What's the best way to soundproof a room on budget

You're on the right trail for sure.  I have a couple of kids who are into music and I wanted to dampen the sound so I had a local drywall contractor come in and install some acoustic panels in my basement.  It really is nothing more than cork boards to dampen the noise.  I'd recommend you take a little time to design what you want, its not that difficult at all.  Good luck!

Hi there. Just a small share.

I remember I had a problem with soundproof with my walls. I have tried different materials to deal with this issue, however, most of them were garbage. I have spend around 500$, just for the soundproof, and was very nervous that nothing works.


But! I decided to follow my friends recommendation and find professionals. Actually, there are couple of really good companies that do provide different variations of sound proof wall cover. The one that I like the most, and one I recommend is this one - wood wool acoustic panel


I very glad that I have used their materials. Try it for yourself!

Hi, I recently moved to an apartment half a kilometre away from the train tracks and it gets loud at times, so my neighbour recommended to me this noise screen, it was really effective in reducing sound transmission into my house. It is worth the money, aesthetically pleasing and easy to set up.

If you want to go cheap-but effective. Use 50 year asphalt roofing shingles glued onto the drywall. Add layers as needed. An old favorite of diy speaker builders. Cheap,done right, very effective. Cheers and have fun. Use a heavy layer of plastic sheathing to contain the smell. Decorate to taste. Be creative! Cheers. Pete

@b_limo   Appreciate your contribution. To have value the batts have to be cut just right to give a secure “press fit”. There will not be any need of support before adding drywall. Ensure the batts are slightly thicker than the studs. The you have the benefit of damping the drywall with the pressure of the batts. All this will pale in comparison to 5/8 Quietrock smply attached via green glue. No nails. If dabs of a different industrial glue are required  for strength, use one that remains resilient. This type of adhesive is readily available. 

I want to give you some suggestion which is very important for you. I think you can use some of noise barrier material which is most effective for you. I use insulated tarps for me and it is very nice working.

b_limo

What’s the best way to soundproof a room on budget

I’m starting to research ways to reduce sound transmission through a wall

If the common wall between you is "drywall’ on your side (we call it "Gyprock Sheet" in Australia).
You should remove it your side, put compressed "pink batts" (insulation) in the cavity all over, and then new "Dry Wall" nailed back over it to compress the pink batts in the cavity and paint the new wall. I held the batts in place with string thumb tacked into the wood battens while the new drywall sheets were nailed up.

Cost
"dry wall cheap as **** so are pink batts, and you don’t see anything, looks like it did.

Cheers George

Many years ago I purchased a pair of Dunlavy SC-IV demos from Soundex in PA. I was not impressed with the sound but I knew it was the room and not the speakers. I ended up buying acoustic ceiling tiles from a high school classmate who had a ceiling business. I used 48 2' x 2' tiles for a 16' x 20' room. The door to the room has a different 2' x 6' tile. The results were amazing and I still have them there today. I've seen them on Amazon. You can get them in either 2' x 2' or 2' x 8' sizes. They're about 1" thick and consist mostly of a yellow fiberglass material. The cover surface resembles black course sandpaper. They aren't pretty and I wouldn't recommend them for anything other than a dedicated listening room. Years after I installed them I was on a construction project called NFL films. One of the two buildings was all recording studios of different sizes. I was happy to see that they basically did the same thing I did with the damping on the walls. 
             Hope this helps,
                                    Frank
                

I soundproofed a large walk in closet adjacent to my previous listening room (I've since moved), in order to reduce/eliminate the noise of the air compressor that drives my tonearm. Rather than ripping out dry wall and rebuilding the room, I used after market solutions- it wasn't easy, since any small opening will emit sound. I used wood furring (which functioned like bare studs), mass loaded vinyl (man, that stuff is HEAVY and it isn't cheap) and used sound blankets over the mass loaded vinyl (which has a hard surface and reflects sound- it is meant to be used as an underlayer). I also had to use weather stripping to seal the door. It worked - the biggest cost was the mass loaded vinyl material.
More recently, I had a silencer box built to contain the compressor- using marine grade plywood, two layers with green glue in between, and covered the interior with a specialty product - large sheets of melamine foam forming a sandwich around an inner layer of mass loaded vinyl. I had help from a competent carpenter to cut and assemble the thing-- it was based on an article from a sound proofing materials supplier about how to build a silencer box for an air compressor. Mine wound up being a little fancier than the simple box in the article-- a door to access the insides, various intake and exhaust fans, with a thermal controller and a few other refinements. It looks like Darth Vader's refrigerator. If you scroll down here, you can see the box in situ [url]https://thevinylpress.com/system-notes-austin-2017/[/url] Cost was high, labor varies depending on how much you can do yourself. It works. 
If a contractor can get a better price on the materials and knows what they are doing, it may offset the higher cost of materials and DIY labor. My experience in both instances was that there was more involved than I thought. 

You can try  soundproof screen. Soundproof screen is suitable for new and existing structures, without the need for floor track. You can immediately customize each room to effectively use the space. With our soundproof dividers and screens, you can re-configure the rooms in the school, conference room, conference center and restaurant as needed.

Moving blankets (2 or 3 deep) on the walls are a good start

@needfreestuff. Best suggestion. Cheers. Pete. Happy listening. 

Will you own or rent your next dwelling? Vital info. Thx. Pete

Hi Mate,

For those who are interested in conducting a soundproofing treatment project for under a £1000, pls visit my website.

http://www.soundproofingproducts.com.au/

If this is in breach of forum rules, mods pls delete or move.

