Sound doesn’t travel “through” solid objects. It just vibrates the object, then the vibrating object acts like a speaker generating it’s own sound. This is why speaker cabinets made of relatively thin material still work. If sound went through solid things a speaker cabinet would be useless. The cabinet is sealed and constructed stiffly so that it can’t vibrate significantly, and voila, most of the sound is trapped inside the box. A room is just the same thing. Materials that are heavier and more rigid will vibrate less when hit with a soundwave and will generate less of their own sound. Absorbtion materials can be used to attenuate the source soundwaves before they vibrate the object, or to attenuate the soundwaves generated by the vibrating object, or both. Sound will however travel very well through gaps between solid objects. All you need to do is seal all possible gaps, and reduce the vibration of solid objects, and you are well on you’re way to preventing the transfer of sound waves.
Thank you! I was thinking the SAME thing about that sound vibrates an object (walls) and turning the wall in to a speaker. So, really; shouldn't putting a bunch of sound absorbing materials (like panels) in the room where the sound is being generated help stop the sound from transferring to other rooms? The panels would absorb sound which lowers the DBs in the room. They would also stop the sound in the room from echoing IN the room. Both of which I'd think would lower the amount of wall vibration which is like you said, what makes the sound "leak" to other rooms. I'm just dealing with a loud housemate that is on conference calls 3-8 hours a day. I'm thinking of covering his ceiling in sound absorbing panels. (Because I'm above his room.) Maybe scatter some on his walls also and on the door. (It's hallow core of course.) If only there was a way to do the same for ventilation ducts. ... I can't open the vent in my room and have to keep a pillow in front of it. 😞
@@OgdenM I think Jesco is just trying to make a clear distinction between soundproofing and room treatment and keep things simple to avoid confusion. Which is of course the best approach when there are people new to acoustic concepts relying on him for rock solid information. Of course, hanging panels is not the right approach to soundproofing if you have the option of doing it properly. But if you don’t have that option, of course it will make an improvement. I can’t say how much it would help, my guess is “a bit” but theoretically what you say is correct. If you can stop sound bouncing around the room you also reduce the amount of sound energy than can then vibrate the walls and travel through ducts. With enough panels hanging around you are soaking up some of that energy before it has a chance to interact with anything else, but of course only at higher frequencies.
One of the best videos on this topic from someone who actually understands acoustics. Thank you for making this very informative video. Too many fools trying to sell nonsense like soundproofing paint on the internet.
I wish you would expand your channel to talking about hifi equipment and other things. Your explanations are perfect, and you're one of the few hifi related channels that always proves everything with data.
Thank you! I immediately liked your video the moment you mentioned the difference between soundproofing and acoustic treatment! Was going mad trying to find a relevant video talking about a solution for soundproofing my little studio (I’m a mom, and my son loves to involuntarily participate in my music recordings haha!).
Jesco I can't tell you how many soundproofing/acoustic treatment videos I've watched over the years but your presentation of real data and sound examples was an eye opener. Thanks for saving me thousands on my home theater rebuild with some straight talk and examples about the effort/cost/performance tradeoffs!
Thank you. Ive been building a room in my basement for music purpose. It's basically decoupled from the original room with rubber (floors, walls and roof). Walls are the same mass as 4 sheets of drywall with insulation and greenglue. Now just waiting for the doors to arrive. Look forward to hear the result!
I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to have my basement studio built using steel studs, resilient metal furring, and insulated doors. I have to turn off the furnace when using microphones because I couldn't afford silent HVAC but the room is as good as I could get and was well worth it.
Your videos have been great in helping me to understand room acoustics! I have some knowledge but I'm looking to grow my brain in this field. Thank you
Very informative video! I've found websites talking about "adding mass" and "decoupling" but I wasn't really sure what they were talking about before this awesome explanation. Also, I was planning to place a heavy curtain in front of the door-an idea I'm now dumping in favor of adding sealing material around the door. Thank you!
