How to Soundproof a Recording Room Acoustically: The Ultimate Guide

Ask any seasoned audio engineer about the first step you should do when setting up a recording room. Chances are, they are going to tell you to soundproof and treat your room!

Nothing will ruin your audio more than picking up unwanted noise. Learning how to soundproof a room for recording can make all the difference. Not only will you be able to keep your audio protected from noisy neighbors, but it’ll keep your recordings consistent for the mixing phase.

If you’ve never soundproofed a room, there’s a lot to learn! There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what it takes to truly prepare a recording room. Every room is different and the physical characteristics of the physical space can make a difference.

But fear not! In this guide, we’re going to give you some valuable tips on how you can soundproof and treat your space so that you can create a studio that will give you professional-level sound.

What is Soundproofing?

Many professionals know their craft exceptionally well but know next to nothing about the mechanics of sound. That’s not a criticism of recording artists; it’s just a fact of life.

If your entire professional career, for example, centers on developing your violin-playing skills to a high level, you likely don’t have time to study acoustics and related subjects.

Fortunately, you don’t need to earn a degree in audio engineering to create a pro-quality recording space inside your home. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t even need a ton of money.

Soundproofing your room can be done on the cheap.

While hiring an acoustical engineer to plan out your studio will surely provide some amazing results, you’d be surprised at what you can achieve by taking matters into your own hands.

At its core, soundproofing is nothing more than isolating the sound in your room. It’s about making sure that sound doesn’t get out. But most importantly, it also makes sure that sound doesn’t get in!

The Difference Between Soundproofing and Acoustic Treatment

While the concept may seem simple enough, there’s a lot of confusion out there about what soundproofing is and what it isn’t. The term “soundproofing” is used as a catch-all phrase.

You may see foam blocks and automatically label them as a form of soundproofing. Truth is, the concept is a lot more complicated than you think.

Soundproofing

As we mentioned earlier, soundproofing is about isolating sound within the room. It’s meant to prevent sound from getting in or escaping. While it’s difficult to ensure that no sound escapes at all, you can dramatically reduce the amount of noise that flows through your wall.

Typically, soundproofing measures involve manipulating the construction of the room. It’s best done when you’re building a recording room from scratch. However, you can still do a lot after the fact prime your space for recording.

Ultimately, soundproofing is a two-fold job that benefits everyone. When you’re in the room, soundproofing techniques will help you avoid sounds from your noisy neighbors.

However, those neighbors will benefit, too! Whether you’re singing or banging on drums, proper soundproofing will make sure that they don’t hear you.

Acoustic Treatment

Acoustic treatment is a bit of a different concept, but it is still crucial when planning your recording room. Essentially, it’s about changing the acoustical properties of a room to work in your favor. All rooms, regardless of shape or size, are going to manipulate sound in interesting ways.

Sound waves will bounce off the walls and disperse throughout the space at different rates. This creates tons of reverberation and distortion that could eventually make the way back to your microphone.

With acoustic treatment, you’re able to control the way sound moves and create a perfect recording environment.

Why Do We Need Acoustic Treatment?

Have you ever noticed that large barren rooms tend to produce a ton of echoes? Now imagine trying to record music with that echo getting in the way. It’s not exactly the best environment to start recording music.

Echoes and reverb can wreak havoc on your audio. Reflected waves can create comb filters, which form destructive interference. Essentially, the waves cancel each other out, making your audio sound soft and muddled.

Plus, there’s the issue of early and late reflections. Those reflections can be picked up by your microphone and create unwanted delays.

On top of all that, a lack of acoustic treatment will affect the perceived audio. Standing waves, which are most common in lower frequencies, often force engineers to overcompensate during mixing.

This is because the acoustical properties of the room make those bass frequencies sound softer than they really are. As a result, the final mix ends up sounding imbalanced on any other listening device outside of the studio.

