Is This Possible? Silence 1 of 4 walls?

Hello all! This is my first post although I have lurked around for awhile learning alot! Thank you SO much for reading....I know EVERYONE's time is valuable! I am constructing a new studio in a new location. The room is on the end of a row of rooms, and basically the studio has 3 walls to the outside, and 1 wall common with another in the house. The "common" wall is one with my 2 1/2 year old son. I am realistic! I am willing to take what I can get. My "goals" are in descending order of preference. My goals are as follows at the LOUDEST. I would like to jam with the band at a reasonable volume, as my son sleeps in the next room. My next goal down is to jam with electronic drums thru speakers and with LOW bass, guitars, and vocals. I can live and function with other goals but....... I have a budget of 10K for soundproofing. The room dimensions are 13 ft 6 " wide, 18 ft 6" wide, and 8 ft. tall. My question is this- What can I achieve by soundproofing the 1 adjoining wall of the studio with the house? Knowing that the wall is shared with a child"s bedroom, and coupled with musicians nocturnal habits, can I pull this off? I am ok with creating an airspace, airtight sealing the door..... I hope I supplied enough details without drowning you in details. Thanks to everyone in advance! Erick

Hi, Erick, and welcome to the forum! :) The problem with isolation (a.k.a. "soundproofing") is that Murphy's law always wins. Sound is like water, in some aspects: it takes the easiest path. So if the easiest path from your drums to your son's room is out the OTHER wall, through the roof, then down through his ceiling, well, that's the path sound will take, regardless of how well you build your single wall. Think of it like this: You want to build a fish tank in your living room, to keep the fish alive and your floor dry. But you only need to look at the fish from one side of the aquarium, so you only put glass in that side. You then duct take some bits of carpet, paper, wood and cardboard on the other sides: how well will it hold water? How dry will your floor be? Clearly, that would not work for a fish tank. And it won't work for your room either. In order to isolate, you basically have to eliminate all paths that sound could take between your room and his, including windows, doors, the ceiling, the floor, ventilation ducts, electrical ducts, tiny cracks under the wall, etc. There are many possible routes that sound can take, and it WILL bypass your fantastic soundproof wall. Technically, this "bypassing" thing is know as "flanking". Sound will always take the easiest flanking path. So the only real solution is to isolate the entire room: all four walls, and the ceiling, plus doors, windows, etc., and possibly the floor too, depending on how it is made. A typical house wall will get you around 20 to 30 dB of isolation, which is way inadequate for what you need. Just adding more layers of drywall is not going to help much, due to the laws of physics. You need to take a different approach. There are many methods for doing this: the simplest is to take off the drywall ("plasterboard") from the inside wall and ceiling surfaces facing your room, put Resilient Channel across the studs and joists, then put new, thicker drywall on. The resilient channel is a special type of metal strip that "decouples" the drywall from the studs, so that there is no direct path for sound vibrations to take. Using this method, you can get isolation of around 40 to 50 decibels. For higher levels of isolation, you start out the same way: take off the drywall around you... but then you use the scraps of drywall that you took off to "beef up" the other side of those walls, between the studs, then you build a new stud frame just a cm or so away from that, and put a couple of layers of drywall on only ONE side of that. This method can get you much better isolation than resilient channel, but obviously involves more work. You can expect isolation on the order of 50 to 60 decibels like this. Even so, a drum kit played loud can easily hot 115 dB, and a sleeping child might need the level to stay under 35 dB in his room to remain asleep. That implies 80 dB of isolation which is REALLY hard to do (not to mention expensive). It can be done, but is probably out of the question for ordinary DIYers. So the real question here is: "How much isolation do you need?". Measure that with a sound level meter, and that will give you your basic goal. Then decide what level would be acceptable for you, based on your budget and the known performance of different types of construction.

I hope I supplied enough details without drowning you in details.

"Drowning in details" is good! It helps us to understand your situation better, and offer better advice.. :) - Stuart -