His logic is a bit wrong for sound proofing. That door acts like a speaker membrane. It's probably hallow core to top it off. Some sound that hits it on one side sure, does get blocked. But, the majority of it just goes through a frequency change and sound deeper.
Hello brother... I just recently discovered your channel 3 days back and i have gone through all your utube content and podcast..😁😁.. That much i liked it.. Before i was filled with all the voodoo as u say it but now my picture is getting clear.. i m a beginner..probably gonna setup my first home studio by the end of this year and m quite looking forward to apply your teachings and techniques on it! Thanks a ton ☺
Podcast? Is it in German? I have not found a podcast by Jesco but sure would love it. He has a great way of explaining complex subjects in an easy to digest format.
Agreed, acoustic isolation of a room or space is a big expensive job. But you're gonna' need AC and ventilation too and get those systems quiet and not compromise your isolation!
Exactly. I'm trying to isolate my bedroom from noise, both from the street and from flatmates, and I think ventilation that lets air in and out, but not noise, is going to be a challenge. Especially when I have only one room to work with (if I had the whole apartment, I could place an air conditioner and air vents far away from my bedroom, and just pipe air in through some duct silencers or something.
I always tell people “soundproofing is great…until there’s one penetration or hole in your sound blanket you can’t do anything about…and then you might as well have not done anything at all” Edit: you essentially said the same thing at the end. One tip I heard along time ago is that light travels easier than sound so if light is blocked, you know sound is. Also using mirrors to determine sound lines is good
partial true what you said ... sound is blocked by high mass materials but the reflection should also be blocked for sound reduction, so this high mass rubber are used, because they also absorb and also block sound passing. Best option is to use two materials, and absorber and after a high mass blocker, the absorber will reduce the energy and prevent reflection and inside transmission and the next layer of high mass will block and reflect sound in same absorption material for further reduction. For best reduction multiple alternate layers can be used...
Yes but this is also the only video on his channel where he doesn't discuss sound absorption and purely focuses on soundproofing, if you haven't noticed. It's kinda taken for granted that you also will treat the sound inside the room, given what the rest of his videos are all about.
What you said at the end here, if I have it right, is incorrect. Multiple alternating layers of high mass rigid material followed by soft porous material, then high-mass, porous, high-mass, etc., actually reduces STC and is called 'triple leaf' in the business. The best sound blocker is a resonant cavity like conventional concrete block wall. Most people don't go to that extreme, so, that leaves drywall. The space between the inner and outer walls should be as large as possible and filled with rock wool or fiberglass insulation. You can put more layers of drywall on the inner or outer walls as you like, but NEVER have more than one inner and outer wall.
Such a great and easy to understand video! Thank you! I have a question of sound proofing a car.Since it's impossible to completely seal it or do room within room type stuff, is it even worth doing parts of it?
It is not only expensive. It also steals a lot of space - and home studios are usually small, maybe even too small, allready. So if the goal is to not bother your family or neighbours at late hours, it makes more sense to invest in good headphones.
I figure home studio also acts as recording. So it really isn’t just headphones. When you play instruments inside the studio, the sound is going to be heard from the outside.
Wait I'm confused. Wouldn't sound absorbing panels IN a room ALSO help with stopping sound from leaving that room? Rooms are large echo chambers; just like a speaker box. Which in a speaker, a lot of the sound you hear comes from the BOX itself vibrating. I'd think that by putting up some sound absorbing panels which would cut down on the echos /sound IN the room and absorb some of the sound IN the room, there would be less transference to other rooms in a house. Both due to the sound being absorbed by the panels and therefor, there being less to vibrate the walls (which act like a speaker membrane in the rooms outside of of the room where the sound is being generated.) I'm just dealing with a loud housemate that is on conference calls 3-8 hours a day ...not instruments. Which btw, THIS video drives home what I'm saying. It's the worlds quietest room and guess what? It's FULL of sound absorbing panels. Sure sure, there is a lot of other stuff going on in the room to BOTH isolate it from the outside AND also deaden the sound INSIDE the room. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mXVGIb3bzHI.html But listen to them talking, there is NO echo/reverb , they are SO much quieter sounding then in a normal room. Less noise in a room means LESS noise to vibrate walls which means less noise gets out of the room. (It also means less noise to sneak through air gaps.) Or am I way off base with this?
