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After reading "The Complete Guide to Finishing Walls & Ceilings, I decided to caulk under the bottom plate of all my walls. According to the book, it improves the STC (Sound Transmission Class) rating by 5 points. This equates to a 12% improvement when using a single layer of ½ drywall over insulated (R13) walls.
This should help keep the sound from traveling under the walls, and also reduce the vibration of the walls when sound hits them. I spoke with a couple of DIYers who thought it was probably a waste of time, and that it wouldn't do any good. Nonetheless, I decided to give it a shot.
Acoustic caulk
 I was looking for Owens Corning Quiet Zone acoustic caulk, but none of the stores I checked carry it. I ended up going with a silicon caulk from Lowe's.
Some parts of the bottom plate needed quite a bit of caulk to seal the gap in places where the board was bowed a bit. Other spots were tight and required very little caulk to seal. It took about 4 tubes of caulk and about an hour of my time to seal all the walls in the basement.
Not sure if I'd have noticed the difference, but I'm glad I went ahead and did it!
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