Do you sometimes host parties and afraid the neighbors will feel the bass blasting from the music? I’ve never had this problem, but I do sometimes wonder if the people living next door can feel their house shake while Im watching an action movie. Either way, they’ve never said anything to me about it, but it is quite seldom that I have the house to myself to allow for this type of activity. In this article, I will explain to you how to stop bass from traveling through walls.
So the quick answer for how to stop bass from traveling through walls? Stopping bass from traveling through walls is a challenging task and can also be an expensive one if you want it done right. The answer is mass, a lot of mass. The thicker the insulation, the more bass will escape the house.
There are different ways to reduce the bass from either leaving your house or apartment.
What Is Bass?
Before you try to solve the problem about bass traveling through the entire house, you need to understand what bass is and also how it is created.
While the bass is merely the lower register, the feature of bass in tune can be somewhat different. As you understand the Bass guitar in modern-day popular music is typically the instrument utilized, Dual bass or Upright bass does much the same job in Jazz and specific other songs like folk or rockabilly.
Often the bass is a special keyboard on an organ. As well as the Bass is brought by guys with deeper voices in four-part consistency in a choir (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and also Bass are the four voices usually used).
Much of the time, the bass begins on the “root” note of the chord. A significant chord includes the origin, the third and also the fifth. The root is the first note of the crucial you remain in. Indeed there are numerous variations (inversions), however, if you pay attention very carefully, the bass player will certainly help define the chord by putting the root note available. Not always – no rules in music are hard and fast.
A Bass chord played on its own frequently sounds “muddy,” and also most bass expressions are taken from the chord and also played as respectfully notes (called arpeggios). Much better bass gamers than me might make whole melodic counterpoint sequences to the major tune of the tune, or they may play the first and the 5th. Or anything in between.
Bass in a song is the lower end of the audio, the reduced frequencies that exist in around 20 – 200Hz. The feeling of the bass is typically the driving force of the tune, pushing the track forward as well as locking in with the drums The expression “drop the bass” comes from digital songs, specifical dubstep at what is necessarily the carolers, where various other synthesizers are cut and also a bass synthesizer is played along with drums.
How to Reduce Subwoofer Vibration Through Walls
It is tough and can also be very costly to stop bass from traveling through walls because bass has a long wavelength that makes it easy to move throughout the house.
If you’re currently living in a duplex, condominium, townhouse or an apartment, then this information should be essential for you. The first thing you should understand what the problem actually is before buying a subwoofer. The problem is not how high or low the volume is, it is how much vibration is emitting from the sub.
The long wavelength that bass produces can travel through the floors, walls, and insulation. A high-frequency sound, however, will usually reflect back at you.
You should note that down-firing subwoofers should not be used under any circumstances, especially if you’re living in a shared space. A down-firing sub is the ones where the speaker directly points the soundwave towards the floor.
Here is a list of a few easy tricks you can do to help your situation.
1 – Move the Subwoofer Closer to You
The first tactic and of course the easiest one is to move the subwoofer closer to you so you can turn the subs volume down. Less volume means less vibration is coming from your subwoofer and this means less vibration that will emanate through your walls, floors, and ceiling.
What this will mean for you is that you will get an equally intense experience at a lower volume. You will still be able to feel the bass, but chances are your neighbors will not.
2 – Bass Traps
Installing bass traps on the corners of the wall will help. A bass trap is an acoustic foam that fits in the corner of the wall and comes out approximately six inches on each side, and they have ripples.
What you could do is move the subwoofer (easier if it is wireless) away from the walls and especially the corners because the vibration amplifies in those areas as it bounces off the wall. Of course, you will get a quieter experience by doing this, but at least you’ve reduced a bit of the bass. This method will not work if someone is living on the floor beneath you.
Click here to check out some good Bass Traps from Amazon.
3 – Buy a Buttkicker
Ok, so this method is only for people that want bass for their home theatre room or gaming room. By installing a Buttkicker, you can eliminate the bass but still have the vibrational effect when there is supposed to have bass in a movie or video game.