My downstairs neighbor is loud and he plays his music and the bass is so prominent. It so happens to be under my bed almost. I was thinking about placing bass traps under my bed to aborb the sound and vibration. Is this a good idea?
ok so.. I have a tenant in my master bedroom. I hear her laughing and talking with her friend. It's late at night and I'm having her honor the "quiet times" . Sometimes during the day. Her voice carries. I've put a draft fabric bar under the door to keep sound from her room coming into the rest of the home. She has thick black out curtains on the larger windows. There is carpets in the room. Shall I use installation around the door cracks and maybe a heavy curtain over the door. Or door coverings. What do you recommend please?
Seems to these are very competing. If you have a very isolated room, it will be a nightmare to treat acoustically. Hopefully you only have 1,2 or 3 wall surfaces to isolate. Its its the entire room “cube” , i dont see how one resolves this competition . Bravo for emphasizing how difficult it is in residential situation, I would say the first place to start -making sure NO air leaks- caulk caulk caulk, and then very solid door (perhaps an exterior grade door , ideally TWO (air lock concept) much easier than a huge vault like door.
So.. for me it is more about wanting to reduce the sound going from the inside of the studio which is a prebuild house though... rather old.. to the outside, as I am in a living surrounding...
If a have a ceiling cloud ( 3 panels), where do I place it? Over the MLP or over the main tower speakers? I live in an apartment. I'm sitting 9 feet from the main stage. Any imput would be appreciated. Greetings from Houston, Texas
Let’s say I have a cubby like shelf and want to stop sound from reflecting back out at me. What would I line the interiors with to reduce sound from reflecting back out at me.
What do you think about the HOFA 5/7 ply curtains? I thought about setting it up outside my room on the balcony to prevent noise from the street coming in. Behind it I would have the window shields and the glass door
Can’t use drywall or plywood, but I’m just trying to reduce the sound of my amp cranked so it’s loud but not ear shattering. I’m going with 2” foam board insulation where the drywall would be, then rockwool insulation in between the studs, layer of plastic, then more foam board insulation (all walls + ceiling), and then covering each wall and the ceiling with moving blankets. Will this even do anything?
I get what you’re saying about reflecting sound, but if absorbing sound doesn’t work as you say, then why does it work when I add carpet to my stairs and guess what… now no one can hear me walk the stairs, at least not so much that it wakes people. Result. But this is using absorption instead of reflecting. So I don’t think you’re telling the whole story.
He said he isn't a sound proofing specialist. From my understanding of how sound works, he's utterly wrong about not using absorbing materials to lessen that amount of sound generated IN a room from being transmitted OUT of the room. Rooms are like the inside of a speaker box. Sound echos around in them until it finds ways out. The ways out are air gaps AND by vibrating the walls which turn them into speakers. (Think of a subwoofer) It's my understanding that hanging up sound absorbing stuff ON the walls, ceiling and floor in side a room where noise is generated will absorb sound BEFORE it hits the walls or find air holes. It will also serve to lessen the DB of the sound in the room and therefor lessen the amount that gets out of the room. It will also serve to quiet the sound in the room to the people that are in it. It will ALSO serve to isolate the room sound wise from rest of the house. Reflecting sound BACK into the room is just gonna turn it into a miserable echo chamber like the concrete bunker he talked about.
Is it possible to use plastic sheets? 3/8 inch thick panels in between the sheet rock ..same height and length. Also, how does the thickness of plastic sheets affect noise insulation?
