Drum Attic

[JD01]

OK, so one I've dug out and backfilled my pond, which is turning into a far bigger job than I anticipated, my next job is to finally get a drum space set up in the attic.

So, considerations:
All of my stuff, snowboarding gear, boxes of CDs etc, will be getting pushed out wide where the roof is really low.
I'll be left with a decent space about 3.6x2.2m, maybe a bit larger, where I can plonk a drum kit. (curiously, the drum kit area will be really similar in size to my current recording space)

Its already a pretty dry space, the roof on three sides is basically a 3 sided pyramid with insulation, roofing felt and tiles.
The 4th side is the adjoining brick wall with the neighbours - don't know where this wall warrants some treatment - or given how dry the space is anyway, one lively wall might be nice. Remember the whole drum area is basically gonna be surrounded by bags of old clothes, out of season bedding etc.

The floor will be basic chip-board attic boards. I only need this space to last 10 years or so (as I hope to be getting a full loft conversion after that).
In the area where the kit is going to be I was going to cover the beams in neoprene before laying the boards - I figured this would make the floor much quieter in this area and minimise the sound transmission into next door. Won't have enough neoprene (or be arsed) to do the whole space.

I'll then just plonk the kit on a nice rug and you can all hear me learn to record drums.

Can you think of anything else I should consider that I might not have thought of?

[Armistice]

Gifts for the neighbours through the brick wall...

[JD01]

Gifts for the neighbours through the brick wall...

Fortunately the adjoining neighbour is a mostly deaf elderly lady with Down's who's entirely looked after by a team of carers.

[Greg_L]

You can't insulate the floor enough from keeping the whole house moving. Are what will be your attic floor beams also your neighbor's ceiling beams? If the only thing separating your neighbor is a wall, even a brick one, she's gonna hear it....or feel it.

The noise escaping is one consideration, but I'd be more concerned with the pyramid ceiling. Comb filtering might be a serious problem in there. I don't know if you can but you might consider building a room within the attic.

[JD01]

You can't insulate the floor enough from keeping the whole house moving. Are what will be your attic floor beams also your neighbor's ceiling beams? If the only thing separating your neighbor is a wall, even a brick one, she's gonna hear it....or feel it.

The noise escaping is one consideration, but I'd be more concerned with the pyramid ceiling. Comb filtering might be a serious problem in there. I don't know if you can but you might consider building a room within the attic.

Yeah - I'm assuming the beams run straight through my attic floor into the neighbours attic. Even if that's not the case, my attic beams do rest on a wall that is shared with the neighbours.

I was up there just now checking and measuring for floor boards... the inside of the roof isn't well insulated. I could hear kids in the school field and passing cars much more clearly that if I was, say, sitting in my office/studio. I'm gonna have to insulate the inside of the roof too which will go some way to changing the shape of the space. Its also gonna cost me a lot more money than expected but then it should also make the house more thermally efficient.

[Greg_L]

Yeah - I'm assuming the beams run straight through my attic floor into the neighbours attic. Even if that's not the case, my attic beams do rest on a wall that is shared with the neighbours.

I was up there just now checking and measuring for floor boards... the inside of the roof isn't well insulated. I could hear kids in the school field and passing cars much more clearly that if I was, say, sitting in my office/studio. I'm gonna have to insulate the inside of the roof too which will go some way to changing the shape of the space. Its also gonna cost me a lot more money than expected but then it should also make the house more thermally efficient.

My house is brick, it's not connected to anything but the earth, and my kids used to tell me they could hear me drumming from inside the school across the street. I never thought that could be possible, but they were never wrong. "We heard you drumming today". Sure enough, I was drumming. That's how loud drums are when you're getting after it. And if you can hear all that outside noise coming in, your drum noise will surely get out the same way. Now to people on the street, so what? If it's the middle of the day and people hear you from outside, fuck them, no big deal. But you must consider your neighbor. If she and her caretakers get upset, you're gonna have a big problem.