Needless to say, acoustic treatment is very important in your studio. It’s another piece of the soundproofing puzzle that you can’t overlook.

How Can I Make Sure That Our Neighbors Don’t Hear Us?

Now that you understand a bit more about the differences between soundproofing and acoustic treatment, let’s go over some things that you can do to soundproof your space.

While soundproofing measures are best adopted during the construction phase of your home, most of us don’t have that luxury! Luckily, there are several things you can do to get similar results.

These methods are relatively cheap. However, they can do wonders to improve sound quality and make sure that your neighbors can’t hear you!

1. Add Mass

The first step is to simply add mass to your walls. Adding some mass helps to reduce vibrations that can travel through the wall. It’s a pretty simple concept. More mass makes it harder for sound waves to travel.

In the world of soundproofing, Sound Transmission Class is a metric used to indicate how effective a specific material is. A higher STC level is preferred. Concrete offers the highest STC ratings possible.

However, you can add something called Mass Loaded Vinyl to your walls to get similar results. It’s effective and affordable.

2. Use Damping Components

Another option is to utilize damping products. Basically, damping is meant to dissipate vibrations before they can be turned into sound. So, it turns the kinetic energy from vibrations into heat, effectively blocking sound from traveling through the wall.

There are a couple of ways you can take advantage of damping. The easiest is to invest in acoustic polyurethane foam. Something like Green Glue works. Just apply the foam between two rigid panels, such as plywood or drywall panels. Ensure that there are no gaps and you’ll experience some good soundproofing.

3. Decoupling

Decoupling is the process of separating two objects so that they are not in direct contact with each other. Vibrations easily move from one solid object to the next, which is a big reason why sound travels outside of a room.

Something as simple as adding a layer of air between your walls can work magic. Consider creating a double-wall or floating floor. You can also use rubber isolators or joint gasket tape. Whatever the case may be, removing that direct contact will make a noticeable difference.

4. Seal Air Leaks

Finally, you can seal all air leaks. If there’s a way for sound to travel outside of your room, those waves will find it!

Search for places on walls, floors, ceilings, around air vents, and around windows where air and sound can leak in or out. Fill them with caulk, automated door bottoms, or foam gaskets.

Don’t forget to look for small holes in ceilings, floors, and walls as well. These tiny apertures can ruin an otherwise excellent soundproofing job.

How to Treat Your Recording Room to Sound Better

Once you’ve figured out how to soundproof your recording space for cheap for or from noisy neighbors, your job isn’t over just yet! Inside the room, you’ll need to utilize some acoustic treatment techniques to manipulate sound waves to your advantage.

1. Understanding How Sound Works

To treat your room efficiently, you need to understand how sound travels. Whether the thing picking up sound waves is your ears or a microphone, it’s subjected to two different kinds of sound waves. These include direct waves, which are what you want to hear, and reflected waves. The reflected waves are the ones bouncing off the walls in your room.

Unlike direct waves, those reflections are getting to your ears or the microphone at a delay. This causes destructive interference. Remember that comb filtering effect we mentioned earlier? Those reflected waves create the comb filter, which cancels out parts of the frequency.

Sound travels approximately 1,125 feet per second! While that slight delay might not seem like much, those unwanted reflections bounce around the room in an instant, creating a litany of sound issues.

2. Why Absorption and Diffusion Matter

Both absorption and diffusion work to overcome those awful reflected sound waves. Reflection and other sound wave problems create an uneven frequency response that you must address if you want your recording to sound top-notch.

The goal of sound absorbers and diffusers is to change the way reflections flow throughout the room. Ultimately, this prevents destructive interference and helps you pick up or hear the best sound possible.

3. What Kinds of Acoustic Treatment Can I Apply to My Recording Room

There are a few different options on how to treat your room. The best options for you will largely depend on the size and shape of the room. However, combining all of these methods is always best.

Apply Bass Traps

These relatively inexpensive pieces of specially-shaped foam are good at absorbing high, low, and mid-range frequencies, not just bass tones.

