Sound proofing a small space 5 feet wide.

Lots of Rugs and foam panels on walls

I'm doing something similar right now and here's my plan.

1) Take some C or Z purlin and screw it into the current walls...you want as little contact as possible WHILE still making the structure sound. I'm doing mine ~18" apart.

2) Sheetrock (maybe plywood would work) the purlin to make basically "another room". The purlin will sort of 'absorb' the sound in a way and the inner walls will soak up a good bit as well.

3) Caulk and seal every tiny little crack. This part is super important.

4) Get a carpet remnant and put it down. Just get it to where your drums won't move it. Your kit will eventually tear it so be ready for that. I use a drum rug over the carpet. They're pretty heavy duty usually.

5) Once I get here I'm going to try it out. If I need to foam the walls or something...I'll do it then. My friend has a setup like this though and it seems to do well so who knows.

As stated by previous posters, rugs/carpet on the floor is a great option. For the walls, anything made out of foam, such as those "egg crate" panels or mattress toppers, is an excellent inexpensive sound absorber. You'll want as little concrete and sheetrock to be exposed as possible.

Also, consider using smaller diameter/lighter weight sticks (if you're not already). I play restaurant gigs all the time, so volume is a big issue. I've been using 7A Vic Firth Maple sticks for some time now and it's been very helpful in "forcing" me to play softer; those sticks will not last if you're a heavy hitter and, unlike hickory drumsticks which give you plenty of notice before breaking, the maple sticks are fine one second, and completely broken the next. It really encourages a lighter approach.

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Srbtiger06

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I read about the "room-within-a-room" thing a long time ago in Modern Drummer magazine. According to the author of the article, the sound dampening was incredible, so much so that the kit was barely audible from just outside the room.

Seems like a lot of painstaking work, though. I'd be interested to know how that turns out for ya...

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Seems like a lot of painstaking work, though. I'd be interested to know how that turns out for ya...

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That part isn't too terrible. I had a pretty large area I had to do a little prep work on though and THAT sucked.

Like I said, I have a friend who's dad did it and it sounds amazing. He just bought one of those big pre-assembled wooden storage shed deals and then did the 'room within the room' thing. We would have a full 5-piece band in there and it wasn't that loud on the outside at all. You could still hear us 20-feet away but it wasn't NEAR as loud as I thought it'd be...more noise than audible/clear sound. The only thing that sucked was temperature. He ended up putting a decent size window banger AC unit in there and it helped but it would still get pretty warm.

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Srbtiger06 - Does not compute

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What size are those Taylor Hawkins sticks? 5A?

5B. Easily the heaviest sticks I've ever used. That sphere-tip plays soooooo well though.