The bass drum and snare being coupled to the floor, and being the loudest, are the problem. If there's a way you can build a small riser or floating floor that decouples the kit from those beams, you might be able to pull it off. The sound will still escape to the outside, but maybe you can minimize how much transfers through your house framing into your neighbors walls and ceiling.

[JD01]

Cheers, mate. That's quite a lot to think about. I'm boarding the attic out properly anyway 'cos at the moment, its a shite job where I've just tacked extra boarding onto the edges of the crappy job that was done before we moved in. I'm gonna take up and re-lay the whole thing properly.

I'm trying to think of other ideas of how I can get my drums set up and I'm not coming up with anything useful.

[Greg_L]

I'm trying to think of other ideas of how I can get my drums set up and I'm not coming up with anything useful.

I just laid flooring in an upstairs bedroom. I ripped out all the carpet and got down to the bare plywood floor. Without the carpet, my walking around on that bare floor was very loud throughout the house. I was stomping around on a raw floor that was directly on top of all the joists that run through the house. Sound transferred everywhere. The flooring I laid down is a floating vinyl plank faux wood looking stuff that has an underlayment attached to each slab. Just that alone drastically reduced the noise. From bare floor to finished floor with underlayment was a massive difference in sound transfer. Once the floor was finished my walking around to finish the rest of the room was dead quiet in the rest of the house. That was just basic shit to turn a bedroom into an office without a care in the world for noise. You might be able to do much better with an intentional plan to reduce sound transfer.

[JD01]

I'm trying to think of other ideas of how I can get my drums set up and I'm not coming up with anything useful.

I just laid flooring in an upstairs bedroom. I ripped out all the carpet and got down to the bare plywood floor. Without the carpet, my walking around on that bare floor was very loud throughout the house. I was stomping around on a raw floor that was directly on top of all the joists that run through the house. Sound transferred everywhere. The flooring I laid down is a floating vinyl plank faux wood looking stuff that has an underlayment attached to each slab. Just that alone drastically reduced the noise. From bare floor to finished floor with underlayment was a massive difference in sound transfer. Once the floor was finished my walking around to finish the rest of the room was dead quiet in the rest of the house. That was just basic shit to turn a bedroom into an office without a care in the world for noise. You might be able to do much better with an intentional plan to reduce sound transfer.

Can you send me a quick link to this stuff? So I can start budgeting/planning. As I said, I'll be getting the basic flooring done up there anyway and that's only gonna cost me 6 quid a square meter. (~1 dollar a square ft?)

[Greg_L]

https://www.homedepot.com/p/TrafficMast ... /312650275

I think this is the stuff I used....or something very similar. It's a rigid core vinyl plank with attached underlayment. It's a sucky job to do, but it's not hard at all.

You're not supposed to use any additional underlayment with this stuff. But I'm wondering if you made a double floor - plywood, acoustic underlayment, another layer of plywood...and then laid this stuff on top, I bet it would be really quiet. And then a drum rug on top of all that...it just might work.

[vomitHatSteve]

My house is brick, it's not connected to anything but the earth, and my kids used to tell me they could hear me drumming from inside the school across the street. I never thought that could be possible, but they were never wrong. "We heard you drumming today". Sure enough, I was drumming. That's how loud drums are when you're getting after it. And if you can hear all that outside noise coming in, your drum noise will surely get out the same way. Now to people on the street, so what? If it's the middle of the day and people hear you from outside, fuck them, no big deal. But you must consider your neighbor. If she and her caretakers get upset, you're gonna have a big problem.

That's interesting.

My practice space is in the part of the house that used to be the garage (i.e. thinner walls by a couple inches), and it's all brick.

When the drums are going, you can hear some bleed through the window, but it's quiet.

Edit:
You could always just use Drumatic instead of a drum attic. Substantially cheaper!

[Greg_L]

That's interesting.

My practice space is in the part of the house that used to be the garage (i.e. thinner walls by a couple inches), and it's all brick.

When the drums are going, you can hear some bleed through the window, but it's quiet.

