Bass drum makes windows vibrate

strangealchemy

Junior Member
I recently had to move my drumkit to a different room which has a large window. Whenever I hit the bass drum, the glass kind of moves and makes a loud resonating/vibrating noise, which is very annoying because it bothers me when playing and probably bothers my neighbours too. I had my kit facing the window, so I flipped it to see if the resonating noise stopped, but it kept resonating and not even in a lower sound. When the drumkit was facing the window, I also tried to put some pillows in front of the bass drum to see if it stopped but it didn't.

Does anyone know if there's a way I can make it stop? Would it help if I changed the windows' drapes for thicker ones, for example?
 
Low end sounds travel farther and thru walls better than high end sounds.

But this may be a case of sympathetic vibrations. Try tuning your bass drum differently (up or down) and see if that helps.

And if the window is vibrating that much, you may want to check that it's still sealed properly before it rains.
 
Low end sounds travel farther and thru walls better than high end sounds.

But this may be a case of sympathetic vibrations. Try tuning your bass drum differently (up or down) and see if that helps.

And if the window is vibrating that much, you may want to check that it's still sealed properly before it rains.

Thanks! I'll try tuning to see if it helps.

It's a pretty old window, and yeah, rain does get through.
 
do you close the doors in the room? if so, try leaving them open a bit to see if that helps.
 
Can you put something against the window to reduce vibration? Pillows, etc? I know that's an obvious answer. haha
 
Take a piece of plexiglass, and if you can afford it, lexan (polycarbonite) instead. If you can, do not place the sheet of plexiglass/ lexan parallel, place it on a slight angle to the glass. You can tape the plexiglass/ lexan onto the window frame you have. If you want to, you can burn holes in the plexiglass using a soldering iron, the plexiglass does not drill well, it would crack easily. If you do the lexan, you can drill into it.

Now you will have two pieces of glass, and hopefully, not parallel to each other. This should block a lot of the sound bleeding through the window. You can caulk it as well to give it a better seal, or you can use the fix for everything, duct tape.

This sounds simple but it does work.
 
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