help me with soundproofing plz

i recently moved into a house with close neighbors. i have a basement that will soon be my new jam room. i have carpeted the floor, and have lots of extra carpet. (maybe for the walls).
i was hoping to get some tips on keeping the sound from bothering the neighbors to much. the house is a rental, so i dont want anything perminant. and i want it cheep.
any tips would be very helpfull. thanks

Hey, NathDrum, welcome to the forum. I don't have any advice on soundproofing, but I have some on the noise - which you might already be thinking about. Try to get on good terms with your new neighbors before you start jamming. I'll put up with a lot more noise from neighbors that I like compared to those that I don't. I'm assuming that you're a drummer. There's a guy three houses down that used to wail on his drums every day. Never bothered me, though, because the guy was nice. There was another guy who'd play his drums in the garage, but he never closed the garage door, and he was a tool...and that bothered me every single time that I heard it. If your neighbors know you and know that they can just ask you to quiet down if it bothers them, I'll bet that they'll hardly ever ask.

Just remember that treating a room for the acoustics in room (i.e. carpet) will do nothing for soundproofing; the things you can do for soundproofing involves making the walls and ceiling heaver, and therefor less prone to sound transmission - Perhaps hanging more drywall - but keeping sound from leaving the room will not make it sound better in the room, you can use carpet for mid and high frequency attenuation (but using to much will make the room dull and overly bassy), but you would still need bass traps for low frequency control.

If bpape can offer some input, he will give you much better advice then my limited knowledge can provide.

ya, i deffenitely will get to know the neighbors first. but, besides just annoying them, i dont really want them listening in if i can help it. im not to concerned with how good the sound is. its mainly for practice, not recording. ive decided to put a layer of double thick cardboard and/or eggcartons throughout the rafters, and im gonna cover all the concrete walls with carpet. (remember im going cheep here). any other cheep ideas? maybe for the windows? thanks

Cardboard and egg cartons will do little to nothing.

Not sure of your idea of cheap but acoustic tile like this could help some: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=300-900

NathDrum said:

i recently moved into a house with close neighbors. i have a basement that will soon be my new jam room. i have carpeted the floor, and have lots of extra carpet. (maybe for the walls).
i was hoping to get some tips on keeping the sound from bothering the neighbors to much. the house is a rental, so i dont want anything perminant. and i want it cheep.
any tips would be very helpfull. thanks

Click to expand...

There are no simple, temporary, inexpensive methods for soundproofing. Well....that is....none that provide any real soundproofing benefits.

NathDrum said:

ive decided to put a layer of double thick cardboard and/or eggcartons throughout the rafters, and im gonna cover all the concrete walls with carpet. (remember im going cheep here). any other cheep ideas? maybe for the windows? thanks

Click to expand...

I hate to break the news to you, but that's not going to work. You won't be able to soundproof your rental on the cheap.

I am fairly certain that the only way to prevent sound from leaking from the room is to add more mass to the walls and ceiling and making the room fairly air tight, but if your walls are concrete, you may only need to add some mass and do some sealing to the celling.