Apartments, Kemper and soundproofing

    Hi. So I'm moving out of my current house into an apartment in Barcelona in a few months time. Obviously i can blast the kemper and even my amps as loud as i want at the moment as I'm in a detached house but this is not going to be the case in the apartment. I will only be taking my kemper and my Adam A7x monitors with me for the moment as i can control the volumes somewhat (i won't be playing mega loud in any case) but i was wondering what you guys do who live in an apartment (the walls are slim and floors tiled spanish style) to prevent noise and moaning neighbours. I don't want to be using headphones so i was looking into some forms of sound absorption. I'll only be renting so really I'm looking for things that are easily moved. Any tips, suggestions or links to get me started? Obviously cost is an issue so budget stuff is good :)

    Mhhh... kinda have some bad news for you :D


    While materials able to dump sound reflection can be quite affordable (it strongly depends on the frequency range over which they are effective), avoiding that sound is heard in the building is a completely different matter. The former materials are absorbing, the latter are insulating.


    The thee cheapest things you can do IMO:

    • carefully choose the room where you'll be making music, depending on who\what is around/above/below it, and the time at which is more probable that people would be there;
    • isolate your cab from the walls/floor. Auralex makes some very effective (and affordable) products that actually mechanically insulate the source of noise from the transmitting structures. This won't avoid "air transmission" tho.
      Use an Auralex (or other brands') carpets even if you plan to use a stand for your cab;
    • Place the cab so that to minimize stationary waves on the low frequencies, boominess is transmitted very easily through concrete :)


    Don't get me wrong, you can do something but a real damping is expensive and requires special materials.
    Of course eggpaper, carpets, curtains will do absolutely nothing for you.

    +1 for the Mopads. However, I just upgraded to a pair of Iso-Acoustic ISOL8Rs and they (IMO) do a better job of decoupling than the Mopads for about half the price. So there's that.


    Keeping your speakers as far away from the wall as possible would be a good idea too, to help minimize bass getting into the building's structure. If you have the space, consider bass traps in as many corners as possible to soak up as much of the low end as you can before it gets down to your neighbours.

    Haha I have headphones incase but I'm hoping I can get by with relative low volume playing :) thanks for the advice so far. Moving away from the wall is no problem. Although it's not sound isolation I will try to dampen those bass frequencies as its my understanding that these are the main travelling frequencies?


    Would nd there be much benefit in using 5 inch monitors instead of my 7 inch ones?

    Mhhh... not really. Two reasons for this:


    Bass traps do not absorb low freqs, they "break" stationary waves (or "boominess", if you will). If you test stationary waves in a room, you realize that you hear them just where there's the peak (sorry, I mean the opposite of the "null" but don't know the English term). If you just move one meter from the position there's no special energy going, you (can) hear no boominess.
    IOW, boominess is not a particularly high energy flowing outside the room, and bass traps (at least the ones we can buy and add to a room) do not reduce the overall amount of energy in the room.

    You can definitely minimise the transmission through the walls, even if you can't get rid of it altogether. Things like acoustic foam behind and in front of your speakers (those sound-absorbing panels will work a treat), curtains, etc. will serve to reduce overall transmission.


    Of course, the thing that makes the most sense is to play at sensible volumes irregardless. Acoustic treatment in that sense will increase your enjoyment at respectable volume levels.

    +1 on acoustic foam. My CLR is on a pole very close to the wall. Since I put this foam on the wall and on the ceiling above the CLR my neighbours don't complain anymore. Do some tests, talk to your neighbours and you will soon get an impression of how loud you can play. Good luck!

    I could have farted and it would have sounded good! (Brian Johnson)

    Like 1

    Thanks. Well i guess using the term sound proofing was incorrect on my behalf. I don't have the funds to fully insulate so i guess I'm just after minimising the sounds as best as possible. Thank you for the idea's so far, I'm pretty confident they will be easy to implement and as i don't need to play much louder than TV volume anyway, there should be no problems :)

    Hi! I live in Barcelona and I know very well this type of slim walls. In some buildings you can even hear a normal conversation of you neighbors.


    I use 5 inches monitors isolating them from the floor and the room which is most far from the living room. In my case, this room has no common walls with my neighbors, so it's perfect.


    My neighbors never complained about it.

    Thanks Pacocito.


    Ill be living above a Irish Bar and i cannot hear anything from there (its a busy place) so I hope that i can get away with more volume than I'm expecting. If you don't mind me asking, how are you isolating your monitors from the floor?? Mopads??