I can see that since the drums are probably on a concrete slab, right? At my drumming gig we practice in one of the guy's attached garage. The drums are on concrete and they don't vibrate the house. It's still loud as shit inside the house, but it's just sound going through the walls and not coupling through the structure. The bass amp is actually the worst of it in that situation. It actually shakes the walls.

[JD01]

That's interesting.

My practice space is in the part of the house that used to be the garage (i.e. thinner walls by a couple inches), and it's all brick.

When the drums are going, you can hear some bleed through the window, but it's quiet.

I can see that since the drums are probably on a concrete slab, right? At my drumming gig we practice in one of the guy's attached garage. The drums are on concrete and they don't vibrate the house. It's still loud as shit inside the house, but it's just sound going through the walls and not coupling through the structure. The bass amp is actually the worst of it in that situation. It actually shakes the walls.

Yeah - that's the main thing I'm worried about. Being upstairs, the drums will be on suspended wooden floors which will transmit through the house.
In my little old ground floor flat it wasn't that bad 'cos the floor and ceiling were both concrete slabs.

[JD01]

https://www.homedepot.com/p/TrafficMast ... /312650275

I think this is the stuff I used....or something very similar. It's a rigid core vinyl plank with attached underlayment. It's a sucky job to do, but it's not hard at all.

Oh, that stuff! That's no problem to get hold of. Just fancy laminate flooring. Cheap too, so if I set this up and it doesn't work its not a huge loss.

[Greg_L]

Oh, that stuff! That's no problem to get hold of. Just fancy laminate flooring. Cheap too, so if I set this up and it doesn't work its not a huge loss.

Yeah it's similar to laminate, but it isn't laminate. It's vinyl coated with a "concrete" core...kind of like hardiplank. It's waterproof and more durable than laminate.

[JD01]

I see what you're getting at.. but the principal seems to be building up successive layers of hard/squashy/hard/squashy beneath hard top layer that I can then cover in a rug.

[Greg_L]

I see what you're getting at.. but the principal seems to be building up successive layers of hard/squashy/hard/squashy beneath hard top layer that I can then cover in a rug.

Yeah pretty much, although it isn't that squashy. Drums > rug > vinyl plank > plywood > acoustic underlayer > plywood > beams. That would be a pretty solid floor that might be your best shot at deadening the coupling...short of building a floating room in a room.

And if you use a cheap ass particle board/chipboard underlayment for your floor layers under the vinyl plank it might be even better. That stuff is full of air pockets. Not much insulates sound better than good ol air.

[JD01]

Ah, I was working from bottom to top (i.e. how I'm going to build it).
I have my beams which rest on the brick walls of the house.
I'll put neoprene on the beams, then my chipboard floor down.
Then something like this:
https://www.carpetright.co.uk/underlay/ ... -102.30mm/
Before another layer of chipboard and then this:
https://www.diy.com/departments/diall-5 ... lsrc=aw.ds
Before my final layer of ply/laminate, my rug and kit.
This should all be pretty cheap and I can easily just stick a screw through the top layer straight into a beam so it all holds together.

[Greg_L]

Ah, I was working from bottom to top (i.e. how I'm going to build it).
I have my beams which rest on the brick walls of the house.
I'll put neoprene on the beams, then my chipboard floor down.
Then something like this:
https://www.carpetright.co.uk/underlay/ ... -102.30mm/
Before another layer of chipboard and then this:
https://www.diy.com/departments/diall-5 ... lsrc=aw.ds
Before my final layer of ply/laminate, my rug and kit.
This should all be pretty cheap and I can easily just stick a screw through the top layer straight into a beam so it all holds together.

Not quite. You don't want that carpetright underlayer. That stuff is for carpet. It's like a sponge - way too squishy.

Look at these options to go between hard floor layers.
https://www.soundproofingtips.com/soundproofing-floors/

Also, the final vinyl plank or laminate top layer needs to go right on top of the plywood...or acoustic underlayer if it's not already attached to the flooring planks.

[JD01]

Cheers.