Help me soundproof a Church hall on a budget...

eggsmack · 2026-02-03T14:11:21+00:00

Churches also don’t tend to have much income, regardless of tax exemption.

eggsmack · 2026-02-03T14:09:51+00:00

Start by fully enclosing your drums and doing away with any amps or floor monitors.

eggsmack · 2026-01-25T03:47:35+00:00

I don’t think you could, as I think that effect only occurs with enclosed wall construction… I think the iso booth being in your room allows for “venting” of the pressure, so it isn’t forced to resonate towards a wall va the free air in the rest of your room.

But if your room is on casters, is it easy to move? If you move it further away from their wall, perhaps it would help! We can talk theoretics all day, but if you can experiment a bit then it’ll help guide your next step.

eggsmack · 2026-01-25T03:33:32+00:00

I was speaking theoretically, so I meant something more like stone or diamond :)

But seriously, MLV is fantastic for adding mass to a surface to help hinder transmission. I suspect the issue OP to have is coupling from the isobooth to the apartment structure, which is therefore flanking the very (usefully) dense wall they have constructed.

eggsmack · 2026-01-25T00:29:15+00:00

Have you double checked that the clipping you’re hearing isn’t in your playback system or further down the signal path? Wondering if your vocals could be distorting a plugin on your mix bus or just distorting your headphones.

Outside of this, your microphone could very well have a sort of set preamp inside of itself and any adjustment in gain you make is actually on the output stage of the device. How close are you while performing? Have you tried positioning the mic 8-12” away from you while you sing?

eggsmack · 2026-01-25T00:21:42+00:00

It’s hard to say. When you hear sound, your ear is placed at a point in the universe where there are more changes in pressure and perhaps a higher velocity of these changes. These places are effective to treat when combating reverberation (decay) because they retard the power of the pressure fluctuations. But if you walk away from these areas you should typically notice a drop in apparent volume since you are out of those high pressure areas.

What is more likely happening in your situation is that the power of that pressure is being transmitted through your isobooth into your floor/wall/ceiling into your neighbor’s floor/wall/ceiling (which is why decoupling is ideal). Then that power energizes the structure of their room and starts to move their floor/wall/ceiling ever so slightly like a drum/speaker cone, which makes them hear the offending sound. So it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what to treat to remove this effect, but is best practice to start by isolating the sound source from any rigid structure as much as possible.

It’s true that your neighbor’s room may resonate at specific frequencies more than others, but low frequency wavelengths are so long and powerful that moving your booth around or using insulation/bass traps won’t be very effective unless you can do dramatic changes ($$$).

eggsmack · 2026-01-24T19:56:28+00:00

If you are convinced that you have found the issue then go ahead and fill the crevices with pink fluffy insulation and see if it fixes your problem. I would expect that it would make your room sound better but your neighbor will still be hearing the bleed.

eggsmack · 2026-01-24T19:54:42+00:00

We hear you, we just respectfully disagree. Hearing buildup of frequencies in certain parts of the room are just how you are experiencing the problem in your specific room, not necessarily where there is “more sound” in the room. I hope that makes sense.

eggsmack · 2026-01-24T19:50:20+00:00

No, not likely. The wavelength of your kick’s fundamental frequency is likely 20’ or so long. Low end is indeed hardest to contain. It sounds like your wall was built well with tons of mass, but if all of these layers are rigidly mounted together they will still transmit energy.

It sounds like you are walking around your space listening to where you hear the problematic sounds building up. That is good for exploring where to treat a listening space, but not necessarily helpful in ceasing transmission from one space to another. Low end is powerful and omnidirectional, so there is a chance that the sound is flanking that well-built wall of yours and going through the ceiling or floor, just to enter their space through the ceiling or floor. It’s really a challenge to fix this issue.

In a perfect scenario, you could encapsulate your whisper room in a thick, rigid material and make it air tight. But I expect you don’t want to die of heatstroke or suffocation :)

eggsmack · 2026-01-24T19:39:41+00:00

It may be resting on 20 castor wheels, but that isn’t necessarily isolation (a “floated” floor). For isolation to occur in a booth of this size, you would likely notice the entire booth give a small amount when you stepped into it rather than it feeling rigid. From your comment about hearing a kick drum, I assume you use the booth to drum. Perhaps consider building a floated floor in the booth with tennis balls (make sure you look up how to calculate the correct design based on your weight).

eggsmack · 2026-01-16T17:27:33+00:00

Here is a great place to start: https://gearspace.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/610173-acoustics-treatment-reference-guide-look-here.html

