Need advice ASAP - Band moving in together, practice space, and e-drums galore!

[Dave Muscato]

Hey folks,

I could use some advice *soon.* Thanks in advance for your help.

My drummer, Jake, and I both have leases ending on the 31st (in a week!), and the more we talk about it, the more we realize that we would like to get a place together. We have known each other for 15 years and played together 6 of those, so I'm not worried about this being rash. Our singer/guitarist (we are a trio), Church, will likely be moving in when his lease is up next May.

The problem is finding a place where we can practice. We have a couple of options:

1) Find an apartment, condo, duplex, etc and have Jake use an electronic kit for practicing. In our area, for a 3 bed (1 for Jake, 1 for me, 1 for practicing, until Church moves in - then we'll practice in the living room), 2 ba apartment, we're looking at about $4-700, which is about what we can afford. This would require the purchase of an electronic kit, but there are plenty of places in town at this price with great amenities (exercise room, high-speed internet, etc).

2) Find a house with some acreage, which would cost quite a bit more (the cheapest we've found would be $900 for a 3 bed, 2 ba on 5 acres, others were $1000-1200). We would also have to factor in extra gas for the fact that it's ~15 more miles away from town, and we would have to pay more for trash service, internet access, etc.

3) Option 1, plus rent a practice space elsewhere instead of practicing @ home with an electronic kit. We've tried to find something like this in the past, but without much luck. There are no commercial practice studios in Columbia, Missouri, and none of the local music stores have anything like that available. Also, we really greatly prefer to practice at home, without making an appointment or having to be restricted to business hours. We definitely don't want to leave our gear in a storage unit or some other non-climate-controlled space. I'm not sure that this is really an option considering the available facilities in our town.

Jake is not thrilled about the prospect of using an electronic kit for practicing, and a dirt-cheap one, as I understand it, is no less than $500 + shipping.

I would rather practice with his acoustic kit, too, but I can deal with it if he can. In a previous band with a different drummer, we actually practiced for a year using an electronic kit with acceptable results.

My take on it is, the cost of the e-kit will be recovered in 2-3 months if we find someplace cheaper, not to mention gas & other expenses that go along with living outside the city limits. I like playing with my Schroeder 21012L (1000 watts RMS, baby), and our guitarist *loves* his hand-built Zinky 25-head + 2x12 cab, but just for practicing, I'd rather save some $.

What do you think? Opinions are greatly appreciated.

Where do you guys practice? I'm interested in any & all input. We've got less than a week to figure this out.

Thanks very much,

- Dave

[CoolHat]

I can´t really say much about your living arrangements, but I´ll say this about electric drums: I´ve tried those dirt-cheap kits and they are not a realistic option IMO. I´m no drummer, but even I instantly realized how awful feel and playability those sad rubber pads have. And of course the sounds are pretty horrible too.

To get anywhere near the feel of real drums you´d need an upper class Roland kit with mesh-head pads, but those go for like 2000$+.

Just my .02, perhaps your drummer could do it, but no self-respecting drummer I know would go anywhere near those cheapo electric kits.

[rap138]

rent the house, no extra spending on an electronic kit, and 15 miles is nothing compare to what you save on rent.
good luck,

[Dave Muscato]

Rap, the problem is the reverse, unfortunately. A house outside of town is easily twice the rent of an apartment in the city. That's why we're trying to figure out a way to practice & still live in town.

- Dave

[derrico1]

Originally Posted by CoolHat

To get anywhere near the feel of real drums you´d need an upper class Roland kit with mesh-head pads, but those go for like 2000$+.

Just my .02, perhaps your drummer could do it, but no self-respecting drummer I know would go anywhere near those cheapo electric kits.

+1 to the preference for mesh, but you can put mesh heads and triggers on just about any acoustic kit, go through a trigger-to-MIDI interface, and trigger studio quality samples out of Battery or somesuch.

If you already have acoustic drums and a computer, there's no reason cheapish can't sound quite good. In fact, with good samples, a mesh head and trigger set can sound like studio playback.

The downsides: a mesh heads & triggers kit won't have all the dynamics of a regular acoustic kit, you won't likely be able to play 32nd-note figures on the floor tom (the vibrations on a 16" head will cause double-triggering if you set the decay short enough for really fast single-drum patterns), and the hi-hats will feel limited.

If you can't swing the scratch for a country house, in your shoes I'd try a kick trigger, mesh head toms and (dual zone) snare, along with the drummer's regular cymbals played w/ hot rods. (For late nights, you can pick up a set of Pintech trigger cymbals.) That way, you get a volume control on the drums most likely to rattle the neighbors' teeth without the drummer feeling entirely like he's playing a toy.

[Dave Muscato]

Thanks for your input, guys.

I'd like to avoid changing heads everytime we gig, though. How about drum mutes (rubber pads)? We're not so much worried about getting authentic drum sounds as we are just being able to jam & lock in at any hour.

Would it be more practical, perhaps, to sound-proof a room? Off to Google I go...



Dave

[Dave Muscato]

Originally Posted by Dave Muscato

Would it be more practical, perhaps, to sound-proof a room? Off to Google I go...



Dave

Ha! I knew that was too easy.

So, where do you all practice? Just fishing for ideas, here...

- Dave

[derrico1]

Originally Posted by Dave Muscato

I'd like to avoid changing heads everytime we gig, though. How about drum mutes (rubber pads)?