Place the wedges in multiple areas of the room, particularly in corners and where walls meet ceilings and floors. Buy more than you think you’ll need because it’s better to have too many than too few.

Bass traps do a fantastic job of addressing standing waves. These are waves that get trapped in corners. Rather than moving other parts of the room, those waves will simply bounce from one close wall to the next, creating a relative “dead zone” for sound quality.

Apply Acoustic Panels

Like bass traps but much cheaper, these panels deliver a lot of bang for your soundproofing buck. Place them on as much open wall space as possible. They kill standing sound waves in the center of rooms, are quite thin, and work best when used in conjunction with bass traps.

You’ll see acoustic panels everywhere in studios. It’s because they do a lot of things. Primarily, they are used to limit reflections by absorbing sound waves. However, they can also turn those vibrations into heat and prevent sound from escaping the room.

Use Diffusers

Add a few sound diffusers to your studio even if the space is quite small. They do a good job of breaking up, i.e., “diffusing,” whatever random sound waves aren’t eliminated by bass traps and acoustic panels. The central goal is to use traps and panels first, then add some diffusers as the last step of the soundproofing and acoustic treatment process.

Other Noises to Treat When Recording

When you’re soundproofing a room, it’s not just sound waves that you have to watch out for. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when soundproofing cheap/ for recording/ from noisy neighbors is to ignore sounds inside your home studio.

There’s a lot of equipment within the room that produces sound. Here are some treatment techniques you can use to minimize excess sound as much as possible.

Treatment 1: Eliminating Computer Noise from Your Recordings

Your computer is an important piece of the recording puzzle. Unfortunately, it’s also a big source of unwanted noise. Whether you use a laptop or a desktop PC, there are some ways that you can avoid picking up the noise while you record.

Use Laptop Stands

The last thing you want to hear in your recordings is a noisy computer fan. The fan is one of the loudest components. However, it’s a crucial part of your setup that prevents overheating.

Laptop stands are an economical way to solve two problems at once. You’ll not only help your computer stay cool and operate the way it should, but you’ll be eliminating fan noise that erupts whenever the device gets warm and needs to cool itself off.

Build an ISO Box

Ideally, you’d put your hardware in a separate room. However, if you can’t do that, you will need an ISO box. These furniture pieces are very common in high-end studios. Their main job is to protect the equipment from overheating while also eliminating fan noise.

You can purchase a premade ISO box or build one yourself. It’s relatively simple and utilizes a lot of the same soundproofing techniques we went over earlier.

Be Aware of the Mics

Finally, be aware of the mics you use and where you place them. Obviously, you should keep the mics as far away from your computer as possible. This will reduce your chances of picking up noise.

You can also use dynamic microphones, which are less sensitive to high-frequency tones that come from a computer. Alternatively, you can pick up a microphone with a cardioid polar pattern. These mics have a “dead spot” directly behind the microphone. Point that spot towards your computer and you won’t pick up any noise.

Treatment 2: Cut A/C Noise Out of Your Recordings

Air conditioners and heaters can wreak havoc when you’re trying to soundproof. For window units, seal every opening around the appliance or hire a pro to do it for you. HVAC experts do this perfectly and it might be worth the small additional cost to have an expert seal your window unit properly.

Next, remove the vents from AC and heating ducts. These otherwise useful little grills direct airflow around the room but also create all sorts of weird sounds during operation. Remove them and be sure to turn AC and heating units OFF while you are recording.

Avoid Portable A/C Units

See the above point about AC units in general. You might be stuck with a central system in your home studio, so be ready to remove vents and/or deal with the openings around a window unit.

Don’t think you can solve your AC problem by using a stand-alone, portable unit. They are prohibitively pricey and are, in fact, much worse for soundproofing purposes than central or window AC units.