This is all so confusing lol so if l am recording rap vocals in my room, if l wanted to REDUCE the room reverb that jumps back into my mic, so l can get clean raw recordings, what would be the best way to treat this? l have wooden tile also
Hi, thanks for the video, very informative. I want to ask a question - is it a good idea if you want to make suspended raster ceiling with 2,5cm Wood Wool Acoustic panels, and above them 5cm, 70m3 mineral rock wool (for sound absorption) TO PUT very thin and dense (2cm, 135m3) rock wool directly on the ceiling above the suspended one, for soundproofing... Thanks and excuse my english
One of the Best Ideas of SoundProofing is "SoundProof Curtains" it actually Block outside Noise coming from Windows. Check Here: livesoundproof.com/best-soundproof-curtains/
Ricardo, Sonarworks is great but you need to make sure your monitor system has enough power. For example I wouldn't recommend it to anyone using 5" monitors. The reason for that is those monitors are almost all excessively ported due to the under-sized enclosures, and they are usually marginally powered. Sonarworks needs the amplification to be able to provide clean power at the frequencies where the speaker is least effective ...and then there's also the room to compensate for.
But how do you combine air-tightness with ventilation? I'm trying to isolate my bedroom from noise (which is both coming through the windows from the outside, and through the doors from flatmates) because of my sleeping disorders, and I'm fed up having to sleep in earmuffs and earplugs, but I'm worried if I make my room fully air-tight to combat the noise, air quality may suffer a lot. With a studio, you can open windows and doors every once in a while for a few minutes, and close again. Done. With bedrooms 8 hours in an air-tight room could be a bigger issue. I presume the solution would have to be some sort of air conditioning system that lets air in and out, but not sound. Which sounds (pun intended) tricky.
I would say just don't listen to him most of it is geared towards a studio and much of it is misleading anyway. You don't need everything air tight and you don't need to block every frequency 100%. Even some heavy curtains will have a huge effect on outside noise. Closing up the windows is important but you don't have to make the room air tight. You can put curtains on the door as well, and a large piece of plywood in front of the door covered with cloth will also help. Putty pads on the electrical outlets. The problem with flatmates is that there is no insulation between indoor walls so that is a problem, but maybe you can get some in the walls somehow anyway.
@@LTPottenger dunno if you have experience working with people who are extremely sensitive to sound, but while it is true some sounds are much more bearable than others (say, I can tolerate fan noises if they are moderately loud, I also don't have problem with rain and even thunderstorm sounds), but other sounds are much more distracting and have big negative impact on my ability to fall asleep or to focus at work. The worst offender is speech, even coming from a radio or music with vocals. My brain is just unable to ignore such sounds, and it always has to divert its attention to them when they are audible. Animal sounds (birds, barking dogs) are also bad. Then there are sounds like train horns, church bells, ambulances, etc. that are annoying, but luckily infrequent enough. Some frequent and annoying sounds also include doors slamming, flushing toilets, and door locks locking and unlocking. My flatmates go to work around 4-5 a.m. and that's an hour when I can just give up on trying to fall asleep. There's also the category of sounds that don't happen every day, but when they do, they're quite bad (long and really annoying), such as lawnmowers. I'm not 100% sure what sound frequencies are covered by these noises - I suppose most of them are mid to high frequencies, but not all of them. So I suppose a solution that blocks high and mid range frequencies may be good enough to have a big impact on my life quality. However, when it comes to air tightness, I have to disagree - I have double-pane PVC-frame windows, and they have the option to seal them air-tight, unseal them (they still appear closed, but let some air through), or open them. And when it comes to outside noise, there's a huge difference between the sealed and unsealed state. I can sleep without earplugs when they are sealed airtight, but when they are unsealed or open I have to use earplugs to fall asleep, mostly because of the birds making a lot of noise for hours upon hours. But, the air quality gets quite bad here, especially in winter (since the flat was designed such that the only way to exchange air is by opening windows), so I'm looking for ways to add mechanical ventilation with some sound muffling, which will hopefully be better than open or unsealed windows. Right now I think a decentralized recuperator (also known as a wall recuperator) might be what I need, as it is designed to ventilate a single room, and the air passes through filters and the heat exchanger before going into or out of the room, so this should hopefully block some outside noise. As for noises from flatmates, I've ordered an airtight door for my bedroom (basically a solid exterior door) with a new frame, and I hope it'll make a good difference. I might consider hanging some thick blankets over it if it's not enough. I have reason to believe the walls aren't a problem here, though. They are thick, solid walls. I know some walls are brick and mortar, other walls are concrete and rebar, but all walls around my bedroom are around 30 cm (12 inches) thick, load bearing walls in an apartment building, so they should block noise quite well. I assume wall soundproofing makes much more sense for people who have thin interior walls of gypsum boards and wooden frames. Also, as far as I can tell, when my flatmates are very loud in the room bordering my bedroom, I can't hear anything through the wall (maybe the furniture is helping too, as a big wardrobe covers most of the wall on their side). But I can hear everything from the corridor, and the bathroom which isn't even bordering my bedroom. So that makes me believe that the door is the main culprit and perhaps sealing it will make a big difference. But again, I need to solve air ventilation issues, or else I'm going to seal myself in a room with zero air exchange, unless I open the doors and windows which negates the soundproofing.
