Gaming is fun and often associated with all sorts of noise. The experience is incredible, from unlocking another level to trying out new cars, guns, armor, etc. However, it would be best to ton down the noise to avoid occasional neighbors’ angry complaints or disrupting your partner’s sleep.
Trying to avoid complaints like you just woke me up, keep it down, among many others, might make your gaming rooms less of a gaming heaven. Hence, it’s essential to consider ways to keep your noise confined to your walls so you can unwind with your video games without driving your parents, patterns, or next-door neighbors nuts.
In this guide, we’ll discuss how to soundproof a room for gaming, what materials are best used for soundproofing a room, and the cost of this process.
What Materials Can Be Used To Soundproof A Room?
There are several materials to help improve your gaming room acoustics.
Household Items (Soft, Fluffy)
It’s best to start soundproofing your gaming room with simple tricks such as using already-owned fluffy household stuff. This option works best if your room is empty with hard surfaces. Therefore, it’s best to fill up your space with as many soft materials as possible to improve its acoustics.
Soft materials help with sound absorption instead of bouncing sound waves all over, causing louder noise.
Here are some tips to start with:
- Cover your windows with heavy curtains; if possible soundproof curtains
- Place soft and thick rugs on the floor; it’s best to cover the entire gaming room floor
- Place old blankets over hard surfaces
- Use some tapestries
Sound Blankets
Whether moving or soundproof blankets, Blankets will help with your gaming room’s acoustics. Moving blankets are used to protect furniture.
However, audiophiles found them helpful in improving acoustics, thanks to their sound-blocking properties. With this idea, companies started making soundproof blankets with better-blocking properties.
So, any one of the blankets should do the trick.
Furthermore, there are several ways you can use sound blankets in your gaming room. You can either tape or nail them to the wall. Also, you can use them over your windows, doors, or areas with holes and gaps, allowing sound to pass through.
Acoustic Panels
This is a standard option. Acoustic panels are available in two types ㅡfabric-wrapped panels and acoustic foam tiles. The latter is a piece of foam in a square shape that’s glued onto the ceilings and walls.
The other type consists of a fabric panel and wooden frame, making them easy to hang on your walls.
Besides, a standing version of the fabric-wrapped panels allows you to move the piece around with ease.
How Soundproofing a Gaming Room
Step 1 – Tune the volume down.
This might sound contrary to why you are here. It’s crucial to find the right volume that works for you, your neighbors, and your housemates. If you live with parents, little kids, or a partner, you might want to consider them and reduce the volume.
The truth is that no matter how much you soundproof a room, some sound will escape. How much get out depends on how loud the noise is. Besides, finding the right volume means you won’t have to spend much on soundproofing.
Step 2 – Your game station placement
It’s best not to set up your gaming console or computers against a shared wall. With the speakers and your voice close to the shared wall, it’s much easier for the person on the other side to hear you clearly even if you tune down the sound. Games with bass tend to vibrate against the shared walls, which creates a louder noise.
Therefore, it’s advisable to move your console or computer far away from the shared wall. Now, you can place your furniture and those fluffy household items on the shared wall. This should significantly reduce the noise and cause your neighbors to travel less to knock on your door to tune down your noise.
Step 3 – Soundproof the shared wall
Once you’ve set up your gaming console or computer far away from the shared wall, it’s time to stack the shared wall with furniture such as your bookshelves brimming with books. This would help prevent noise from going through the walls.
The main idea is adding a mass to the wall; whichever way you choose to do this is fine. You can add your closets or other large pieces of furniture to the walls. But whatever you do, remember that items with soft, fluffy surfaces are the best to prevent soundwave bounce against them, which is counterproductive.
So, it’s best to hang sound blankets, acoustic panels, etc., for better results. Also, you can opt for curtain rails for the ceiling if you share a roof with another neighbor or hang curtains over the furniture (if they are mainly hard surfaces).
This provides an extra layer of mass for better sound absorption and a cozy feeling in your gaming room. Also, it might be a perfect time to renovate or redesign your gaming room with exciting furniture.
Step 4 – Profession acoustic management
This should be your last resort. There are cheap DIY ways of minimizing noise, explained here. But these methods do not offer the desired result, so you might want to turn to standard soundproofing techniques – such as resilient channels, acoustic caulk, soundproof insulation, mass-loaded vinyl, and soundproof drywall.
While any or all of these professional sound-blocking techniques will help reduce noise, they might require going out of your budget. Also, you have to pay attention to other factors, such as gaps and holes around the door frame. It’s best to block these gaps using weather-stripping tape, foam, or rubber gaskets to prevent noise from traveling through. Better still, you can just hang soundproof curtains over the door.
The Cost of Soundproofing a Gaming Room
If you are looking to stick with the preventative means, this shouldn’t cost you more than $100 – 300 to replace your speakers with noise-canceling headphones and silent keyboards.
However, increasing the mass on the shared wall requires you to purchase soundproof curtains, rubber gaskets, soundproof blankets, etc. This would cost you close to $1000. But for professional soundproofing, depending on who you hire, the type of soundproofing, and what deal you cut out, it costs anywhere between $1000 – $3000.
Conclusion
If using a silent keyword, noise-canceling headset, and reducing the volume would solve the problem without compromising your gaming experience, it’s not worth soundproofing your gaming room.
But if you live in a shared apartment or house, it’s best to soundproof a room for gaming to keep your noise confined within the walls. You’ll likely get complaints from your neighbors or partners about your loud live streams, shout-casting, and video game noise.
Another vital thing is soundproofing your room allows you to get a quieter gaming room, which means improved concentration and audio quality, especially broadcasting on Facebook, Gaming, and YouTube Gaming.