Treatment 3: Don’t Use Noise-Reducing Plug-Ins

Noise reduction plug-ins are a dime a dozen these days. Originally developed for forensics, they have become quite popular among audio engineers to get rid of those stray sounds. While they can be effective here and there, they are not a substitute for treating your room.

The best policy is to adopt soundproofing techniques and audio treatments first. That way, you’re eliminating the excess noise before you record it.

The problem with noise reduction plug-ins is that they are prone to creating a ton of artifacts. You might hear sudden pops, static, clipping, and more.

Sound waves are far more complex than most people think. Using a plug-in to apply something as simple as a notch filter or low-pass filter will end up ruining the sound of your audio. Not only will you have to deal with artifacts, but you may also change the timbre of the sound.

Furthermore, you run the risk of eliminating room tone, which will make your recording sound unnatural. These plug-ins are good as the last resort. But it’s far better to address your noise issues before you start recording rather than scrambling to get rid of them afterward.

Avoid These Costly Mistakes When Soundproofing a Room

Professional studios hire acoustic engineers for thousands of dollars to address sound issues. It doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to get a good sound. Learning how to soundproof a room cheaply isn’t hard.

That said, there are a ton of mistakes that will cost you dearly. Here are some of the most costly mistakes that you need to avoid.

Not Doing Your Homework

The worse thing you can do is not approach your soundproofing project methodically. Don’t assume that what worked for one person will work for you. Every room is different and you need to do some homework to ensure that you’re addressing your space’s unique issues.

Take some time to analyze your sound problems. Bring in someone who can provide you with some outside perspective. From there, you can find solutions that are pertinent to your needs. Here are just a few questions you can ask yourself:

• How do the materials of the room affect sound reflections?
• Are any of the room’s walls exposed directly to the outdoors?
• How thick are the walls?
• How are the floors affecting reflections?
• Are there multiple air vents that open up into space?

Paying Too Much Attention to Glass

People waste plenty of money installing double-pane windows on sound studios, all for no effect. The key is sealing up the openings around windows and possibly using curtains that can absorb some reflections.

Ignoring the Ceiling

So many people fail to address how the ceiling affects recording. Sound waves can bounce off the ceiling and penetrate the roof as well! Make sure to seal off any potentially exposed areas that could let sounds from your noisy neighbors in. Also, apply some acoustical treatment to address those reflections.

Not Sealing Mass

You can add all the mass in the world to your walls. But, it’s not going to do you any good if you don’t seal it all in. Flowing curtains or even rolls of mass-loaded vinyl still have places where sound can flow through. Seal everything in so that sound waves have no place to escape.

Spending Money in the Wrong Places

A big part of soundproofing a room cheaply is understanding where to spend your money. You can save money without cutting corners. The goal is to address every problem in your room.

If that means having to use more affordable materials, then so be it. It’s better to spend your money on all those key problem areas at once rather than spending more on a single diffuser.

Common Myths of Soundproofing

There are hundreds of myths about soundproofing and acoustics. The following are just a few of the most common ones. You might have heard of others. They all have lots of (misguided) followers, many of whom are well-meaning folks who saw something in a movie or on TV and just accepted it.

Old spy novels are full of incorrect information about soundproofing and acoustics, so beware if you’re a fan of “secret agent” novels. Here are the most prevalent acoustics and soundproofing myths currently making the rounds:

Using Chicken Wire

A spy film favorite, the chicken wire does absolutely nothing to enhance the soundproofing qualities of a space. For some reason, it’s often incorrectly suggested that you add the wire to ceiling panels for soundproofing purposes. The only benefit wiring provides is to support loose absorption material. But even then, you must cover it to prevent the wire from becoming a source of vibrations.

Plywood

Plywood can be a component of soundproofing when it’s used in conjunction with acoustic foam, but it does nothing alone. In fact, wood is such an able conductor of sound that adding plywood panels to your walls might enhance any noises coming in or out and deliver weird echoes in various parts of the room.

