I'm moving my home studio to a larger room in the house. My GIK panels will fit better and I'll have a little more room for amps, etc. Room is 15' long by 11' wide. I plan on putting the desk, monitors, etc. in front of a solitary window that is 4' wide and 4.5' long....problem is this room faces the street and I can hear traffic from the turnpike....I'v contacted several companies like soundproofwindows.com and soundproofanyroom.com and it's around $600 for the soundproofed window and $300 for freight. Apparently it installs approx. 4" behind the existing window. I really need advice on this....is there a cheaper way to get this done? The window is single hung, btw

Storm window and acoustical curtains?

I would consider custom fabric covered/tight fitting rockwool panels to fill the window sill space when you are tracking and mixing. Pull 'em out when the studio is not being used.

is there a cheaper way to get this done?

That depends entirely on whether or not you wish to see through this window after the soundproofing is complete ;)


It would also depend on your wall construction. Your window is probably the weak point at the moment, but the walls may not be far behind. You may put a super awesome expensive $900 soundproofing window, only to find your walls are now the weak part on the chain and they were pretty weak to begin with. So you may waste your money because everything else isn't up to scratch.


First thing though is to look for ANY airgaps. Even a small 1mm airgap where your windows slots in will let in a lot of noise. You need to make your room 100% airtight from that road.


Unfortunately soundproofing is not always just as simple as putting up a double glazed window...


What are your walls made of and are all gaps filled? Listen carefully all over the wall and around window edges to try and determine how much is getting through where.


Of course if you don't want a window there... Things get a little easier ;)

I agree with Matt. It depends on whether you want to still see out that window AND if the walls may be just as "leaky". One way to soundproof that entire wall - the one with the window, facing the street - would be to build another wall just in front of it. The idea is that "gap" between the two walls eliminates sound coming through. I don't know enough of the science, but that empty space (and it doesn't have to be big, 1" or less)prevents the sound waves from getting through. A fifteen-foot wall of 2x4s, insulation, plywood or drywall on top? Hmm. That could set you back $200-$300.

When I was a kid I was the draughtsman on the construction plans for Martin Downs Boulevard.

My Uncle had a place on SR714 too.

We use to think a tailgate party on C23 was a good time... it's where I began my habit of plugging up portable sound systems.

;-)






I agree with all that has said above. If you get a great window or block up the hole you are going to find the next problem right after you finish with the window.

The most effective work will be sealing up any air gaps. You may find sound comes in through the eaves and then into a attic and ceiling area. Those places are meant to breathe and sound will come through as well.

I'd say you have to take it one step at a time.


The idea that you are looking at secondary windows seems unorthodox to me. Many luxury construction projects use sound proof windows. I don't question the cost you were quoted, but it seems, to me, as if you will be able to get an full replacement window that will look great and does the job.

I think the idea of a heavy curtain is good, but if I may suggest, I don't think it will be good enough.


Good luck.


best regards,
mike


 

edit spelling and grammar

The science is pretty simple really. Sound is very efficient at travelling through different mediums of similar density. If the density of the medium changes, lots of energy is reflected back. Air gaps are effective because this makes sound travel through air from the source, hit the first wall with high density material, lose some energy due to the change in density, then it passes through and into air, and loses some more. Then the same process happens again and you cut a significant amount out again. If you have a stud though which connects the two parts of this wall, it has similar density to the walls so the sound can easily travel through this stud and into the second half of the wall and get into your house. This is the reason why we make floating rooms within rooms. Any contact point allows transmission of sound. If you keep everything floating, it greatly minimises sound transference.

Take an ultra-sound. Why do they lube the patient all up? It's to get rid of any pockets of air which which will reduce the transmission of sound. The lube makes sound travel much more effectively. And we see an image because when the sound hits things of different densities in the patient, some energy is reflected back and recorded. And it makes it easier to GLIDE! Of course haha.


So a lot of it is down to densities. Why do acoustic insulation panels work? You have thousands of pockets of air and then fibreglass. You are getting thousands of changes from dense to not very dense. That's one way of thinking about it anyway. You can think of it other ways too.

If you're in a pool and you shout, someone else in the pool can hear you well, but they can't hear you outside of the pool. The some goes the other way around too. Again, density changes.

Pretty simple, aye?

http://www.soundproofwindows.com/index.html

I am currently in the process of converting a garage into a studio. The garage has three windows, which not only presents a sound-isolation challenge but also a security problem. 

My plan is to construct inside shutters from 1/2" plywood that, when latched shut, will fit snugly against the wall around the window with rubber seals. They will then be covered with 703 so as to contribute some absorption and hopefully look like acoustical treatments and not the slabs of plywood they are.

The downside to such a plan is you lose your natural light source. Most studios, however, have no natural light coming in anyway.

Acoustic panels will do ZERO for soundproofing. The only thing that works is mass and air. I built my studio to very specific methods and standards. This is the fourth location I've had my studio in and the first purposely built for recording. I tried everything through the years and wasted much time and money until I decided to do it right.
 
I started with a metal shell. All room framing does not touch this shell at any point. There is a 2" air gap between the room framing and the metal building. The rooms also do not each other at any point. There is a 2" air gap between all rooms.
 
All rooms have 2 layers of 5/8" X-rated fire rock, even the ceilings. Thus, each wall system between rooms consists of, 1 1/4" fire rock on 2x4 framing (with R-13 insulation) followed by a 2" air gap and the same system repeats for the wall on the other side of the air gap. This makes for a wall system that is roughly 10 1/2" thick. We built custom door frames and hung 1 3/8" solid core doors with 2 doors in each opening. The main interior door coming from outside is 1 3/4" thick. These doors are extremely heavy due to the mass.
 
All windows between rooms have two panes of glass, one 5/8" thick and one 1/2" thick. This is because being different thicknesses allows them to resonant at different frequencies. The window frames (custom built) also have the same 2" gap between them.
 
Having said all of that, soundproofing is not for the faint of heart but absolutely essential in my situation. I operate a commercial facility and its imperative that as little sound as possible travels in from outside, outside from inside or from room to room. In my setup the only flanking path for sound to travel is through the slab. If I'd been thinking I'd have poured separate slabs with expansion material between the slab edges.
 
With this setup I was able to achieve about a 65/70db STL (sound transmission loss) to the outside. To illustrate, a 100db source inside a room would be controlled down to about 30/35 dbs outside the building. And of this 30/35 dbs only low frequencies escape. Mids and highs are virtually silent. And to illustrate the reverse, my lawn service can cut my grass directly against the outside of the building and I don't even know they've been there.

Soundproofing is costly but it's much better to do it properly than to waste time and money over and over when nothing seems to work.

Buy the book Build It Like The Pros. It's a wealth of information.