If you do this, you're going to need to pay careful attention to the construction
materials that you use since you can actually make things potentially worse through resonance
as we discussed earlier, you know hitting a certain frequency and just getting all sorts
of humming. If the floor is concrete that is a major plus, so if you're on the second
floor but the floor is actual solid. A cheap solution is to put your speakers on Sorbothane
to help dampen the vibrations, which I have personally done in my studio.
To briefly touch on this, it's wise to remember that sound is a bit like us, it likes to breathe
and it doesn't like to be trapped. So in my opinion, if your room is already small there
is no point in building a vocal booth if you've already made that room soundproof itself.
Often people build tiny little vocal booths in a box shape, with perfectly parallel surfaces
and the sound, sounds....well...boxy! surprise surprise! Not to mention that you won't be
able to use that vocal booth in the summer for more than a few minutes at a time since
you've just created an airtight tiny box. You're going to dehydrate before you finish
your verse like..."yo, yo, yooo (getting tired), wooo, yo (flustered). It's kind of hot in
here aint it!". You're better of buying or building a DIY reflection filter like I did
and experimenting with some reflective or diffusive material nearby if the sound is
too dead. For instance, you want to record a piano, the room is too dead, acoustically,
so therefore you lay some hard flooring in the corner of your room to reflect some of
the higher frequencies to give it that sheen, that sparkle that you're used to hearing with
piano's. The good thing about the reflection filter is that it's portable also, so you
can move around with it. So as I always say, if you hang around you'll get the hang of
this! And hopefully you have learnt something valuable and you kind of know where you want
to go with this, so be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and if you want more detailed
info about how to do this such as material lists and rough costings, download the free
guide. The link is in the description, you see? Look, yeah that's it click it, hmm mmm,
there it is, you see, you're looking...oh yeah you got it! Boom, I'm gone, One.

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How to soundproof a room for cheap (Steps)

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