One Room to Two Rooms

The attic that before belonged just to my brother, separated in two rooms by this soundproofed wall. Two frames, one wood, the other metal (don't ask why, long story..).
They are pressed in felt. Flying walls so to say. Extra thick drywall too. So now I can retreat to my own room and chill in silence.

Soundproofing, Insulation and Acoustics [Part 2]

Actual soundproofing is a whole different story from acoustics. Remember the egg-carton we talked about? The stuff that doesn't even work well for reducing sound reflection? Well some people even try to use that for soundproofing! Here in The Netherlands new buildings often have 25 cm thick concrete cavity walls and that doesn't even stop the sound of a neighbor's party. Compare that to the 5 mm carbon.

If you want a quite room (or a soundproofed room) there are two kinds of sounds you want to reduce. Sounds moving through the air and sounds moving through mass.
You see, if you build one solid wall to separate one room from another that wall will conduct the sound and transmit it right to the next room.

The reduce the conduction sound we build two walls next to eachother and instead of anchoring them to the floor/ ceiling you have to press them in felt.

To reduce low frequency sounds you have to add mass to the wall. Multiple layers of drywall will work. Drywall has a high resonance (own frequency) and if you make the drywall to thick the resonance will drop and might get just in the freq. of the sound you want to block. If this happens the wall will amplify that frequency. Applying viscous material between drywall will keep its on freq. high.

Soundproofing, Insulation and Acoustics [Part 1]

First off, you need to know the difference between acoustics and actual sound proofing a room. This is just like those nutrition myths and facts, it's a mistake often made. When you want good acoustics in your room, you'll need to reduce the sound reflection of the walls, ceiling and floor. You want to hear the music from your speakers the way it's meant to sound. Not with some amount of extra living room reverb. And that goes for the home studio too.

The fun thing is, as I explored this subject (my own google internet journey to acquire some sound proofing/ acoustic optimization knowledge) I found it's all so plain and straight forward, it's just that in your life especially when your younger you tend to except everything that's being shouted out by the majority of elder people around you. Wait.. I'm straying off ain't I?

Consequences when a scholarship ends

One year ago I got my bachelors degree Civil Engineering. I could be working 5 days a week right now, but I chose not to do so and study some more. The first year was hard, on my pocket. But the Dutch government still supported me with a small scholarship and a partial loan. Next year they won't. And I'll be forced to give up my own house, to move out and move in with my parents again. In their house, we'll be dividing the room at the top floor in two. One part will be my room for the coming year and probably a second year too.

With my interests in music, my home studio and the occasional jam there'll be a lot of sound coming from my room (from time to time). The other side of that top floor will become my brothers room. I have these $200,- each studio monitors. Two big speakers. My bro, on the other hand, has his home theater set. Small crappy speakers and a horrible sub-woofer. I hate these things with their loud mid-basses. My bro doesn't really have an ear for music, so he'll just turn the bass up loud, ads some treble and thinks he's got the sound of the world. This annoys me much.

What I want to say: I've been spending a lot of time figuring out how to get my room as sound proof as possible. After a lot of research, I'm close to figuring it out. So in the next couple of weeks, prepare for some nice and insightful articles on that topic.