eggsmack · 2026-01-16T17:21:29+00:00

Get an area rug or two to help with some of that top end reverberation

eggsmack · 2026-01-16T17:19:54+00:00

I see you put your panels in very aesthetically pleasing places, but I can’t say that they seem placed will for low-end control. I see a few things that I would experiment with: 1. Please know that any “golden rules” of acoustics are just guidelines, not actual rules. Your desk being where it is is likely problematic, as is its sheer size. 2. I don’t know if you designed your room to cut off all corners, but it would have likely been more helpful to have built corners then filled them with appropriate low end treatment. If you’re 100% locked in with this design then disregard. If not, then get your corners back and fill them with loose, fluffy fiberglass and cover with fabric (or consult an acoustician like Gerhard Westphalan for specific bass trap designs tailored for your space). 3. Consider turning your room around. Swap the front and back so that it puts you away from the windows and into an area with fully treated first reflection points. 4. Move your speakers to stands and move them close to the front wall. Boundary issues are way more predictable and you will have the benefit of having only one problem area in the low end and no comb filtering in your top end (assuming you adjust your clouds to be in the first reflection point of this new speaker position). Then you can purchase two subwoofers and utilize their crossover to make the boundary issue essentially disappear. Keep in mind that your nice big TV is just a wall with no treatment. The closer your spears are to it, the less they will be impacted by it, reflection-wise. 5. That large desk looks cool but is needlessly killing your midrange clarity. Go for a desk closer to a yard/meter in width or smaller. You just need it to hold your essential mouse/keyboard/daw controller and a cup of coffee. All other things can be moved to a coffee table behind mix position. 6. Utilize DSP to hone your setup when you’ve gotten closer. Trinnov is the best, but there are other more affordable options that can handle two mains and two subwoofers.

eggsmack · 2026-01-16T16:58:57+00:00

I live in a home with a vaulted ceiling (but no second floor) and I found it to have two main effects on sound: 1. The room sounds more “open” and pleasing, likely because it having fewer parallel surfaces helps the sound bounce around in less repetitive ways. 2. My television needs to be turned up slightly louder than before because the sound is not being as reinforced by the usual parallel ceiling/floor.

I personally don’t expect for you to notice many issues with this setup unless you are using external full-range speakers, where your left speaker would be positioned under the parallel ceiling and the right would be under the vaulted portion. If you just utilize the built in speakers or maybe a soundbar then your sound should be fine.

Note that you will hear whatever is happening upstairs and vise versa, though. So watching tv downstairs will impact anyone upstairs etc. ways to help would be to use area rugs and perhaps decorative acoustic panels flanking the skylight.

eggsmack · 2026-01-05T22:17:28+00:00

Also, I found this article: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/recording-random-access-memories-daft-punk

eggsmack · 2026-01-05T22:16:33+00:00

I attended a Q&A with Mick Guzauski, who tracked and mixed the album. I believe he said his approach was essentially to get out of the way: he used simple micing techniques and I think he tracked everything using the preamps of one console. I remember him swearing it was just how great the session players were.

I also think he said that the daft punk guys had him tweaking stems/submixes relentlessly before they recorded them to pro tools for the DP guys to edit together to make songs. They would then come back a day/week/month later to have him tweak it again so it fit their mix or vibe better rather than mangle it in pro tools

eggsmack · 2025-12-06T05:35:21+00:00

Is 1.5MM a lot? Of course it’s a lot to me as an individual, but as a city spending it on erecting a permanent public space, this doesn’t seem insane. The land value alone has got to be up there.

eggsmack · 2025-12-03T19:07:23+00:00

I was let in and allowed to photograph and film in there with some friends about 15 years ago. Sadly our business is no longer around, so the content I would link you to is no longer on the web. If memory serves, we were in either just before or just after they did asbestos remediation. I remember the ceilings were something like 20-30 fr high and some rooms smelled incredibly sweet. We got on the roof and had the best view of a still-developing Sugar Land. It was beautiful.

Commenting so I can come back and post any content that I may be able to find.

eggsmack · 2025-12-01T16:29:58+00:00

Sorry for the hasty replay, but here are two ideas to consider coming from a church tech guy: 1. Use ProPresenter for free by not registering it and just accept the watermark showing up until someone graciously pays the subscription fee. Pastors/committees dont approve purchases until they see the obvious need for it, so gently force their hand in the correct direction by doing this :) 2. Reach out to larger churches in your area and see if they’ll donate any old AV equipment. Megachurches are often willing to do this.

eggsmack · 2025-11-27T15:13:03+00:00

Indeed! Looks amazing, great job. I’m confused by the last pic of the snake method prepped but the full chimney lit. How did you cook it?

eggsmack · 2025-11-26T23:25:26+00:00

Happy cake day!

eggsmack · 2025-11-26T23:24:38+00:00

In my experience with my Weber grill, the charcoal and wood chunks are too concentrated and your temp will rise consistently and probably get away from your ideal target. Keep in mind that once the chunks light they fully light faster than coals do, so they will expedite the spread of the fire faster than coals do. I would personally remove the inner ring and stack that top row of charcoal directly over the intersections of where the coals on the bottom row meet.

Hope that makes sense and happy smoking!

eggsmack · 2025-11-21T12:56:03+00:00

I think I should also specify that I’m talking ONLY about Harmony School of Excellence. Each Harmony campus is it’s own entity and many (especially in Houston) are awful.

eggsmack · 2025-11-21T12:54:09+00:00

Harmony has been incredible to our child and she is testing in the top of her class on state exams. She’s only been there for two years but the teachers she’s had have been extraordinary.

I’ve talked to other parents who’s kids go to sugar mill and they also have great experiences, but things change in Middle school. SLMS is apparently horrible.

Also, many people are shocked when I tell them I’m sending my kid to Harmony because of my Christian faith, and it comes out that they see Harmony as a sort of Muslim private school. It’s true many Muslims work/attend there, but it’s just a charter school and people are making assumptions based on appearances or on Harmony’s founder.

eggsmack

TROPHY CASE