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Here's one for the drummers out there! Being a guitar board there probably aren't any 
Anyways, this is a project I made for my drummer friend the other day. It is about how to silence an electrical drum kit.
As most owners of V-Drums find out, buying electrical drums does NOT solve the problem with noise and neighbours when living and playing drums in apartments. Despite being electrical, using headphones, the acoustical thumping from the kit travels through the building (especially concrete buildings) and drives your neighbours nuts. Same with my drummer friend, Mike. He moaned (and so did his neighbours) about this problem for years after buying a cool Roland V-Drum kit (TD-10 and then TD-20) and living in an apartment.
Finally I broke down and decided to build him a plateau for him to place the kit on - a platform that hopefully would kill most of the thumping energy (sound) and stop it from travelling to the floor and to the walls - to the neighbours!
I built a 6x6 feet sized wooden frame using rafter timber. Bottom consists of one thick MDF board. Then I stapled some heavy duty plastic to the wooden frame and finally placed the platform in his apartment and poured 400 Kg (880 pounds) of dried sand into it.
Weight and density is good when killing low frequency sound. Heavy dense things (sand) won't vibrate easily and therefore it won't transfer energy easily through to surrounding parts of your building.
Okay, wooden frame with 880 pounds of sand. Apartment ruined
Then we laid two slabs of MDF wood on the now levelled sand, cut in size to just clear the innner edge of the frame. NO direct contact between frame and slab is essential! Then we started drilling 32mm (1.26 inc) holes all through the two slabs:
Pretty heavy duty drill:
Keep going! 49 holes in total! Oops, tennis balls?
All done. Notice the slab clearing the frame by a few inches:
Then we removed one of the top slabs and started placing..... TENNIS BALLS!:
Wall-to-wall balls!
We then put the one slab back on, placing it on top of the balls, creating a sandwich of balls and wood (Fuck, I feel like Horns writing this dirty stuff):
Weird top pic:
Put some foam on top:
And finally placed yet another slab of MDF + carpet to make the final top. Notice the clearing of the frame. Also notice that, me, being a guitarist, used quartersawn wood for the frame
The air-filled rubber balls acts like a perfect floating shock absorber and really removes a lot of the thumping noise generated by the kick drums especially. They are fixed in the holes we drilled and the platform is very rigid and stable. No major wobble. Together with the heavy sand and missing contact to the frame, this platform is a really effective sound killer. I checked the result by placing my ear flat against the wooden apartment floor, while Mike hit the drums. The missing thumps were a blessing! I did this test before and nearly damaged my ears! We are confident that he can play these drums now without disturbing the neighbours. Thank you
Anyways, this is a project I made for my drummer friend the other day. It is about how to silence an electrical drum kit.As most owners of V-Drums find out, buying electrical drums does NOT solve the problem with noise and neighbours when living and playing drums in apartments. Despite being electrical, using headphones, the acoustical thumping from the kit travels through the building (especially concrete buildings) and drives your neighbours nuts. Same with my drummer friend, Mike. He moaned (and so did his neighbours) about this problem for years after buying a cool Roland V-Drum kit (TD-10 and then TD-20) and living in an apartment.
Finally I broke down and decided to build him a plateau for him to place the kit on - a platform that hopefully would kill most of the thumping energy (sound) and stop it from travelling to the floor and to the walls - to the neighbours!
I built a 6x6 feet sized wooden frame using rafter timber. Bottom consists of one thick MDF board. Then I stapled some heavy duty plastic to the wooden frame and finally placed the platform in his apartment and poured 400 Kg (880 pounds) of dried sand into it.
Weight and density is good when killing low frequency sound. Heavy dense things (sand) won't vibrate easily and therefore it won't transfer energy easily through to surrounding parts of your building.
Okay, wooden frame with 880 pounds of sand. Apartment ruined
Then we laid two slabs of MDF wood on the now levelled sand, cut in size to just clear the innner edge of the frame. NO direct contact between frame and slab is essential! Then we started drilling 32mm (1.26 inc) holes all through the two slabs:
Pretty heavy duty drill:
Keep going! 49 holes in total! Oops, tennis balls?
All done. Notice the slab clearing the frame by a few inches:
Then we removed one of the top slabs and started placing..... TENNIS BALLS!:
Wall-to-wall balls!
We then put the one slab back on, placing it on top of the balls, creating a sandwich of balls and wood (Fuck, I feel like Horns writing this dirty stuff
):Weird top pic:
Put some foam on top:
And finally placed yet another slab of MDF + carpet to make the final top. Notice the clearing of the frame. Also notice that, me, being a guitarist, used quartersawn wood for the frame
The air-filled rubber balls acts like a perfect floating shock absorber and really removes a lot of the thumping noise generated by the kick drums especially. They are fixed in the holes we drilled and the platform is very rigid and stable. No major wobble. Together with the heavy sand and missing contact to the frame, this platform is a really effective sound killer. I checked the result by placing my ear flat against the wooden apartment floor, while Mike hit the drums. The missing thumps were a blessing! I did this test before and nearly damaged my ears! We are confident that he can play these drums now without disturbing the neighbours. Thank you
How much would you say it helped percentage wise outside your home. My trusty blanket dampend things so I don't have to crank as loud to compete..which helps my neighbors. I ask them if they ever hear us and they always say no..I'm suprised.
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