22 replies to this topic

[hexaclopsclopsclops]

About that noise ordinance.
There was a dustup about this in the news a couple years ago, basically ANY time a neighbor complains you can be ticketed.

...except a barking dog in Tempe - I know that one first hand.....

[JRC]

the individual officers have a lot of discression, but they can ticket based on any complaint, in Phoenix at least, this might be just a downtown thing and not apply to Tempe.

As I recall, there was a story in the Rep, about some old dude who was playing his am radio outside, all normal and stuff, and a neighbor called in a complaint w/ out even talking to him first.
BAM $500 bucks!
I remember freaking out about it at the time, cuz TS was having crazy trouble w/ our crazy R-W 'Christian' neighbor who thinks we literally worship satan in the backyard.

Anyway, ya, I'd talk to your next door again, and do some soundproofing.
As I understand it, at YOBs and the Manor, they build these epic wooden inserts to fit the windows, and that cuts down on tons of noise.
Also, 602radio records their podcasts in a coverted house, might see what they did--but the place is a full on recording studio now, it's pretty awesome.

Of course, if you're in a windowless room already . . .

[John MFer]

Soundproofing: The greatest soundproofer of all is distance. Perhaps switching to another part of the house would be an option.

If not, windows and doors are the worst offenders and should be dealt with first. It's not super hard. Mainly, for doors to the outside, use a heavy door, and make sure the weatherstripping is as airtight as possible. This will go a long way on its own. For windows, build a plug that is heavy and seals the opening as completely as possible. Try to make it so the plug does not come in direct contact with the window.

Mattresses on the walls and foam and whatnot dampen the transmission of higher frequencies somewhat, but lower frequencies will rip right through with no effort. These low frequencies require the most energy to produce an audible volume thanks to the non-linear response of the human ear (see: Fletcher Munsen curves), so it takes something really massive to block that energy. Layers of MDF, Sheetrock, or brick work best.

This is how we did it: We play in the bedroom in the corner of the house facing the street. the house next door, outside our room, is their garage. When we were looking at houses, we thought about where practice was going to be and whether it was going to be 10 feet from the neighbors' master bedroom. We bought a house made out of concrete block rather than stucco. The window in the room has been plugged with a very heavy window plug made of layers of plywood surrounded by weatherstripping. It cost maybe $20 or $25 in parts from the hardware store.

So far only one neighbor has even mentioned being able to hear it, the guy across the street, when he was in his front yard (we asked him about it, he thought it was coming from somewhere else). Outside it's about as loud as if the soundproofing wasn't there and someone was playing a stereo at a reasonably loud volume. You'd notice it walking by but I can't imagine it being audible inside anyone else's house.

EDIT: Someone needs to get Chad in this thread. His backyard practice space is so quiet it's ridiculous. He did it the right way, built a room within a room, double doors, everything sealed.

[Rocquero]

get your drummer to use hot rods.

[fatguyaz]

get your drummer to use hot rods.

second this!!

You need to really devote yourself to the sound proofing process to do something significant. If you're just jammin in your living room and then moving stuff out when your family is at home, then moving mattresses in and out might be right, but building any kind of installation would be tough (see: $$$) for you. I spent a lot of money and time on my room and it's pretty bitchin, but i'm fuckin made of money and can afford to do that kind of shit...


OR: i teach drum lessons, so i wrote all that shit off on my taxes!!

[RustyShackleford]

@John - I'm thinking if I do start down the soundproofing route, I'll use a room more suited to it. The living room has two large windows and the front door which would need attention before I even start looking at the walls. Plus, moving to another room would put some more distance between us and neighbor in question.

Why the hate on hot rods?

[Tony]

@John - I'm thinking if I do start down the soundproofing route, I'll use a room more suited to it. The living room has two large windows and the front door which would need attention before I even start looking at the walls. Plus, moving to another room would put some more distance between us and neighbor in question.

Why the hate on hot rods?

hot rods are like soy bacon. yeah, it might sort of seem like bacon, but it's not bacon.

chad's studio is straight up silent from the outside. but i think he had the luxury of putting a bunch of old rolled up t-shirts in between the two walls.

my studio is sound dampened, but definitely not proofed. we put that "soundproof" wood from home depot between the drywall and the actual wall itself. that did an okay job of deadening the sound, but the biggest culprit was the door. we covered the windows inside by using cut foam and then plywood (which has since been removed), but without a solid door with good stripping, a lot of noise still got out. you can add carpeting or other sound deflectors like egg crates inside and it will cut out the high frequencies and probably make it sound better inside, but like john said, the low freq's are what people will hear.

[Quezo]

I haven't done anything yet to my room, but plan to.

I'm lucky though because there are like ten bands that practice on my street, so everyone sort of expects noise.

Plus, we're all really awesome musicians.

If someone from the Academy drove by and heard us, they would just start handing out fucking Grammys and shit.

That's why they don't come here: they'd lose their statue funding after we started soundproofing our houses with them.