Hey AudioSex!

I'm trying to produce in a apartment, I have terible income so I can't buy the best speakers but back to the topic.
I hoping to become a EDM Festival producer, but the problem is I can't turn my speakers up. Don't want to wake my neighbours up, does anyone know anything about sound isolation?
I can hear my neighbours talking sometimes, these walls are terrible.


If you have any tips on how to isolate a room I'd appreciate it if you'd share

thanks in advice

 

Get some dope-ass headphone monitors. Look at some Beyerdyamics DT-770 Pros, or some Audio-Technica ATH-M50s. When producing/composing/writing, you don't need an acoustically treated room or big speakers. If you NEED to hear sound outside of speakers, invest in some 5" monitors. They have plenty of affordable, powered 5" monitors available. They won't be too loud, but will be able to give you what you need in your kind of environment.

 

turn up your speakers when they aren't home
be a sleuth find out their schedules and work around that
produce mostly in the early afternoon around 12p.m. or 1p.m
if you prefer making music at night then use headphones
and then the next day around the times I stated above go back and listen to your beat and tweak using your studio monitors

-Two Tone Capone

 

I'm thinking of getting a pair of These to cover a large sliding glass door in my room. In my case it is to keep out outside noise, but it might work for you too. From what I've read up on, sound isolation is pretty tough to achieve, particularly with bass frequencies which would be exactly what you would be focused on... you basically need to rip the walls down to the studs, stuff them with heavy duty rockwool or rockboard, then ideally put some layer of sound dampening sheeting on, then a layer of drywall, then float another layer of drywall on some isolation blocks. It's pretty crazy stuff for the casual mixer for sure. If you have to be on headphones make sure they are very good quality (I like my Sennheiser 380s) and you might want to check out the Focusrite VRM box, some people really seem to like it.

 

You can't isolate a room so easily...and it is not cheap.
You can of course put some bass traps, but frankly, in your situation, there are better options

Like LiveLogicLoopsTools said, you really need monitors when mixing/mastering only.

You can use headphones for everything else...at LOW volume Keep your ears, even for live gigs.

You can buy cheap small sized monitors (bigger mean more bass...mean more room troubles ).
It will be more comfortable than headphones for long time listening/mixing.

For mixing, switch between headphones and monitors often. And you can use a trick : switch your mix to mono on master, face only ONE speaker, and of course pan your master bus to this speaker only. So you will get a REAL mono speaker, not fake mono/stereo
It will help a lot balancing your mid freqs and middle stereo image.

As a general rule mix side (to me), headphones will help you balance your frequencies (especially bass freqs without treated room/big speakers), finding small artifacts... and monitors will help you on the dynamic/levels/real room stereo image side.

Combine the two the right way, and you will auto-compensate room troubles with headphones and headphones shortcomings with speakers, even in a bad room

When your neighbors are making noise...you can do it too
Late at night, switch to headphones and compose at low volume only.
Mix "fresh" at "normal" hours only

Remember you will ALWAYS make bad mixes late at night (ear fatigue), alcool kill a mix...and your ears too (it creates ear fatigue ).
Mix only with fresh ears, other ways will lead to bad mixes and kill your ears...for just nothing.

This way, you will realize you need to make noise only at "normal" hours, for mixing purpose only.

Now it is time for buying good headphones, and may be some small monitors

 

room within a room is the best. scavenge lots of wood... & use concrete blocks to stand speakers on.
& as said use headphones but check / correct the mix during the day.
or move.

 

Also if you plan to buy 5" monitoring speakers, check the Eve SC205, they sound BIG for their 5" woofer and you can also hear LOTS of details even at small volume.

And yea', as the other guys said, to find out your neighbours's schedule is a smart move if you want to get some extra-relaxed mixing time on your monitoring speakers.

 

Personally I love my Audiotechnica ATH-M40FS headphone monitors they are on sale everywhere right now because the new ones are recently out. I got mine for the low price of $49 USD. They are the old version of the ATH-M40X that are similar to the ATH-M50s LiveLogicLoopsTools suggests. The only difference is the packaging, they contain the exact similar drivers and the ones that I use do it for half the price. So I would definitely recommend them for a musician on a budget that wants the best that they can get for the money. You can put up bass traps in the corners and blankets on all the walls to help if you want to use non-headphone monitors. Many people recommend 5 inch reference monitors, this is a great way to go. I have used Alesis M1Active 520s they work really well and sound great, the only con that I have found is that they have a little bit of noise (a high noise floor) so if this bothers you then you do have to turn the volume up a little to compensate. Personally it doesn't bug me and has never affected any of my mixes. I would definitely recommend these as well, they are the best reference monitors that I have used. If you choose to go with non-headphone monitors just focus first on your point of first reflection if you are going to treat the room. I hope that this helps.