Rehearsal Space

[Jon S.]

Darn, I can't find the ceiling picture I know took when I was there, I must have deleted it. However, I did find this one of the card my then 7 year old (or so) daughter made that we sent to George Harrison in the hospital dying from cancer that still brings a tear to my eye.

Here's how Mark set up his ceiling. Imagine the framing 2X4's that a typical ceiling would have dry wall nailed to (or ceiling tile). He left it open and just put up 1X6 planks in various places, moving them around to "tune" the ceiling.

[DenverEd]

I just finished building a 3 car garage - insulated and drywalled everwhere, plus fully insulated garage doors. Can't wait to see how it will all sound.

[amyjared]

I am rather lucky in that the new house we bought has a room downstairs with it's own entrance from the driveway and it was used as a pool room by the previous owners. One wall is underground (we're on a hill) and on one side is an older couple with hearing aids and the other three houses are all musicians who actually come over and check us out from time to time! Also, my family can still sleep, watch tv, etc. while we jam. I even bought a drum set and leave it set up, even though I don't play it at all, although the kids LOVE to rock out with the PA and drums.

I've played in many different rehearsal places and even helped someone put up egg crates (they work much MUCH better if you spray paint them first, but that's a hassle,too) Carpet on the walls helps as well. You can get cheap egg crates (flats they're called) from hotel restaurants that serve breakfast and routinely recycle large quantities of them. You can get carpet remnants for free many places, as well.

I must say that the soundproof rooms are good, but you need some kind of ventilation/air conditioning because they can get very hot and stuffy without good venting.

Lastly, you who have these DEAD hookers, do they only make it with us deadheads, or do they enjoy others as well? I mean, I went to lots of shows and never saw these DEAD hookers, where did they hang out, say, at the Greeks??

[tigerstrat]

I mean, I went to lots of shows and never saw these DEAD hookers, where did they hang out, say, at the Greeks??

I think you have to pay extra for Greek, French, Russian etc.

This place, http://www.soundproofingamerica.com/ , has some materials that are muy pricey, but there also several articles about different soundproofing and acoustical projects, good place to get ideas.

I wish they listed the price of their "GreenSound" insulation. It looks an awful lot like the stuff Bag End uses to ship their speakers, and (I presume) to line their cabs.

[sillydog2]

Hey Jared, Let's jam sometime.

[playingdead]

Timely topic for me ... I am just now building a 20X20 room over my 2-car garage. It is insulated below, freshly sheetrocked and plastered, and the flooring is going in on Monday and Tuesday. Trying to decide between cork flooring or click-and-lock wood laminate with a giant area rug.

It might be a challenging space, though, because the roof up there is steeply gabled, so the ceiling slopes sharply on both sides, with as flat area in the center. I have one of those Roland electronic drum kits (TD-12), and three JBL Eon 10" powered monitors for vocals and keys. I'm looking for a Leslie, too, always wanted one of those. I will use the space more for recording than jamming.

Right now, the band rehearses (very infrequently) at our drummer's basement, he has a full PA and huge Pro Tools setup down there. But it's a long drive for me and I plan to force those f--kers to come to me for a change.

[Emoto]

Timely topic for me ... I am just now building a 20X20 room over my 2-car garage. It is insulated below, freshly sheetrocked and plastered, and the flooring is going in on Monday and Tuesday. Trying to decide between cork flooring or click-and-lock wood laminate with a giant area rug.

I don't know anything about cork. Does it stand up to things like chair legs well? Won't it tend to hold dirt? I think the laminate would be more appealing to a wider group of people if you ever decide to sell.

It might be a challenging space, though, because the roof up there is steeply gabled, so the ceiling slopes sharply on both sides, with as flat area in the center.

Coincidentally, the guy who turned me onto the idea of building my own baffles used them in a space similarly shaped (although I wouldn't describe the angle as steep) and had no problems.

[RiverRat]

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[Emoto]

So, today my case of 8 Armstrong 3155 panels came in and I assembled them back to back with gaffer's tape into 4 baffles and brought them down into the rehearsal room.

I put one up on the mid chest level shelf that split levels all have in a basement room, and leaned the others against the walls in more or less random spots.

They made a big difference. I changed no settings on my PA or guitar amp, yet I could hear everything more clearly. there was no longer any harshness to the sound. I am very happy. Will try to post some pics in the next few days.

[RiverRat]

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[Emoto]

Sounds like the room will need to be rechristened....

Yeah, well, if I ever get my #%&@#$&*(*%$&#$%^%$ guitar back, and can figure out some good settings on it, I will start organizing some jams. Still working on a drummer.

[Emoto]

Here are some pics of the sound baffles that I made. Really nothing to them. 2' x 4' fiberglas panels come finished on one side. You take 2 of them and put the unfinished sides together, then run some wide gaffer's tape around the sides, and you're done. There are ways to mount them to a wall using metal construction studs (the kind that are used instead of wooden 2x4's) as channels to hold them, but for now, I have just leaned them against the walls.

The case holds 8 pieces; enough for 4 baffles.


Here are two pieces back to back. Note the big roll of wide gaffer's tape and the pair of gloves. Although this stuff is pretty well formed, you don't want to handle fiberglas without gloves.


Run some tape around the sides and you're done:




Believe it or not, just placing 4 of these puppies around the room has improved the clarity of sound in the room. I can hear the nuances of my voice better, and the guitar sound is clearer too. The harshness is gone from the sound in the room.

Here are the sound absorption properties of the tile I used (3155). Note that the 3155 is relatively uniform in absorption across the frequency spectrum and that foam is represented in the last column, and that it has a narrower range of being effective:



Could the same results have been achieved by stapling carpet all around the room? I don't know. Haven't done an A:B comparison. These baffles are lightweight and easy to move around or take out of the room, if I ever want to.

[Emoto]

Had a chance to try the room out yesterday with a drummer, bass player, and keyboard player. I think the sound wasn't too terrible; at least we had no feedback trouble. The next time people come over, I think I may try moving the sound panels around some and see how/if that changes things at all.

At any rate, the room has now been christened!

[RiverRat]

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[Emoto]

Had a chance to try the room out yesterday with a drummer, bass player, and keyboard player. I think the sound wasn't too terrible; at least we had no feedback trouble. The next time people come over, I think I may try moving the sound panels around some and see how/if that changes things at all.

At any rate, the room has now been christened!

There was a bit of ringing but all in all it sounded very good. The layout may need to be changed up a bit to get a more uniform sound and to make the room a bit more user friendly.

There was a ton more ringing before I made those panels. I think getting that f'ing couch out of there might allow the room to be set up better. I'm going to get a small rug for the remaining bare floor so the drums can move back a bit, too, which might help.