Seven Tips on How to Soundproof Your Home Studio for Music Recording

For anyone making more than a handful of songs, a home studio is the best answer. Giving you access to your recording equipment whenever the urge strikes, you'll be able to make as much music as you want.

However, it's not an easy task as you'll need to get the technicalities right to produce a professional result. Soundproofing is an essential element of this, but luckily there is plenty of good advice available.

Here are seven top tips which will ensure your home studio is properly soundproofed without spending a fortune.

Picture 1 of Seven Tips on How to Soundproof Your Home Studio for Music Recording

What is Soundproofing?

Before we take a closer look at what you can do to soundproof your room, it's worth pausing just for a moment to check what it really means.

Acoustic treatments and soundproofing are two different things yet are often mixed up.

If you make music, you may have a more sensitive ear than the average person. You'll be able to notice reverberation and noise, and pinpoint when things don't sound quite right. You might even be good at spotting potential winners at the Eurovision Song Contest! Having a discerning ear is essential for good music.

Acoustic treatments reduce the amount of noise distortion in the room, giving a cleaner recording. However, they won't eliminate noise from being heard outside, so your home studio could potentially be very disruptive.

Soundproofing isn't about noise distortion but containing the noise. This prevents your music from disturbing people around you, and also enables you to keep your music private.

It takes a while to get the balance of sound in your home studio exactly right so you probably won't be making your own Eurovision hit right away! In the meantime, you can check out who the winners of this year's competition might be with Eurovision 2021 betting tips. You might even get some ideas and inspiration for your own music and studio!

Tips for Effective Soundproofing

There are lots of elaborate ways to make your home studio as soundproof as possible, but here are seven of the most effective changes to make:

#1: Build a thicker wall

If you're building your home studio from scratch, it's easy to make the walls thicker and incorporate a sound insulation barrier inside the drywall. If you've already got a room, you can mimic this effect by attaching a further frame to the existing studs before covering it in drywall.

#2: Float the floor

If you're not on the ground floor, you'll need to think about noise travelling downwards as well as out through the walls. The easiest way to address this is to take the same method that you adopted to thicken the walls, and use it to create a floating floor.

#3: Invest in acoustic wall panels

While it's true that acoustic treatments won't make your studio soundproof on their own, as part of an overall design they can be helpful. By softening the sound, acoustic panels can help to keep it contained.

#4: Use acoustical caulk glue

It's true that every little element will contribute to the soundproofing, so if there's any way to enhance the protection, it's wise to take it. Acoustical caulk glue is designed to not only hold everything together but also to absorb noise and vibration in your walls and floor.

#5: Use isolation pads

Vibration can be a very real problem but isolation pads or even a very thick rug can help. Identify the equipment in your studio that's liable to vibrate heavily, such as a drum kit or speakers, and place isolation pads underneath to prevent the vibrations from traveling.

#6: Decouple equipment

If your equipment is touching or in close proximity to the walls of your studio, it's much easier for the sound and vibrations to be transmitted. Creating space by decoupling your equipment away from the studio perimeter will help to keep all the sound within.

#7: Fill any air gaps

Although air gaps can help your soundproofing when they're contained within the structure of a wall, when they're visible in the room, they're not so beneficial. Around windows, doors and vents there can often be gaps which will leak sound and ruin all your good work. Consider a rubber seal for under the door and close up any gaps using foam fillers. If there's space, try filling it with insulation before adding the foam for an extra soundproofing effect.

If you follow all of the above steps, you'll soon have a soundproof home studio of your own, and you might be ready to submit your own entry for Eurovision 2022 and beyond!

Kareem Winters

Update 13 February 2021