Abstract This study aimed to develop an effective surface pre-treatment method for recycled rubber particles to improve the sound insulation properties of rubberized lightweight aggregate concrete. In this study, the control lightweight aggregate concrete mixture was prepared using lightweight expand clay aggregate as the coarse aggregate and furnace bottom ash (FBA) as the fine aggregate. The results showed that when all the FBA was replaced by the recycled rubber aggregate, the overall sound reduction level was 32.5 dB (A), which was already significantly higher than the 15.5 dB (A) achieved by the control concrete mixture prepared without rubber aggregates. A simple cement slurry coating pre-treatment method was developed to modify the surface of the recycled rubber aggregate. 10.9 dB (A) and 14.8 dB (A) further noise reduction were achieved when FBA was replaced by 50% and 75% of the pre-treated rubber aggregates, respectively. The dynamic Young's Modulus of the concrete mixtures was tested and the surface bonding of the concrete mixtures prepared with the pre-treated/un-treated rubber aggregate was also investigated. The results suggested that the pre-treatment method resulted in weaker bonding between the rubber aggregates and the cement paste, and thus increased the vibration absorption capacity and enhanced the noise insulation properties of the concrete.