Do Any of You Rent Studio Spaces?

[whoatherechunk]

Hey guys....

How many of you guys have studio spaces.....and how much does rent usually cost? Just interested in seeing if many of you out there practice/play in such ambients. Thanks

[Broadbent]

I'm interested as well. I'm not even really sure what to look for in the want ads....

[kdog15]

Yeah, I practice at a studio space. Rent around the baltimore area is about $400. The places aren't usually the greatest but its nice to have a place to play whenever you want.

[Helluvatim]

My band rents a monthly spot. $420, no heat, has A/C. On top of a body shop, so on weekdays you hear air tools till 8pm

[mambo4]

I am sure it varies by region. In Seattle the rooms go between $350-$450+ monthly, tho bands often share rooms to cut the cost. There are also several Hourly rehearsal spaces: for $25 /hour roughly, you get a clean carpeted space with PA, mics, house amps and a drum kit. Not a bad deal if you only rehearse 1/ week.

[Sartori]

My band is lucky, we play in the guitarist's grandmother's antiques warehouse.

My friend's band is not so lucky, they have to rent this crappy studio space in Oakland that has no ventilation at all.

[corradoc]

We pay $500/month for a room in a music building in NYC...it's got ac and heat, so I guess that's something!

[ReBass]

$450/month for heated space in Chicago. No a/c, but the room is huge.

[jaywa]

We did, when I was in my originals band in Chicago in the mid-90s.

Looking back, whoever was running that place had the biggest cash cow going. IIRC we paid $300 a month (in mid-90s dollars, mind you) for a 10x12 room that was about 50 degrees in the winter and 90 in the summer. During Chicago's summer from hell (literally) in 1995 when it was over 100 with humidity for several days straight, it got so hot in that practice room that we almost passed out.

We were on the 2nd floor with a freight elevator that only worked sometimes. In a really bad part of town (not too far from Oprah's TV studio, actually). But we still had some really good times and jams there.

And they had like three or four floors of rooms and every room was rented out to a different band, with a waiting list.

[akaTRENT]

I hate the rehersahl room rent route. We use it. 300 a month. 75 each.

[jcullen24]

I just rented rehearsal space. The rental was $14 an hour 3 hr minimum. Then We needed to rent a drum kit, 25.00 per session. And we needed to rent a BASS amp, 25.00 per session.
So that was
14x3 hourly rate
25x2 Drum and BASS amp rental
=92
They have a monthly deal of 250.00 a month, I chatted up another band, and checked out thier rehearsal room. they had turned it into thier "Home away from home" and had everything you would think of in there, PC, etc. It looked like they were living there LOL.

We were lazy, so we paid extra. We're now looking for a new spot. I just read an artical somewhere that people are renting environmentally controlled storage spaces, and jamming out there after hours. I was thinking of checking this out also.

Good luck, Hope this helped.
Jim

[JT Bass]

It's tough in the cities, maybe tougher than it should be. After going many different routes in NYC (monthly, hourly, share) we settled on 200/month for two nights (6 hours)/week. The biggest advantage of a monthly over an hourly spot is storage- I think it's important to rehearse with your equipment and your sound, as opposed to whatever POS amp they have in the room (note- somewhere along the way you'll be signing something that indemnifies the owner against any equipment loss or damage).

Talk to bands in your area, try to find some cool people to share with. Check CL. You can get lucky too, I just found a long lost buddy with a cool loft space that has one band in there a couple times a week, trying to weasel my way in on the cheap. The more people you talk to, the more likely you'll find church basement, storage room, or some other option that you can dig.

There was a similar thread on here in the past month or so, and people spoke of rehearsing in storage units, which was interesting, although that could be suffocating as well.

[MatticusMania]

We were renting out an empty office space.
We were paying $100 a month to use the room once a week for 3 hours.
It was sizable, fit our 5 piece band, and then had a waiting room area for chilling on breaks, and for any guests to chill while we rehearsed.
However, we got kicked out because we thought it would be a good idea to bring a couch into the waiting room.
Now we use a rehearsal studio in the next city over, $12.50 an hour, no minumum, 19x20' room, 1500 watt PA and a house kit we can rent for $1per hour.

[chaosMK]

Currently we rent a space. It's in a suite of small rooms under an art gallery, nice joint, nice location (downtown). Like someone else said, I don't love the rental situation, but no one else has a house right now. =p

$210 for around 10x11-ish, with AC.

Real estate/renting is way cheap out here.

[Lindsay]

I live in a pretty cheap part of the world and we pay about USD6/hr (50,000 Lao Kip/hr) to rent a studio. It comes with a PA and mikes, drum kit, bass amp (Trace Elliott 1 x 15 combo), two guitar amps (1 x 12 Fender plus a 1 x 12 Marshall each with a couple of pedals), keyboard amp, two or three guitars, two basses (Yamaha 4 plus Yamaha Attitude 5) and various modes of mood lighting.

For about USD11.50/hr they will mike the drums and guitar amps, DI the bass, record the rehearsal and cut you a CD of the raw tracks at the end.

There are a few quality issues - cheap cables, blown horns in PA, flat batteries - that sort of thing, but generally it's pretty good.

Most of the aspiring young musos here can't afford their own gear or they share gear, so this is a good solution.

[bluewine]

I am in the sticks outside of Milwaukee.Their is a guy with a nice loft studio, stage lights, drums and a few amps. 175.oo a month

[Unrepresented]

We rent monthly studio space at a dedicated rehearsal facility. We pay ~$500/month. Decent sized room, A/C.

Previously we were renting rehearsal spaces by the hour, some included (bad) equipment, some just included PA.

We'd usually end up bringing enough of our own equipment in, and using it regularly enough that it made financial sense to go monthly, and have our equipment set up semi-permanently instead of having to worry about locking in a booking time, and paying out the nose for equipment we didn't use.

[whoatherechunk]

do any of you guys live in your studio spaces? hahahaha

[Unrepresented]

Originally Posted by whoatherechunk

do any of you guys live in your studio spaces? hahahaha

In a previous band that was actually not too far from the case. Frontman had put some real time into remodelling our practice studio and used it as his local hideout since it was close to his work and he lived fairly far away.

In this case, it's not a 24 lockout, they lock in after midnight on weeknights and after 2am on weekends, so it isn't as viable a living space even though it's priced like one to anyone who's not living in southern California.

[whoatherechunk]

nice. do these places usually have lots of studio spaces?