Afraid of distubring the neighbours - piano in an (small) appartment. Advices?

[Petter]

I live in a reasonably large apartmentblock house in a small apartment with lots of neighbours left and right that I donīt really know and Iīm afraid of disturbing them by playing and practicing.
 Except talking to the neighbours and have a dialouge what should I think about before (if) I move my piano. Whatīs an ideal placement, next to a solid wall or not? What neighbour is most likely to be disturb (from an acoustic perspective  ), the one underneath or at the upper floor? What kind of noice isolation materials thingys exists?

[Bob]

If you want it completely soundproof and you have lots of money you don't know what to do with, you could get a whisper room.  Find their site and get more info there on soundproofing.  Whisper rooms are little cube rooms that you can mix and match and create the size/shape room you want.  Cool.  But expensive of course. 

From the sound proofing I know of, you need to cover every crack.  If air or light gets through, sound gets through.  Heavy blankets/carpet on the walls can help.  A heavy rubber mat under the piano if it's possible.  The sound will travel through solid material too, so you want to stop the vibrations. 

From what I read, the ceiling and floor are the toughest to deal with.  Sometimes the construction doesn't have much insulation between ceilings and floors.  For walls, you can create a dead air space if you really want to.  But a hanging ceiling or raised floor?  More difficult and more expensive.

Maybe a simple way would be a layer of rubber, a little wooden platform, and then another layer of rubber.  And the piano sits on that. 

And probably stuffing material around the sound board of the piano if you can.  Deaden the sound before it's produced. 

I saw one guy online who built a soundproof room himself in his apartment.  Raised the floor, drywall, everything.  And then the other catch is that you need to ventillate that room and control the temp and humidity.  More cost. 

The Whisper Room always looked interesting to me.  You could add on later.  Take it apart if you move and take it with you.  But the cheapest one was already over $1,000.  For an upright, it's probably more like $2-3,000.  Maybe more than the instrument at some point.  But being able to practice freely right in your own apartment sounds awesome. 

Talk to your neighbors too.  There are lots of thread on here about practicing piano with neighbors around. 

[allthumbs]

Living in an apartment can cause problems when it comes to noise pollution from any source.

How insulated is your building in general? I would go to your neighbours whom you think would be affected and ask them if your practicing would bother them. If they say it wouldn't bother them your problem is solved.

I would also ask them to listen and see if the level your are playing at would be a problem.

Placing a piano at an outside wall may alleviate some sound transference to adjacent apartments. Also if the piano is sitting on a bare floor, some felt padding or thick rug material under the wheels would help deaden the sound going through the floor to the apartment underneath.

There are acoustic tiles for that purpose that you can line the wall(s) with but that could be expensive.

I think the best thing would be to include your neighbours in the discussion process. They will feel that you care about them and they will be less likely to begrudge your playing. You could even set up a practice schedule that they felt would affect them the least should sound be a problem.


I hope that gives you some ideas.

Regards,

allthumbs

[Petter]

Thanks for the feedback 
 Iīve personally only heard low bass sounds from loud music and occasional yelling and fightin from other appartments. It seems well isolated from what I can tell. What kind of acoustic tiles are there? And whatīs a whisperroom?

[allthumbs]

What kind of acoustic tiles are there?

Have a look here.

https://www.acousticalceilingtiles.com/

https://www.gkacoustics.com/acoustic_ceiling_tiles.htm

[Petter]

Yea thatīs very expensive, could probably rent a studio for 2 years for the same amount of money. Thanks yet again.

[dana_minmin]

then I opt to disturb my neighbours.