I live in an apartment complex that apparently has pretty thin floors. I
have a neighbor who has complained that he can hear my music below me. I
play electric guitar with my amp just sitting on the carpet. I also have
this electronic drum pad, but rarely ever play that without the headphones.
I'm wondering if the amp on the floor and me hitting the pedals on the floor
or the sticks on the pads isn't resonating in the floor and getting
downstairs to them.

Anyway, I was wondering if there isn't some kind of sound dampening/proofing
mat that I could put my amp and my drum stand on to help prevent the sounds
from going through the floor. Something 5'x5' or something like that would
suffice.

If anyone has any ideas or comments I'd appreciate it.

NorCalVikesFan wrote:

I live in an apartment complex that apparently has pretty thin floors. I
have a neighbor who has complained that he can hear my music below me. I
play electric guitar with my amp just sitting on the carpet. I also have
this electronic drum pad, but rarely ever play that without the
headphones. I'm wondering if the amp on the floor and me hitting the
pedals on the floor or the sticks on the pads isn't resonating in the
floor and getting downstairs to them.

Anyway, I was wondering if there isn't some kind of sound
dampening/proofing mat that I could put my amp and my drum stand on to
help prevent the sounds
from going through the floor. Something 5'x5' or something like that
would suffice.

If anyone has any ideas or comments I'd appreciate it.

Auralex sell some way overpriced things that are supposed to do this. If
the biggest part of the problem is indeed structure-borne resonance, they
might help. OTOH, appartments are notorious for not having very much
insulation between units. If airborne sound waves are getting through the
floor/ceiling, isolation pads won't help.

Before you spend your money on the Auralex things, see what kind of DIY
solution you can come up with. What you need is something massive (cinder
blocks, MDF board, tile backer board) and something squishy (carpet pad,
sofa cushions, old motorcycle tires). Use the squishy stuff to isolate the
massive stuff from the floor. The massive stuf plus whatever's on top of
it (amps, drums, etc) should be just heavy enough to compress the squishy
stuff by about 15 -25 %.

Good luck.

In article writes:

I live in an apartment complex that apparently has pretty thin floors. I
have a neighbor who has complained that he can hear my music below me. I
play electric guitar with my amp just sitting on the carpet.

Anyway, I was wondering if there isn't some kind of sound dampening/proofing
mat that I could put my amp and my drum stand on to help prevent the sounds
from going through the floor.

Something 5'x5' or something like that would suffice.

If you were willing to make a platform that large and kept the volume
down, you might have some success, but I suspect that the real problem
is low frequency transmission through the floor itself. The only way
you'll fix that is by pulling up the carpet and gluing a couple more
layers of wood over the existing floor. And then you'd have the walls
and studs to worry about.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"NorCalVikesFan" wrote in message
m...
I live in an apartment complex that apparently has pretty thin floors. I
have a neighbor who has complained that he can hear my music below me. I
play electric guitar with my amp just sitting on the carpet. I also have
this electronic drum pad, but rarely ever play that without the
headphones.
I'm wondering if the amp on the floor and me hitting the pedals on the
floor
or the sticks on the pads isn't resonating in the floor and getting
downstairs to them.

Anyway, I was wondering if there isn't some kind of sound
dampening/proofing
mat that I could put my amp and my drum stand on to help prevent the
sounds
from going through the floor. Something 5'x5' or something like that
would
suffice.

If anyone has any ideas or comments I'd appreciate it.



I built a small 'floated' platform for my drumset which may interest you :
http://www.imjohn.com/DrumFloor/index.htm

Check out Auralex products too for similar stuff.

Obviously unless you made it as big as your entire floor it's not going to
reduce the volume of the music your downstairs neighbor is hearing but at
least in my case it greatly reduced the mechanical noise transmitted form
the bass drum and hihat pedals and probably muted some of the volume from
the snare and floor tom.

Best of luck!

John L Rice

Trust me on this one cause I did a ton of research into it. If your looking
for a sound dampening mat similar to stuff like Dynamat which is used in
cars to reduce vibration, go to mcmastercarr.com and get yourself a bunch of
polymeric mastic .....it's the exact same stuff but a mere fraction of the
price. Combine this with John's floating platform and you've pretty much
isolated the sympathetic vibration from your drums.speakers into the floor.
The sound waves eminatng from your drums/speakers are a different story
altogether...good luck w/ that!

--

Jonny Durango

"Patrick was a saint. I ain't."

http://www.jdurango.com



"NorCalVikesFan" wrote in message
m...
I live in an apartment complex that apparently has pretty thin floors. I
have a neighbor who has complained that he can hear my music below me. I
play electric guitar with my amp just sitting on the carpet. I also have
this electronic drum pad, but rarely ever play that without the
headphones.
I'm wondering if the amp on the floor and me hitting the pedals on the
floor
or the sticks on the pads isn't resonating in the floor and getting
downstairs to them.

Anyway, I was wondering if there isn't some kind of sound
dampening/proofing
mat that I could put my amp and my drum stand on to help prevent the
sounds
from going through the floor. Something 5'x5' or something like that
would
suffice.

If anyone has any ideas or comments I'd appreciate it.

In article writes:

Trust me on this one cause I did a ton of research into it. If your looking
for a sound dampening mat similar to stuff like Dynamat which is used in
cars to reduce vibration, go to mcmastercarr.com and get yourself a bunch of
polymeric mastic .....

I see they have several damping materials, including a three-layer
foam and vinyl material about 1.3" thick that has an STC of .7 which
is pretty good. But unless it covered the entire floor, it probably
wouldn't help more than a little.

Have you had any experience lining a computer case with these
polymetric vinyl sheets to quiet it down? I discussed that application
with a few manufacturers of similar material (for car audio
installations) at the CES a couple of years back, but none of the
promised samples ever showed up.

This stuff is pretty cheap and would certainly be worth a try for that
application, but does the asphalt filling smell like a road being
paved?



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo