Links to ALL products I recommend in the description of this video!

when i was in high school i bought a truck load of carpet foam padding to sound proof an old shop i used to practice in with an old band and we layered the whole room at least 3 times with carpet foam and hung moving blankets over all of that as well and you wouldnt believe how well it worked. we paid like a 100 bucks between 5 kids for all that and we jammed like clams while bothering anyone around us

Having worked with a very well-respected professional in this area, this guy’s recommendations are dead on! The only major thing we did differently was to add drop closers and thresholds to the doors. Note that as you sound deaden a room, you generally also insulate that room. We had to also add dedicated hvac for those rooms.

Have a new neighbor in my apartment building that loves to slam their front door, and the sound travels up the stairwell and into my apartment. After watching this video I put a flashlight in the hall pointed at my door and turned off all the lights in my apartment and saw light bleeding through from the bottom. Previously I thought there was 0 gap in my front door. Thanks for the tip!

The difference between deadening the sounds coming from inside a room, (echoes and such) and preventing sounds from outside coming into the room (traffic, TV, etc.) is an important distinction, that I had not considered before. Thanks for that!

Before you seal around the door, and instead of buying moving blankets, invest in an acoustic solid core door, designed to cut down on vibration. If you're using a regular door not much will happen. The bottom line that I was taught in my acoustics class is that mass-air-mass is the best acoustic insulator. You need a thick solid outer wall lined with acoustic insulation, then an air space, then another thick wall, using resiliant channel and acoustic decoupled mounts to attach your 3/4" plywood, then 5'8' drywall, using acoustic caulking to seal ALL gaps. This is what I have done in my present and last studio (as well as 3 layer varying thickness windows) and it works very well.

If you want to hang curtains to reduce outside noise (typically traffic), use the heaviest fabric you can find and have the curtain hang at one-quater of the the noise wavelength from the window. Assuming the centerband traffic frequency is 500 Hz, the 1/4-wavelength is just under 7 inches. Ideally, you want some extra material so the curtain is not tretched taut, but is a bit ruffled. This effectively varies the distance to the window and mitigates a wider frequency band of noise.

Years ago I binge watched a bunch of seasons of 30 Rock. I happened to have my laptop connected to an old 8 channel PA system with a pair of very large house speakers and several stage monitors. The house speakers had massive 36" woofers and a folded horn passive port, and extremely large horn tweeters. It reproduced a very large range of frequencies. Somewhere along the line, one of the seasons, there must have been construction outside of the building where they filmed the series, because for the rest of that season and for at least the next one or two seasons, almost every scene involving dialog had the sound of dump trucks pulling away and shifting gears. At first it was barely noticeable, but once I noticed it, it became hard to ignore. I was able to drop a few bands on the parametric eq to help silence it, but it was always audible to some extent. I studied sound reinforcement at a community college years ago. We covered the issue of external noise and sound deadening materials, soundproifing, etc, as part of a "constructing a studio" course module. I'm surprised NBC hired sound guys who didn't account for that nose interference.

I really like how practical and honest you are about the “soundproofing”. I’m a carpenter and I’ve had many clients expect pure silence on a busy street. I will be sharing this as they can hear from an expert there is no perfect sound proofing (in most scenarios)!

When our house was being built, I had the builder add insulation to the interior walls. I had this done for noise reduction. Noise originating in one room would then be less noticeable in adjacent rooms.

Best advice I seen on KZfaq. I had a shared wall in my downtown condo between my living room and a neighbor's bedroom. Eight grand later, no noise from my sound system was heard in my neighbor's bedroom. Everything he suggests has to be done and done correctly, but the end result is blissful silence.

I am so glad this video actually uses “soundproofing” correctly. So many videos refer to acoustic treatment as soundproofing, and they’re totally different things, as you said. Thank you!

I did it, by attending auctions at offices...I bought 12 panels of cubicle walls for around 10 bucks....does beautifully! That's my recommendation., along with black out curtains and doors, it does a lovely job. yes, caulk everything, but blackout curtains. surprisingly they do an amazing job!

The best and cheapest sound deadened room is one you may already have... a walk in closet with both sides full of clothes... We used to roll the baby carriage in ours and you could have a party in the room adjoining the closet and it was a nothing more than a slight background murmur. I know a couple of people using theirs as recording rooms for podcasts -

Caution on the moving blankets for window covering: the top fabrics are not UV stable and over time the sunlight will convert the tops to dust. They work and I use them but you will want to put some other stable fabric, like your light blocking curtain, between the moving blanket and the outside light. If you don't want the stylish moving blanket wall covering look, get some other fabric print and attach that to the moving blanket to convert it to a tapestry like in merry old medieval times.

Some really good advice. The terms for the distinction between reducing sound from outside, vs echoes is Noise Reduction vs Acoustic Treatment. As an audiobook narrator, I’ve had to do all of this, but especially acoustic treatment to cut reflection. You’re so right about the price differential with the added “acoustic” in the name. Such a scam… usually. I DID pay extra for “Acoustic Blankets” vs heavy duty moving blankets and, for my purposes, they were well worth the extra cost. They are thicker, denser, and easier to use. But regular mov8ng blankets do a pretty decent job.

As far as walls nothing beats adding drywall for noise reduction! Just add 2 additional 1/2 inch layers with a 3/4 space of air ( Door stoppers as spacers ) and stagger the drywall ( meaning don't installed them the exactly the same way but putting some vertically and some horizontally ). Its the cheapest way and it will give you the biggest bang for the buck! Of course we must add extensions to the electrical outlets and the drywall itself but after you get a HUGE sound reduction. PLUS your suggestion for the outlets and cracks make perfect sense as well 👍

I discovered using flat moving boxes cut to fit snug inside the window frame, fold the moving blanket around it then stuff it into your window frame.. super soundproof and will cost about 15 dollars for a standard window. Harbor Freight has cheap moving blankets and Home depot has cheap moving boxes👍

Finally a video that is realistic and honest about soundproofing. I used weather stripping along with those bottom door draft stoppers and it works very well. I have to pull the door a little harder to make sure it closes properly which also tells me the seal is tight. The biggest problem which you mentioned and no one else has is the air flow... The room can get a bit stuffy and humid since the air flow has been reduced so much.

I'm taking notes, although keeping the noise I make playing music IN the room (so I don't annoy my husband) is my goal rather than keeping noise out. Thank you for making this video. I'm glad I found it and will at least be looking into moving blankets and industrial velcro.

if you know how to sew, you can add a little to these tips! - To cover big windows, you can sew two noise deadening curtains together so there’s no gap. - To make moving blankets less unsightly, search for a blanket/fabric you *do* like the look of and sew them together. That way it’ll basically be a very heavy tapestry! haha

On the eletrical outlet, you can also use plumber's putty. Super, super cheap

The biggest problem I find is people mistaking sound treatment with sound proofing. The layman does not distinguish between the two. With new clients, it's the first thing I have to explain. Sound treatment can be easy and cost effective. Sound proofing is generally more difficult and more expensive.

Thank You for caring, and honesty that you use to produce these informational videos. Living in spaces without privacy can cause stress between neighbors and pour quality of living. Soundproofing can help. Quality advisory is greatly appreciated.

This answers the questions for my new construction - 2 bedrooms with closets between to attempt to deaden sound, but the between the drywall material will be included along with the outlet putty. Lived in an apartment, it was the worst for noise in bedrooms. Luckily, open walls = easy soundproofing.

For windows you can use a piece of plexiglass cut to fit, and edged with weatherstripping so that you have a friction fit around the frame.

Thanks for this! I live in an 80 year old house next to a 4 lane road with typical air brakes, emergency vehicles, atypical exhaust, horns & extreme car audio systems noise interfering with my workday and movie nights - I've been considering replacing windows and doors as well as drywall to reduce the noise, but these tips will be much less expensive!

Excellent advice. I've worked on noise reduction and your idea of turning off the lights and seeing where light is coming thru cracks is right on. Sound is sneaky and it's amazing how a small opening can bring in a huge amount of sound. It's not like air convection it's more associated conceptually to be more like water hammer.

Ive tried so many tips and tricks I see online and all your points are correct. Most folks confuse panels to absorb noise.

A lot of common sense and useful stuff for low cost soundproofing for everyday folks. And also the clearing up of what those acoustic foams pads actually do, which is they should only be used when YOU are the one making the noise and don't want it to escape. Thanks brother, keep it up!

What I remember is what an American architect used in his glasfiber igloo’s. They were hollow and reflected all the sound. He used “paper-mache” for everything above 6 feet in the room. And it worked like magic. Wallpaper glue mixed with small pieces of paper. In my country we call it papier-maché.

Thank you, thank you for getting the difference between sound proofing and sound deadening right!

thanks for taking the time and sharing. appreciated.

Another thing that you can add to outlets is the insulation pads designed for blocking drafts (especially useful on exterior walls). They fit in behind the cover and fit fairly snug. A pack of 6 costs a couple of dollars.

A few points -- Deadening that other room can be a faster way to improve the room you care about. -- "draft stoppers" that people use for doors can work as well as a blanket to stop the noise under a door. A chunk of rug also works -- Hanging a tapestry an inch off a wall deadens sound quite a bit. The gap makes it free to move. -- For windows consider drapes rather than curtains. Drapes are made of more substantial material and the rod positions them out from the window. The drapery rod can be arranged so that the edges of the curtains wrap towards the wall to block that path. You can have the top of the drapes well above the window near the ceiling. This makes the path for sound harder in that direction. You can add curtains within the outline of the window opening as well.

Thanks for the great video! Goes to show how finishings in a home can go a long way to improving the quality of life

I never heard about the wall puddy before. That's awesome. Thank you!

In my college apartment for the past 2 year, when I first moved in I noticed how much echoing there was in my room. I hung up my old comforter and that made one hell of a difference. I put it right behind my monitors, the direction I faced 95% of the time, and It stayed up there (as long as the clips holding them up didn't let go, which they did A LOT [velcro would have probably fixed the problem]) for the entirety of those 2 years. When I moved out this past spring and took it down, I forgot just how much and how loudly it echoed

5:00 (apx) - For the lower door you need to have something you can put in place when needing to soundproof. Keep in mind, your lower door gap is needed for HVAC systems to function properly in circulating air. So if not needing soundproofing all the time, get something you can put in place when needed. IE: towel as mentioned.

The sound classes I took in college completely agree with what you are saying!

To improve sound and cut high frequency bounces, hang a heavy textile (rug, quilt) a couple of inches from a wall. Prettier than a moving blanket. Bookcases decrease "too bright" sound because the sound bounces behind the books and gets lost. They can help minimize sound transmission from another room because the mass of a filled bookcase is high.

We need this kind of helpfulness and honesty everywhere else in the world. Thank you for your insight.

Trying to boost this video obviously has had a long term effect, because it just popped up in my recommended videos without me looking for soundproofing solutions at any point in my life, and it's 11 months later now. I watched it out of curiosity and gave it a like to reach even more people that are not looking for it. :D

Currently in the middle of renovating my room and this pops out in the algorithm, Thank you so much for the useful information^^

Those are good points. As you mentioned, sound is the movement of air. Another thing to consider is utilizing area rugs. They can be hung on the wall as well as laid out on the floor and they are much more attractive than moving blankets. Better still, hang a rug in front of a moving blanket. The main thing is to break up parallel surfaces. Putting sound deadening objects (cylinders, etc.) in the corners helps as well. Since we're talking about the movement of air, what about your vents or registers? There are things that can be done there as well. It all depends on how much the sound pressure level needs to be reduced. And then there's landscaping. :))

You briefly mentioned this, but the gaps under the door and leaky windows are usually the only way of a room to get fresh air. A thing to keep in mind before going apeshit with sealing stuff.

I have just found your channel one day ago. Your tips are amazing! Your explanations are clear and your honesty and integrity shines through. I have made a list of seversl I will be looking into. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Great vid on sound proofing a room. Your ideas are rock solid and very economical. Thanks for sharing.

For traffic noise, start by caulking the outside of the window trim, openings where pipes come in, etc. A nice side-effect of caulking and sealing is improved energy efficiency and fewer pests coming in. It's a win-win-win

Something I have noticed is that the sound proofing effect of uPVC double glazing degrades with time. I tracked it down to the collapse of the rubber seals between the moving panes and the uPVC surrounds. The rubber becomes harder and less springy with time which results in air gaps, and as you have already identified that causes the noise to leak through. If you have this it's time to replace the rubber seals.

Excellent clarification for anyone confused by the commercial nomenclature of acoustics. I have gone to every farm in the area looking for Red Rooster Caulking to no avail. Really though, thank you for a great presentation. My interest is in construction of a music room & this has been informative re things to do or things not to bother with. Compliments.

Thanks for the video. Always appreciate when people create content that says "you don't have to buy that 'stuff' " whatever the 'stuff' is.

The one thing nobody talks about is how to block sub woofer noise. I have neighbors that have a sound system outside by their pool with sub woofers thumping away until all hours of the night. And bass notes seem to penetrate everything. Note to mention people who drive by in cars with over amplified sub woofers. You can hear them coming from miles away. You can't hear the music they're listening to, just the pounding bass. It's like having a giant beating heart outside you house.

I live in a apartment with sheetrock between myself and the airbnb on the other side. I can't put up loaded vinyl and more sheet rock so I went the moving blanket route. It works to some extent. It doesn't fix the problem but you will get less noise from the other side. Also blackout curtains work very well for the noise and privacy. I also got some dense foam from packaging and put some of it up on the wall. It adds to the sounddeading, but not as much as furniture in the room(Or in my case empty boxes around the room).

I clicked on this out of curiousity, and found it quite informative, thanks. I will look for another video on how to sound-proof floors and ceilings, since I mainly want to be able to listen to movies loud in my living room, without disturbing the neighbours above and below.

Thank you for putting in the time and your effort on a great video.

I wish i had seen this years ago!!! I had a son with anxiety that would game and be loud. My daughter next door to him would have to work in the morning and the whole thing was contentious. I even recommended the moving blanket!! I was so excited when you said that. But, I completely missed the cracks. That would have helped them so much!! Anyway, thank you!

Thanks for the advice! My friend tried to buy the foam squares and received extremely flimsy knock offs, so he had to purchase everything again. I took your advise and used an old pair of pants and a fluffy robe at the door gap, and its really helped me get better sleep without my roommates constantly waking me up!

Thanks for the advise on the red devel .

I’m no expert in this area, but your advice definitely matches with my experience. Tips on caulking were new to me, so that’s great. 😀 Thank you Sir 👏

If you have a Harbor Freight in your area, they have piles of affordable moving blankets.

This is why I purchase 2nd hand blankets when I find them at an op-shop (thrift-store). Takes the edge off the echo, and improves the heat retention of my bed/storage room. Cheaper than a heater.

agree, I used regular spray foam behind electric outlet boxes and found that sound proofing that and door was all I needed. Also put construction adhesive on the back of 5/8 wall board and let it dry, then take that and put it on the ceiling. It will reduce the soung transmission from floor to floor incredibly well.

Good to distinguish between sound-proofing and sound-deadening, thanks!!

Most interior doors are hollow core with cardboard honeycomb. Mass is your friend for soundproofing, so a solid core door would work way better with the gap sealing. As far as the windows, making sound panels with rockwool is going to really help, and if you want to go all out put mass loaded vinyl on the window first.

Thanks - I did not know how much sound penetrates cracks around the doors, windows and electrical outlets. Budget approach is appreciated too! Very helpful!!!

Great vid thanks man. Mirrors my own experience and gave me a few new ideas

Thank you for this info. I learned so much.

Great tips. This first thing I did was seal the gab under the door. That alone made a huge difference. Yea, that will interfere with airflow, but it's much quieter.

Great video - couple things maybe (or maybe not) useful. Door snake - its a little rolled up towel thingy that you put at the bottom of the door if you don't want to use a skirt - you could just use a rolled up towel. Moving blankets! - I never knew that. Makes total sense. Three ways to reduce noise (=any unwanted signal). 1). The mass/hard blocking the video speaks of. That dense foam really does work. So does concrete. 2). Chambering and attenuation - that is what the foam tiles try to do. I suspect the moving blanket do a bit of both 1&2. 3) Canceling - not really practical for a room. The textured foam does work if used properly. We used to use the "egg" or "nipple" foam (the tiles - except we bought in rolls/sheets) - but the texture needs to point toward the noise source to work best - it used to be cheap. There is a warning touched on in the video. Nothing is more uncomfortable than a sound dead room. They can be hot, stuffy, strangely uncomfortable and a friend of mine used to complain of itching while in the booth (I think in is head but still real to him). You are better off trying to reduce (not eliminate) noise while increasing sound (=pleasant signal). Unless it's a sound booth of course. This was really interesting as a video.

This is tremendously helpful - thank you!

Thank you so much for the practical summary

If you wanna get a better sound with a microphone one of the things to notice is usually people are sitting at their desk which is against the wall when they’re speaking which means your voice bounces right off the wall and comes right back to your microphone if you place a pillow between the wall in the microphone that pillow will capture a lot of that sound wave. And if you’re using a camera you won’t see it because it’s back against the wall. I also got an attractive oriental rug and hung out across the wall behind my computer desk, they do this a lot Eastern Europe and I think it looks pretty cool too.

Thanks for taking the time to make this video and explain the concepts behind your suggestions. Great stuff!!

Moving blankets and curtains and dense fabrics for the win! Set my booth up using moving blankets per instructions from my sound yoda sound engineer buddy, using laundry clips plus foam flooring and ceiling plus sheets, and they agree with your thoughts on most "acoustic" products, and that its all about sound deadening and sound isolation. So far my recordings have been very clean inside and quite clean outside of the booth, but i am sure they could be even cleaner, and the rest of your information and tips are great and I'll definitely be coming back to this video and looking through your others too. Thanks.👍👍 Stay safe and stay awesome. 🙃✌️

Thanks! Will use these ideas.

I just purchased room darkening drapes for my bedroom. Glad to learn that they will also help cut down on noise. I hope it helps a bit on days when people are mowing their lawns. I hope to use one of your tips to use on my bedroom door. I have to figure out what will be the best for my situation. Thank you for this very informative video.

The blanket idea can be good on the wall decor wise if you think about curtin rods around the top of the wall with an ikea drape on the outside, if you move you can take it with you.

Thanks for this, really helped understand a little more how sound bleeds into a room

They have a 4x8 sound board at home depot that goes on the sticks before drywall and works well. Great video!

Those door sweeps are really great. Mostly they stop a cold draft from outside, but also a lot of road noise. Now if only someone could suggest a magical device for an open window near talky neighbors!

Thx, appreciate your time put into it

Thank you! I DO appreciate the information. I don't have any room I need it for at the moment but I am hopeful for a new place, in which case it could come in handy to know this.

We just moved our ten year old to the room on the other side of our wall. Fortunately, we have paneling in both our rooms so I am planning to grab some moving blankets, remove the paneling and attach them to the studs then reattach the paneling. Great idea! We'll see if any "noises" disturb him.

People don't realize that there are different things that they are fighting, which need different tools. Sound sources, like creeks, cracks, squeeks need to be dealt with at the source. Add some foam, or caulking, or better securing a loose board... whatever it is, you just need to make it stop. Sound reflections. When people complain about a room, it isn't generally outside noise is affecting quality, but reflections off of hard surfaces. Carpet, especially with padding, is your best cheapest option. Second is adding panels or baffling in corners, or on at least half (and not opposite halves) of the walls. If you can do all of the walls, great, but just doing 2 adjacent walls in a 4 wall room is typically going to eat the majority of the problem. Personally, I like to use fire insulation like rock wool, framed in cheap wood, and covered in fabric. It can look super boring if you want, or you can use patterned material, or anything fabric with something you like on it. I like fantasy maps, and there are no end of fabric maps you can find online to slap on top of a DIY sound panel. Next is sound leakage. The first actual step towards sound proofing. If there is an air gap, no matter how small, then sound will get through annoyingly easy. Recording studios are notoriously hot, because in a perfectly sealed room, the heat from a human and a single light bulb builds up very quickly if you don't have free flowing air. Spray foams, caulking, winterizing products... anything that seals gaps is your best friend. And if it if rubberised, then all the better! Lastly is sound isolation. You want layers of boxes with air gaps between them. Sound travels well through air, but it does a terrible job at transitioning between mediums, so forcing sound to go through a mass, then air, then another mass, and then air again is key to sound isolation. And you want as few bridges between layers, and staggered weirdly as possible without becoming a building code violation. A cheap (but labor intensive) way to do this is to buy drywall, and use something like a thick layer of poorly spread liquid nails or some other adhesive to slap it over existing walls. Force the sound to go into the first layer of drywall, then an air gap with as little material as possible, and then another layer of drywall. If you can fully frame out a room within a room, and have the framing resting on some sort of ruberized material, then that is even better. Walls are transducers, so having walls that make direct contact to the frame of the house, which is then well secured to the basement walls, which transfer lots of ground energy from trucks and other large vehicles will cause some level of issues. Anything to break that contact to have a free floating structure will be the hardest and lest rewarding part of sound proofing... but if you need sound proofing and already have panels and everything else but still have a problem... this is kinda your last and only option.

Excellent information-thank you! I used foam board, cut to fit windows, used at night or extremely hot days, it worked!

Thanks, will try these recommendations

If you don't want to add as much thickness to the wall, 1/4" thick cement board adds slightly more mass than 5/8" drywall, but will cost more. Alternatively, adding it between two sheets of dry wall is significantly cheaper than mass loaded vinyl also. You just need to use some caulk between them if you want sound deadening as well.

Great video. Dont forget that every door strike plate has a tab with a little hole. That little hole is made to be adjusted (bent in or out) so the door does not rattle when closed. Not much but it does help with the little wobble/rattle of the door.

One way to soundproof a door is just to replace the door with an EXTERIOR door. It will be heavier, usually steel sometimes with a faux wood finish and come with weatherstripping all around. For best results you may want to replace the door jamb too, which usually comes with the door and gives you a chance to use caulk behind the trip in any gaps. Also seal around any switch or outlet boxes as sound can travel thru them easily.

Hey man, I just wanted to take your time and thank you for your time to do this video with this quality information

I found you first before buying anything. thank you for the video !

Thanks, this helps a lot! Another thing that I think might be worth mentioning and I feel is relevant, is that sound proofing can help to control heat or isolate heat in/from the room that gets isolated. That increased R-value can pay off in lower heating cost. Not to mention that lower heating cost and less noise disturbance can both help reduce stress, which again can lower healthcare cost in the long run. Not that this comment of mine is meant to diagnose or treat anything. Good luck in all your endeavours. Kind regards from Iceland.

For sound deadening within the room, a decent rug does wonders too.

Watched the whole thing. I actually had a better understanding of how to soundproof from both sides of the room. Thank you!

So thoughtful! Thank you

went to go check my door, realised i don’t got one

Multiple layers of blankets works pretty good

great info, covers the basic first steps.

Thank! This is by far the most helpful vid I've watched on this topic!