They recommend 2 tubes per 4x8 sheet. Green Glue has their own website with recommendations and pricing. 12 tubes is about $150. It is not cheap, but works better than just using straight dry wall. I used in the ceiling of basement when I finished it for a theater. Really does cut down the sound transmission. There used to be a lot of discussion of sound proofing on AVSform in the Home Theater forum. Not sure how active it is these days, but still lots of good information. Ted White from my previous link used to be active there. That is how I got to his site.

I did check that site Dtc (denver tech center? Im in the springs).
I'm wondering how much green glue you need, and if it would work out, I guess I could ghrow some green glue on the backside of sheetrock and nail it up myself and then pay someone to come spray some texture on the wall and then paint it myself. That shouldn't cost too much.

Another option is to just put green glue in the homeowners ears...

Nsgach - sorry, just providing ideas. If you do it your self, you can do these projects pretty cheaply. But I do agree that double walls and the like can be expensive if you have to pay someone to do it. In fact, I said that a double wall was not inexpensive. But also, this is not a very big wall.

My first recommendation was dry wall with green glue. Did you read the website I referenced? One level of drywall gives a STC of 40, adding a second level goes to 42, adding a second level with Green Glue goes to 52. Using Green Glue with drywall will do a lot more than just adding drywall. Green Glue is not cheap, but it really is effective. Mass is great, but isolating the surfaces is very efficient. Green Glue does a good job of that, by essentially turning the sound into heat, as I understand it. If you have not used it, you should look into it.

1 Layer of Drywall STC 40
2 Layers of Drywall STC 42
2 Layers of Drywall with Green Glue STC 52

C'mon guys (Dtc, Electroslacker); the man said he's on a budget. No way he's going to rip out and re-build his wall to install staggered studs for $500 - $600! And using resilient clips and/or channels to 'float' the drywall surface works best in new construction.

Trust me B_limo, adding another layer of sheetrock to the existing wall will get you 90% there without extra hassle/expense -- to say nothing of minimizing the 'noise inconvenience time' to your neighbors while you're doing the work ;~)

Agreed - if you can do an isolated second wall that is a great solution. That option is discussed on the website I gave above. It is a great solution, although not always the easiest and less expensive.

You should also look at the resilient channel solutions, although they can be somewhat complicated to install.

If you can, stagger the studs in the wall so a stud is only connected to one panel of sheet rock. Then fill the wall with fiberglass insulation, snaking the insulation between the adjoining studs. That keeps the wall from becoming a drum, and damps out higher frequencies. We did this when building the house and it's amazing how well it works. Of course, your room will be two inches smaller :-)

I had Tony Manasian (of Tonian Labs) over at my apt. after I bought a pair of his speakers. His main gig is professional high end installations and consulting and he told me that bass is the hardest to control and advised me to hang some natural fibre mats or rugs behind my speaker to keep sound from transferring down to my neighbors below me.

It worked, to a point, depending on how loud I play my music. The bass is another problem since my speakers roll off around 40Hz. As for the courtyard and when I forget to close the windows, that is another matter.

Good luck,
Nonoise

If you add drywall also consider using Green Glue between the layers. It is not a glue, but rather a sound deadening compound. You can also use mass loaded vinyl.

This website has some good information on various methods and their effectiveness.

Sound Proofing Company

The biggest problem is deep bass. It is almost impossible to stop without major work.

MASS is the way to control (reduce) TRANSMISSION of sound
from one space to another (or from outside to inside.) Adding
stiffness to the dividing surface/partition can also help, but as
you will discover, it's pretty hard to add stiffness without adding
mass at the same time -- so back to 'square one' ;~)

FUZZ is the way to control sound WITHIN a space
(reverberation, decay, reflections, etc.)

There are refinements of course, including combining the two
(when 'tuning' your listening room, for instance) but those are
the TWO BASIC principals of SOUND CONTROL. These two
principles (and the differences between them) were drummed
into my head when I studied acoustics at MIT with Bob
Newman, a principal in the famous acoustical engineering firm
of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman.

So in your case, forget the 'fuzz' (the cork and foam) at least
insofar as addressing the sound transmission problem is
concerned (you may need it to 'tune' your listening room, but
that's not what you asked about.)

Budget? The least expensive (and least invasive) way to add
mass to (YOUR side of) the wall, assuming you've permission
from the landlord, is simply to add more drywall. Either
3/4" thick, or two layers of 1/2" thick drywall. For
ease of installation, you can use 4x8' sheets for an 8' ceiling, or
4x10' sheets for a 9' ceiling. There is one very effective cost-
and-labor-reducing trick however, if you can work out the
aesthetics ;~) which is to apply the additional drywall sheets
(one layer or two) as a 4' (high) band HORIZONTALLY and
halfway between the floor and ceiling, for the length of the wall.
This puts the additional mass where it will do the most good in
terms of keeping the wall from acting like a diaphragm and
transmitting the sound to the next space. The QuietRock
product that needfreestuff mentions is excellent for new
construction, where it will be the only wall material and may
have to meet new sound transmission codes; however for your
purposes (budget and retrofitting over existing drywall) it won't
be cost-effective, compared to 'ordinary' drywall ;~)

One other thing. Do make sure there are no actual LEAKS
between the two spaces -- any place air can go, sound can go.
This problem commonly occurs in cheap construction,
especially in the form of electrical outlets (boxes) have been
installed back-to-back for the two spaces! This also applies to
floors and ceilings where there are common attic and/or crawl
spaces. It doesn't seem like it would make that big a difference,
but it does! So take off all the wall plates and caulk your brains
out!
.

Google Quietrock drywall. Excellent soundproofing and if your on a raised foundation make sure to insulate the subfloor. Good Luck.