Don’t under stand the question. you want the sound from the basement to transfer through the lighting????

I am guessing you don't want the sound to travel upstairs. If you do recess lighting, make sure you wrap the cans in mass loaded vinyl. I assume the room itself is properly sound insulated. We have a room in the basement that was sound proofed. It's almost done, but all the sound proofing is done.

Sorry that was confusing. I am trying to soundproof my basement suite from the floor above. I have some led recessed lights but I'm worried to use them as I don't want to cut too many holes. Thanks!

if your basement ceiling is not sound proof, then the lights won't make a difference. We have isolation rails on the joists to which the drywall gets attached. Also, we have sound proof batting and then two layers of drywall with green glue in between. We used all of these because the room is going to be used as a music studio so we really don't need to hear the drums upstairs. If you only need to attenuate the noise, then you don't need to use all of these, but you need part of it done.

Printesa has a great solution....which is used regularly to reduce noise transfer between stories...especially in houses with converted basement suites. Believe it or not, the amount of effort Printesa went through is what most homes will need to convert a basement into a separate living suit...not just a music studio.

And yes...punching holes in your sound barrier makes it as sound resistant as Swiss cheese. To mitigate this, you need to them wrap each and every hole/light in the appropriate acoustic material.

Professionally done, this gets into the $10/sf range. DIY can be as much as $5-$7/sf after everything is said and done/painted/finished.

Good luck. Check the ceiling you have planned to see if it will give you the acoustic rating you are hoping for. Unless you work to the level Printesa has mentioned, it will not.

Thanks for the comments. I am doing a full soundproof ceiling, batts, res bar, two layers of 1/2" drywall with green glue. Probably even adding another layer of plywood subfloor above with more green glue in between. I guess my real question is how to soundproof the lighting penetrations. I don't want to go to all this trouble for nothing!

For the lighting you need the mass vinyl as I mentioned above. That is what we did and it works very well.