Jam room, dance room, all around fun room

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Hi everyone! So my wife and I just bought a house and we're looking to turn a basement, finished space that is 12 ft x 13 ft into an all around jam / fun room, and I would love your suggestions on everything from the PA system and equipment to other fun ideas to make the room function for the following purposes:
  • We want to be able to put on music and play along on our guitars and drums -- I would love a space where, after a long day at work, I can throw on some music and beat the crap out of my drums without annoying my wife (note: I'm a guitarest, not a drummer, so drumming and hitting things hard is more of a therapy for me =) )
  • We want to be able to put on music and sing along, karioke style -- my wife and her friends like to throw on some music and dance and sing
  • We want friends to be able to bring their instruments and jam, but I'm not in a band and we don't plan to be doing real rehearsals or anything
  • We want to be able to do basic recordings of our live jams, more for novelty and fun than anything serious

In short, we're looking to make the room multipurpose. One thought we had is to get something like this for the drums, MegaPac, get a Jam Hub (JamHub GreenRoom | Sweetwater.com) so that the drummer and singers and whoever else can have their own mixes, and a small PA system for the room. And maybe even a projector to project lyrics onto a wall for Karioke, and maybe some fun lighting for the club feel. But now I'm thinking that drum booth may be way too big for the space.

The overall budget for the project is around 10k, with the major priorities being sound isolation for the drums, and the ability to play along and sing along to music.

Looking for some fun and creative ideas, thanks! I'll note I don't know much about this stuff, so if you could provide names of actual products or links, much appreciated.
 
Build 2x6 walls around the whole area you plan to use, insulate all wall and ceiling cavities with Rockwool(Roxul) Safe n Sound insulation, cover any exterior wall surfaces with drywall but DO NOT cover the interior walls with drywall only the ceiling but make sure that drywall layer is hung on resilient channel to isolate it from the floor joists above. On the walls I'd simply install acoustically transparent fabric or acoustic wall panels to maximize sound absorption, if you do drywall them you then you still need to mount acoustic panels over at least half the surface area to dampen noise inside the room so costs go up. The idea is you want the room boundaries to absorb noise not reflect it, a full drum kit in a room that small with hard surfaces everywhere will be excessively loud.. hearing damaging loud, but if you have sound dampening on all sides then it will be much more tolerable.
 
Thanks for your response! The basement area is already finished with drywall (on all walls and ceiling), and I think my wife would kill me if I start tearing open walls, so would putting acoustic panels on all four walls (and maybe the ceiling?) and maybe bass traps in the corners help, or not really without all the other stuff you mentioned? Can you recommend specific acoustic panels to use?
 
I'm still working on my music room, but are some things we've done so far.
For decorations, we hung some drum sticks and cymbols on the walls. We also hung some records and album covers up. One of the coolest things we did was a mural from pixersize. The quality is great and it was easy to do. We went with one that looks like you are on stage and then hung black curtains on both ends.

For sound, I built a desk and shelves inside a closet and removed the doors. I bought a used rack and filled it with prosound equipment and am starting a second rack soon. I already have a 20 channel mixer along with a digital 12 channel. My drums are fully mic'd. A snake really helped with cabling from the drums, plus any one can plug into my mixer via the snake and a DI box if needed. My racks are on wheels and sit under the desk so I can bring them out if someone needs me to supply sound at our local bar. I made the desktop out of white melamine from HD or Lowe's.

I am working on setting up wireless headphone distribution using cheap FM transmitters.
Many cell phones have FM receivers in them, so I hope mine has enough power to drive a set of in-ears.

I haven't tried it yet, but I think a blade server will fit in a rack to cut down on computer space. Right now I either use a mini tower or a laptop. It would be cool to have a rack mounted flipup monitor.

I haven't incorporated karaoke yet, but it will go into my second rack with the other sound producing items like a tape player and cd player.
The first rack is sound processing such as compressors, EQ's, patchbay and amps.
 
Exterior walls are probably already insulated correct? If so then attaching acoustic panels to them will suffice. Home Depot sells some that are 24x 48 or so.
If the ceiling cavity between floors is not insulated then it will transmit a lot of the noise upstairs, if you do nothing else it's worth it to redo the ceiling alone as indicated above, it will make the difference between annoying everybody in the house and not even knowing you are in the building.
 
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Really great ideas everyone. Realmsteel - what specific hardware do you use in your racks? Cool ideas with the blade server and the pixersize banner.

Conanski - yup, two of the four walls face outside and are insulated. So I'll put the panels on those walls. The ceiling cavity probably isn't insulated, but I'm not sure. I know you had some details in your above post about redoing the walls, but what specifically should I do to the cieling? Open the drywall and put in acoustic insulation?
 
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Yes drop the ceiling and install insulation in all joist cavities but don't totaly pack them, use 6" thick bats and leave an air gap at the upstairs floor. Note Roxul or Rockwool is fire proof(will not burn) and therefore safe to place around light fixtures but check local codes and follow guidelines, if you have to leave some gaps around potlight for example it's not the end of the world. Then install resilient channel and reinstall new drywall. This resilient channel is a light weight steel rail bent in an S shape, the idea is it isolates the drywall from the floor joists thus increasing sound isolation.
 
The trick with insulating around ceiling "can lights" is that some are rated for direct contact with insulation and some are not. Look for "IC" in the model number, these are rated for direct contact. If you are not sure, and do not want to replace them, leave a couple inches clear around each one, and do not cover them with insulation. If you see "IC", then you can cover and surround them with insulation.

Or, while you have the ceiling open, you can replace the cans with LED cans. Save a bunch of heat and energy, and fully isolate the basement with the insulation.
 
To add to what conanski started in post 2...
If you require real sound isolation, then consider building new walls and a ceiling inside the existing. This is more effective than a staggered stud wall as no elements are coupled with the exception of the hangers on the ceiling. It doesn't have to be a deep wall, 2X3 is plenty. Build the wall, drywall it, tilt it up, fasten it and drywall the interior. Use green glue to mount the drywall. There's no need for batt insulation, those aren't the frequencies you have to worry about. It won't hurt, I'm just suggesting that it's not necessary. To finish, use whatever wall treatments the members suggest, that's not my specialty.
 
Really great ideas everyone. Realmsteel - what specific hardware do you use in your racks? Cool ideas with the blade server and the pixersize banner.
Sorry for late reply. I must not have seen the notification.

My 14 space sound rack is as follows:
Teac 64 RCA patchbay
Carver Sonic Hologram Generator
Behringer MDX4600 4 chan compressor/gate
Behringer FBQ6200 2 chan 31 band eq
Realistic stereo 15 band eq. (I rarely use anymore)
Onkyo P-303 pre amp
SAE A201 power amp

I use a higher end APC battery backup for line conditioning. I may get a Furman unit one day.

I just bought another patchbay for the second rack.

If I start doing more live sound, I will make changes to this rack, but it does well for me now.
 
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