Styrofoam or Foam Rubber

It’s cheap and seems to dampen sounds heard by the human ear but does virtually no good for purposes of studio soundproofing. Plus it’s a huge fire hazard, is hard to seal, and produces all sorts of squeaky noises as it settles into place.

Mattresses

An age-old favorite for DIY soundproofing, mattresses do nothing more than make your room look terrible, take up tons of space, and deliver no measurable sound resistance or absorption.

They’re nearly impossible to position without leaving big gaps, are tough to caulk, rot over time, create some awful odors, and attract many kinds of insects.

Hay Bales

A major fire hazard, hay bales are costly, attract rodents and insects, don’t offer any sound resistance, and tend to smell after a few weeks.

Rubber Mats

Here’s a very popular, but totally ineffective soundproofing technique. Many DIY enthusiasts place neoprene or rubber mats on the floor or nail it to ceilings in the hope that it will keep sound in or out. It’s simply not dense enough to do either.

Egg Crates

This is a popular myth. Many diffuser and acoustic manufacturers use a surface treatment that looks like the shape of egg crates. However, actual egg crates can make your sound issues worse.

Cellulose

If you opt for this partially effective soundproofing material and pay someone to fill your wall space with it, your expenses will be much higher than if you went with some of the professional methods. Cellulose is way too costly and simply doesn’t do a very good job of repelling sound waves all on its own.

Fiberglass

The stuff in your walls and ceilings and floors that provides insulation from extreme temperatures is a terrible soundproofing material. Its strong point is saving money on your heating and cooling bill, which it does admirably.

It is neither designed to keep sound out nor to be part of a soundproofing system in any way. Don’t waste your money buying fiberglass panels or sheeting.

Multiple Coats of Paint

This myth is quite old and can be a very expensive way to learn that paint does nearly nothing in terms of sound absorption. For whatever reason, this misconception refuses to die.

Many well-meaning, hard-working people spend their precious time adding several layers of pricey paint to walls and ceilings. It does nothing but drains your wallet of money.

Curtained Enclosures

Building a “room within a room” from suspended curtains is a worthless endeavor if you want to soundproof a space. Stand-alone curtained panels are open to all sounds, distort some frequencies, and just aren’t effective at keeping any noises out or in.

The primary thing to keep in mind about all the above myths is that they fall into one of two categories: each one either does nothing or is simply a more expensive option than purchasing made-for-soundproofing materials.

Now that you know what has NOT worked for people, simply focus on the four things that do work, represented by the FADD acronym: Fill air gaps, Add mass, Damp, and Decouple.

If you ask people about their own DIY projects and how to soundproof a room cheaply, remember that even if they swear by some of the myths, it simply means they cut some corners, saved a few bucks, and likely ended up with a room that’s not very well soundproofed or acoustically treated.

For a professional-level job, avoid the mistakes and myths and do the job right.

Practice or Record Your Music without Disturbing Anybody

There are two key points to keep in mind when you set out to soundproof a room and include the right amount of acoustical treatment features.

First, you need to remember that soundproofing should probably be the initial step of the process. In other words, make sure to minimize the amount of sound that comes into and leaves the space. Once you get to the point where there is almost no measurable noise, either coming in or going out, you can then proceed to the more refined step of attending to acoustical treatment.

Second, when you begin to calibrate the acoustical treatment, note that you are concentrating only on the sound reflections inside the space. If you’ve done the first part of your job well, the soundproofing, then it will be much easier to achieve a decent level of acoustical treatment.

Take some extra time in getting things just right. A properly treated and soundproofed room will make a world of difference. Not only will you be able to record and practice in peace, but your music will sound amazing! You don’t need to hire a professional engineer to plan your room.

By understanding how sound flows and what you need to do in order to address issues, you can get the job done on your own. It may take some time, but having the ability to jam out without having to worry about disturbing others is well worth it!