@@Tennouseijin Vibration noises and low frequency are very hard to block, but that is not what it sounds like you deal with aside from the doors opening and shutting. It is better to close doors and windows but most people deal with a particular problem so you don't need to seal the whole room. But it sounds like you get it from inside and out which is a problem. I put heavy curtains of multiple layers on a large window in my bedroom and I can still open it without much noise coming in so it can help a lot. I also have multiple layer curtain over the door and when I close it up to record it's as silent as a tomb, where it used to cause recording issues. But your situation and sensitivity is going to be unique as all these cases are that's why one size seldom fits all.
@@LTPottenger Oh, and when I say wall recuperator, I mean something like the Mitsubishi Electric Lossnay VL-100, one with an input and an output channel. I looked into different kinds of wall recuperators, and some work by alternating between pushing and pulling air, and that I'm worried would be bad for my case (I'm sure the switching would be audible), not to mention I looked at the numbers and it seems like it would create ~20 hPa of pressure difference every minute, which when I asked my father for opinion he said it's guaranteed to cause headaches. Though I'm considering building a DIY recuperator, since they're not that complex to build and I've found some instructions and videos. So I could tailor it to my needs, with perhaps more focus on silent fans and sound mufflers for outside noise, for example. The heat exchanger would be nice, but actually isn't necessary in this system, considering I only need enough air exchange for a single person, so the energy losses apparently aren't that big even in winter. But still a nice DIY project, I'm looking into.
@@LTPottenger I suppose curtains are affordable enough (especially if you don't care about the looks), some people suggest moving blankets. I might hang some on the door and windows once I solve the ventilation issue and see if it helps. I'm wary since it's not exactly an airtight solution, but I suppose it might still help to some degree, and if anything it should also act as sound dampening, perhaps making noise less annoying even if not scientifically speaking quieter. In any case, thanks for trying to help. Ultimately I'd love to just move out and build a house in a quiet area, and design it from the grounds up for my needs, but for the time being I'm stuck in this apartment and have to make it bearable. I hope when I move out and rent out the bedroom, the new inhabitant will appreciate the quality silence ;)
My neighbor play bass so loud and we decide to buy something on his wall. What material we should buy to reduce the bass transparent from his apt to mine? Thanks!
Great video! I have a quick question - I am moving in to a square room with fairly tall ceilings and it seems that, especially on my budget, soundproofing isnt really an option. I want to try and reduce the amount of low frequencies that go through to the room next door, I have a pair of 8 inch, rear ported monitors on floor stands, am I better off having the speakers set up against the opposite wall to the wall I share with the room im trying to isolate noise from or is it best to have the speakers facing away from the wall I share, even with rear facing ports? Thanks so much
It shouldn't make a noticeable difference either way since the low end is huge in size and will reach the other room regardless, you can and should test this yourself by setting the monitors in both places and getting out of the room with the door shut, will the difference be noticeable at all with your particular context? probably not.
@@808lilmac yes, it would only make a difference if the speakers were physically touching the wall or the stands were transmitting the bass to the floorboards.
Good video but for the second point I'm not 100% ok with your definition. Air is the best insulation material but does not reflect sound when sandwiched by material.