Soundproofing a room for drum set practice

Question

When I practice my drums in the house, it tends to be a little too loud for people in other rooms. While I know I could trade-in my drums for an electronic kit as an alternative, I'd really rather keep my acoustic kit.

I'm considering creating a new room in the basement (currently unfinished) for drum practice. How do I go about soundproofing the new room so that I can be confident that, when finished, it will deaden the drum sounds enough that it won't drive other people in the house crazy? Surely there must be some tried-and-true methods for doing this level of soundproofing?

Answer 1

If you want to prepare a room for practicing drums, there are two things to consider:

1. The sound inside the room (what you hear): Within the practice room you usually have problems with the high frequencies reflected from the walls. Adding fabric or carpet to the room helps a lot, there are also special acoustic foam absorbers you can buy. Some bands glue empty egg cartons on the walls... These methods will improve the sound inside but will have little effect on the noise outside.

2. The sound outside (what your neighbours hear): What you hear outside is mostly the low frequencies, coupled through concrete or wooden walls. Unfortunately, these frequencies are much more difficult to dampen. The most effective way would be to build a room-in-room construction, i.e. build a completely closed room out of wooden panels inside your basement room, such that it has as little physical contact with the outer walls/floor as possible. This link shows a luxury DIY project (in German, but lots of self-explaining pictures).

Answer 2

You could avoid some cost and time of soundproofing by using silentstroke drum heads and some cymbal dampers. There are low volume cymbals which look like a normal cymbal with numerous holes drilled into it as well but they could be a bit pricier if you're looking for a cheaper way to get the same results. I've used both solutions in time and found the silentstroke heads to be quite effective.

Answer 3

I think you will find most of the good advices on soundproofing in the wikipedia.

Also, check out this video: How to Soundproof a Room : DIY Soundproofing

But I must say, that it is a quite expensive thing, you might purchase an electronic kit to save money :)

Answer 4

Most of the sound from a room leaks through doors and windows. So in order to make a room soundproof, you can use acoustic doors or soundproof doors and windows.