DIY Bass Traps? Yes or no?

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Axe-Master
5 years ago we purchased a new home in town after living in the woods for over 2 decades. It was a
tough pill to swallow, but we were so isolated and I wanted to get my son in town, closer to school,
with better Internet, and not have to drive 20 miles round trip to get him back and forth to school.

A combination of logging that took out some trees across the road, a new neighbor, and well a new
neighbor, and I found myself answering the door after hearing someone yell, "Sheriff" last Friday night.
Best part I was in my boxers tracking some live drums. Good times.

Never had this happen before. I converted the largest room in the house into a music space, have some
treatment, but no actual bass traps. I am thinking if I want to continue to enjoy living here and have some
musical freedom then I better invest..... lest the annoying new neighbor puts the local Sheriff on speed dial. :)

So, has anyone built their own bass traps? Do they work? I am thinking a meager db reduction of the lowest
frequencies will suffice, as the neighbor is about 100 yards away. Yeah, I know... they have to be listening hard
to be bothered in the first place, but it is what it is at this point.

Besides, I am thinking it may help me enjoy playing music in here more than I already do, which is a shit ton
as it is.

And no, I am not building an house around my house. Not an option. :)

Appreciate it!!
 
I’ve done some and they seemed to improve the room a good bit. Nothing fancy, wood frame, sheets of rock wool (most expensive part really) and fabric covering. Built in a wedge shape to go into corners of the room. No fancy measurements or acoustical design, just something to minimize the energy in the 90 degree covers of the room. Make it look more like a “studio” at the least lol

Probably should do some new ones for my new place....
 
Thanks! That's exactly what I am looking to do. :)

Did you do the entire corners, or just the top and bottom where the floor and ceiling meet?
 
The neighbor hears you 100 yards away? It might worth investigating what exactly they hear before you go any further. I doubt that corner bass buildup is your problem.

Yup. Give or take 20 yards. Pretty sure it is bass that is bothering him, or maybe it is just life
in general that he has a problem with. ;)

I put guitar through amps on a looper and went outside when I moved here just to test the
neighborhood and didn't perceive anything but barely audible sound once outside of my
own yard. And after the Police showed up I had my son play the kit and went out to listen.
I could definitely hear it beyond my yard.

The Police even said told was the "Kick drum" from the road that they heard.

I know I am not going to ever isolate it to the house, but if I can knock some db off the
lowest of frequencies (80 to 120hz) then to me it is worth it in the long run. Or I just
need to go buy the new neighbor some nice Bourbon once a month or so. :)
 
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My understanding is bass traps have nothing to do with sound isolation. If you are trying to keep your neighbors happy you need sound isolation.

I'd settle for slightly less bitchy and irritable. Happy is probably not feasible. . :)

The old fart lives alone and I think all he does is look out the window and look for
something that is "off" to him. None of my other neighbors have even the slightest
issue. I asked them.

Again, not trying to isolate or decouple. Just something to take the edge off the
low end.
 
Again, not trying to isolate or decouple. Just something to take the edge off the
low end.
That is... isolate! :)

Bass trap absorb within the room. Outside has almost no effect.
There are two main source: impact noise, and aerial noise. Start with impact noise, decouple the floor with rubber + wood floor. For drums and bass guitar it makes wonder. You can decouple only the area where the instruments are.
 
From time to time I read of people who tried to build bass traps (or acoustical treatment in general) by themselves. Unfortunately, even if it can look easy to do, it's not. Each environment is different and even well build panels that works fine in a room can be less useful in another. So my 2cents advice is to talk with someone who does acoustical project: tell him your problem, make some measurement and let him define the best solution. Then, he can suggest you how to build panels and bass traps or suggest a maker he rely on. I could you suggest to contact Andrea Cicero at AC Acoustica (https://www.ac-acustica.it/en/). He did a wonderful work in some of the environments I had to deal with (for customers of mine).
 
I bought a bunch of stuff from GIK acoustics and they drastically improved my room. But for isolation I would recommend build a sound isolation wall on the offending side. It’s pretty easy and a few ways to get it done. For example mount hat channels to the inside of the wall to create an air gap and then mount soundboard to the hat channel. Only take up about an inch of space.
 
Yup. Give or take 20 yards. Pretty sure it is bass that is bothering him, or maybe it is just life
in general that he has a problem with. ;)

I put guitar through amps on a looper and went outside when I moved here just to test the
neighborhood and didn't perceive anything but barely audible sound once outside of my
own yard. And after the Police showed up I had my son play the kit and went out to listen.
I could definitely hear it beyond my yard.

The Police even said told was the "Kick drum" from the road that they heard.

I know I am not going to ever isolate it to the house, but if I can knock some db off the
lowest of frequencies (80 to 120hz) then to me it is worth it in the long run. Or I just
need to go buy the new neighbor some nice Bourbon once a month or so. :)

Hmmm, I don't think corner traps are going to do what you think they will do :). It's probably going to take isolation.
 
Correct. Sound treatment is only addressing acoustical issues in the room. Will have no affect on your neighbor issues.

Even if I am only looking for some minimal db reduction??

I am not going to argue with people who know more than me, but if you have MORE absorption of frequencies
within the room then won't you have less transmission outside of the room??

I am asking, because when I treated the walls (yet to do the ceiling with some clouds) I noticed a dramatic
reduction of volume in other areas of the house.
 
Even if I am only looking for some minimal db reduction??

I am not going to argue with people who know more than me, but if you have MORE absorption of frequencies
within the room then won't you have less transmission outside of the room??

I am asking, because when I treated the walls (yet to do the ceiling with some clouds) I noticed a dramatic
reduction of volume in other areas of the house.
It has to do with the length of low frequency waves. Highly doubt your room is anywhere close to big enough to truly capture/absorb low frequencies needed to make any real difference. Easy enough to manage some reflections and corner buildup in a typical room, but truly to manage low end just won’t happen.

Look into some resources about low end wavelength and management, they would be able to give more science behind it.
 
I'm stubborn and defiant, and love science. It's gonna be a battle. :)

I have 27 feet (by 15 feet) so should easily be able to knock-down/absorb a lot of those
standing waves, no??
 
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I'm stubborn and defiant, and love science. It's gonna be a battle. :)

I have 27 feet (by 15 feet) so should easily be able to knock-down/absorb a lot of those
standing waves, no??
Impact noise is worse than aerial. Try to clap your hand, or hit the wall, and record the sound in the near room. Impact noise are generated when an instrument (drum, monitor, cabs...) touch a surface (floor, ceiling, walls).
The first thing to lower impact sound (that propagate OUTSIDE the room) is decouple. The simplest is the floor. If you want more reduction, consider to build isolated walls (starting from the decoupled floor), or isolate the entire room.

Give the decouple floor a try. You can add bass trap, but the audible effect outside will be minimal. In the room, a bass trap is gold.
 
Acoustic treatment will not help with that at all. You need sound isolation, above is expensive and labor intensive. Basically you build a air right room within a room, float the floor, with an air gap between the two. There's more to it than that, but that's what it will take.
Acoustic treatment only effects the response inside your room, it does fuck all for sound proofing outside.
 
Yup all above, there are some studio buildings ideas over on GearSpace, some good starting points, depending how things are done in your house, you maybe be able to relocate the studio which may be enough to help with the neighbor, close windows etc. maybe not. But for sure just working on acoustics of the room won’t help the neighbor grumping.
 
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