4 Ways to Create a Sounds Insulation Wall
173,300 people reported working as a musician in 2014. That same year, about 2 out of 5 musicians were self-employed. With nearly half the field working independently like so, there’s been a concurrent rise in at-home recording.
In order for a room to be capable of having high-quality music recorded in it, it must have sounds insulating walls and/or floors. These structures aim to eliminate any external sounds from polluting the quality of the recording. There are four methods to building sounds insulating walls that may be used together or separately: adding mass, decoupling, damping and filling gaps.
- Adding Mass
- Damping
- Decoupling
- Filling Gaps
This first method involved with soundproofing walls or creating a soundproof ceiling involves simply using thicker acoustic building products. This stems from the scientific understanding that thicker, denser materials absorb more sound.
With this in mind, consider swapping thin wall materials for thicker drywall. If you’re simply improving an existing wall, you can anchor a basic wall frame to the preexisting surface using the existing studs and then cover it with a new layer of drywall.
The next option for creating an acoustic wall covering is referred to as damping. This process involves filling the walls with a damping compound, which converts sound energy to heat. Damping, which specifically absorbs low-frequency sounds, can be used between layers of wall, floor or ceiling.
Damping material is also sold as noise proofing glue or viscoelastic adhesive.
Another property of sound is its ability to be absorbed when travelling through new substances. Builders of sounds insulating walls can capitalize on this by building the structure from two sheets of drywall or sheetrock and include as much space in between them as possible. An important caveat with this process, which is referred to as “decoupling,” is its weakened ability to block out low frequencies due to the resonance of the wall.
The final strategy to creating a soundproof wall or ceiling involves simply filling in gaps with acoustical caulk. Small cracks or gaps between wall material can decrease the quality of the sound and thus recording. You can fill the gaps with special sealant or caulk, specific to acoustics.
Areas to concentrate on include the gaps around the walls and windows.