What a Buttkicker exactly is a small device that attaches underneath your chair or couch and produces vibration where the bass would happen in a movie, game or music.
Naturally, this trick is only for gamers and home theatre and not bass emitting from a party. Click the link ahead for more information and pricing for a Buttkicker mini from Amazon.
4 – Cinder Block Will Reduce Bass
This idea of stopping bass from traveling through walls comes from a Reddit forum, and it makes sense. Place the subwoofer on top of a cinder block will help in reducing bass because they are not resonant (like wood). The cinder blocks will also put an air gap between the subwoofer and the resonant material, like wood flooring and the drywall on your walls.
Basically what you would want is a plastic, metal, or concrete box with holes. If you don’t like the look of a cinder block, you could easily mask it with a stylish fabric cover.
5 – Concrete Tubbing
If you’re not fond of the cinderblock idea, you might like this idea. Place the speaker on a concrete form tubelike, cut to length and filled with sand.
The sand inside of the tube will give it substantial weight and also soak up the vibrations before they resonate through the floor. You could paint them or glue fabric on them and make it look pretty darn good.
6 – Adjust the Equalizer Frequency
Have you ever been to a house party and notice the bass quality grates on the ears? Well if you have this problem in your home, there is a quick fix to make the bass sound much better and also lower the vibration frequency. All you need to do is adjust one equalizer frequency, and you’re done. You might be surprised.
This certainly will not be a fix for every speaker out there, but it will help to fix the vast majority of the rasp and vibration. I don’t think this was intentional from the speaker manufacturers but with Beats by Dre out there, you never know.
Ok, now here is the fix; Turn down the 125hz slider on your equalizer a few dB to a point where it sounds good to the ears. The 125hz is for the most part where the boomy bass resides. This is more so for the midbass region but should give you a small head start on reducing vibrational bass from your subwoofer.
7 – Did you Adjust the Bass levels?
This is one step a lot of people seem to miss because it can be quite complicated for someone that has limited knowledge of how sound works. No worries because I have a quick two-minute fix that will help dampen bass coming through a wall.
- Crossover; The crossover is the frequency where the subwoofer begins to play the bass notes. The setting for the crossover would generally be where the speakers begin to roll off. This information should be in the speaker specs. You can also keep turning the crossover up until it rounds out the sound from your speakers. This can get much more complicated if you have a full surround sound home theatre, follow this link for specific instructions.
- Gain; The gain (volume) is the crucial part, but it is also the simplest. Begin by playing a song and turn the subwoofer down to nothing. Now turn the gain up until you can begin to hear it start to fill in the base. And stop, done!
- Phase Switch; If you have a phase switch try turning the switch between 0 and 180 degrees and notice if you can hear the difference. One could sound better than the other, it all depends on the dimensions of the room and also the gear. It is pretty simple; you should choose the one that sounds better to you.
8 – Major Construction
To actually make a room or house be able to block bass vibration would be an expensive and complicated project. You would need to add mass and more mass on the walls, ceilings, and floor to be able to absorb as much of the vibration as possible.
I did hear of someone building a room inside a room; this is how some people create their home theatre room. They build a room around the inside of the room where the theatre will be set and leave an air gap between the walls. After this is done, you would fill the inside walls with acoustic foam to absorb the vibration.
9 – Talk to Your Neighbors
If the reason you’re looking at this information is that you’re concerned about your neighbors then maybe you should approach them and have a conversation.
If you’re reading this because you’re trying to find out how to stop bass noise from neighbors, then you should definitely talk to them, but do it in a polite manner.
One thing you should understand is that they might not realize that their bass is leaving the confines of their home. They might turn the volume down to be Curtius neighbors, but the vibration might still linger.
Just have a conversation and try to resolve it, you won’t be sorry.
Final Thoughts
It is very easy to confuse the control of bass with volume because most people are not experts in sound engineering (including me). Let me know if you know of any other methods I might have missed that would work to stop bass from traveling through walls.
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