Office Soundproofing (Or Lack Thereof)
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I woke up this morning to the sound of heavy equipment on my street. From the moment I opened my eyes, I knew that I’d have to rearrange my plans for the day. Recording those voice over tracks would have to wait, as my home office has no soundproofing, whatsoever.
For the little guy working in a home studio, environmental noise can be a hair puller.
I can deal with the planes, trains, and automobiles… helicopters and lawn mowers, too. The regular sounds of the neighborhood are rarely persistent.
My home office is in the middle of the house. It’s usually rather quiet during the week. While things can get a bit noisy in the afternoon and evenings, I can usually get my voice over work done by simply closing the door. When things get too loud (under normal circumstances), I retreat to a walk-in closet with my MacBook and USB microphone. A closet full of clothes can provides a remarkable amount of soundproofing.
While no amount of office soundproofing will save my morning (they’re milling the street prior to repaving), I have my fingers crossed that things will quiet down when the crew breaks for lunch. And if not that, I’m hoping they wrap up early in the afternoon…
3 Comments
Jerry K. Smith
September 30th, 2009
at 5:31pm
I feel that investing in some decent soundproofing would do wonders for your work efefficiency.
George Alder
October 1st, 2009
at 6:46am
What is more of a concern to me is the ever increasing amount of emf noise and hash which is permeating my house. I wonder if there might be a growing market for foil wallpape to suppress emf noise and if it can really be helpful.? The old physics texts talk about a Faraday cage but that could get expensive.
FM radio used to be so clean inbetween stations. Nowdays the whole FM band seems to be filled with noise and has between channels.
Larry
October 1st, 2009
at 8:09am
Reading your post, it is not clear if you are requesting assistance or not. If you are, then understand that the clothes in your walk-in closet provide sound conditioning more than sound proofing. The same basic principle can be applied to your office by adding sound absorbing materials such as the curtain you can see in the image of Chris Pirillo’s office.
If you spend much of your time in your office, and it sounds like you do, you should also consider measures to increase the sound transmission rating of the room. Since any specific recommendations would be based on the existing conditions I suggest you find a local design professional to assist.