If you type "soundproofing" (one word) into the site's search engine, there are several threads on the subject - you may wish to check them out.
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I am not an expert by any means but I just renovated our basement and installed a sound-proof room for a "simple" music studio. I can give you some of what I learned and my experienceheyman said:
I did most of the work myself but got advice and many of materials from a great company called Wilrep Ltd. 1-888-625-8944 www.wilrep.com. Small company in Toronto but they knew their stuff and were prepared to work with a little guy like me on what was a large project for me but relatively small for them. They provided some key sound proofing products and advised me of what I could just use from Home Depot, etc. Don Wilkenson was the guy who helped my and I am most appreciative of his willingness to explain things and customize a plan for my needs.
Basically you have to decide how sound proof you want the room to be. The greater the sound reduction, the higher the price. You will find it is not a striaght line $ to results thing. If you go too cheap you will get virtually no benefit, mid-range effort and cost will yield very good results (what I call "bearable and ignorable" - in our case, our oldest son can be rehearsing his rock band (with amps) in the studio and we will barely be able to hear it with the TV on at moderate volume in the family room 20 ft away. To go significantly quieter will likely cost 2-3 times more than the moderate.
Think of sound proofing a room like an aquarium with air. An aquarium that is 99% water-tight, will still leak water. Same concept with sound in a room.
Most sound escapes a room via air ducts and door thresholds. Try some cheap weather stripping around any door ways into the room to help seal the doors a bit better and stop sound leaking out that way.
If you have access to your air ducts, you should be able to find some inexpensive accoustic foam that you can stuff into your duct about 1 foot (get thin stuff so that you can leave an opening down the centre for air circulation). A lot of sound bounces from room to room via your duct work. Putting a foot or two of foam at the sound treated room end helps absorb the sound rather than having it bounce further up the duct.
With respect to walls, ceilings and floor, general rule is solid mass objects (5/8ths drywall, contrete, etc will stop high frequency sounds, while "air" and soft foamy substances are best for reducing low frequency or bass effects.
Ironically, what works for one, often makes the other worst - bass travels best through solid walls and especially concrete floors (often to bounce up in the wierdest places elsewhere in your house!), - high frequency will go far through thin air.
The best sound proofing is done in a layered fashion. Usually solid 5/8ths drywall type on outside (solid to cut down the highs) ) often on a floating frame (to help reduce ability of bass to travel through wall) rather than screwed directly to studs, behind it will be one or two layers of sound proof insulation (again to help muffle bass , then drywall another high frequency barrier.
To be really effective you should also treat the ceiling in a similar fashion. As for the floor, if concrete, you should consider an accoustic subfloor (special tiles that have sound absorbtion foam under neath to inhibit bass getting into the floor concrete.
To do all the above on a 16' x 16 room will likely cost about $6,000 if you do much of labour yourself. Obviously, you can reduce cost by cherry picking what makes sense based on what you are trying to accomplish.
There are a number of websites that do discuss options, just make sure you determine whether they are independent or primarily there to promote one product over another. These may still be good but recognize that they are likely to flog a particular solution and product rather than provide fully open comparative advice.
Hope this helps a bit.
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