I'd go with a beater set of shells (can be had anywhere for cheap) rather than rubber mutes. The shells don't have to sound like anything acoustically, because the mesh heads won't ring them.

I went the soundproofing route in a rental house once during grad school. Trickier in an apartment, because you'll need to keep the acoustic energy from traveling through ceilings & floor. The effective soundproofing solution is a "floating" room-within-a-room, built within a good-sized interior room (if your apartment will have one).

You'll want to run HVAC (lots of flexible conduit because short/straight runs will compromise your soundproofing more). Unless you're a registered electrician, you'll need to spring for labor to run juice from the "shell" room to the rehearsal space.

In short, it's a solution -- but not one for every situation, not exactly cheap, and a fair bit of work.

[louieeadg]

I know your situation fairly well. Where I live its cheaper to live downtown than it is to find a house in the sticks. I live by myself downtown but where we practice is a walk away(about 8 blocks) Our drummer's grandfather left him a house when he died so we have this 1920 something house we practice in! Equipped with bats and everything(anyone pm me for interesting "bat facts") Its on the water and the whole house creates a giant boombox effect...it gets loud. But there are no neighbors on the right and left side and none of the other residents complain. That's my situation, on to you...

Alright, you're going to have to decide which you prefer. In a situation like this you think your saving by renting for quite a bit cheaper in town, save gas, e-drums, yadda, yadda, right? Think about this...you get a condo, apartment, whathaveyou, and you get your e-drums. If you ask a drummer who's ever played on those things, you have to get primo nice ones with the mesh-heads like everyone's stated above or the drummer will hurt his wrists. Those rubber things have no give. I played them for about 30 minutes one day and I couldn't play bass after that b/c my wrists were so stiff...anyway. You're not going to have as much freedom as you think in an apartment. ESPECIALLY when you say you'd like to just play whenever the urge strikes you(which is highly important for creative ventures). This isn't going to happen in an apartment unless you soundproof a room which takes quite a bit of work, materials, and you'll still mainly kill the vocals and guitar. People will still feel that bass and drums. So by the time you spend all that time and money on soundproofing junk, labor for the electrician, AND that's only IF the owner of the apartment will let you do that, and don't forget that you're going to have to take all that crap out when you leave, so by the time you do all this, $1000 for e-drums, doctor bill for drummer's wrist, ATLEAST $1000 for soundproofing, plus you still won't be able to play whenever you want....you could've moved out to the house with 5 acres on it, have no soundproofing junk, and play WHENever you'd like. Plus, just ask the guitarist if he can throw in a few bucks a month...its going to be his "rehearsal" space too right? 3 people splitting the house shouldn't be too terribly bad...plus you'll live a little bit of the "starving muscian's" life! Ha...and you'll realize why they're so good at their music...they play music to try and forget they have no food!

There you go, that's my angle. Sorry for incoherent ramblings but -eh. Good luck. I vote house.

cheers
lou

[chakah]

i vote house. my band practices at my house right now. we normally practice from 7pm - 10pm at so far no problems with neighbors complaining about the noise. And this with a drummer who has one volume - LOUD.

[jasonbraatz]

Originally Posted by Dave Muscato

Ha! I knew that was too easy.

So, where do you all practice? Just fishing for ideas, here...

- Dave

Both of the more "serious" bands I've been in for the past seven years have rented rehearsal spaces, and it's been great. I feel like getting out of the house and going to the rehearsal studio puts me in "work mode" much more than rehearsing at home. Most recently, Freighter had a space in a purpose built rehearsal facility, but before that the other band was just renting out the basement of an office building. We couldn't rehearse there during office business hours, but that wasn't a big deal as everyone worked then anyways.

Maybe check with some of your local commercial real estate agencies to see if they have anything similar?

[FriscoBassAce]

What about getting a house close to town that is in a neighborhood? I used to practice with an old band in the guitarist's living room....we didn't play super loud, and you could barely hear anything out by the street or the neighbor's house.

Just a thought...there oughtta be some cheaper rental homes around the area...you could get some soundproofing stuff or maybe build you a "floating" space inside the house over time (don't have to do it all at once).

My current band rehearses twice a month at a full-blown rehearsal studio by the hour. It's very cool because we rent the big room with a stage, lights, and a complete PA and we can work on our show as well as the music. That cost's us $80 for a three-hour block, which is only $20 a man.

[mikeyswood]

Has anybody mention bookshelves?

Line the room with bookshelve and great sound reducing stuff like books. If you can get a top or bottom floor in a corner you will be more popular. Also, invite your neighbors over. It will do WORLDS of good.

Also, living and rehearsing in a small space like that is a great chanve to practice dynamics; after all, anybody can play loudly.

My $.02,
Mike

[theshadow2001]

I like the cheap drum kit sticking the mesh heads on them and use triggers. You could even plug the band into a mixing desk (no amps) and practice with head phones on. That would give freedom to practice when ever and at whatever volume you deem fit.

If you guys have been a band for a good length of time and plan to live together and be a band for the foreseeable future it would probably be worth while investing the $$$$ in a decent home set up that won't get you in trouble with those living around you. Which in the long term will save you money. All the costs of living in a more expensive area or renting a spot to pracitice will add up in the long run.

[fenderhutz]

Digital Kit
Headphone mixer

Get the apt.

Problem solved.

[spudmaster34]

the MF stupid deal of the day is an electronic kit with mesh heads, if you got it today you could save a few hundred bucks. Just a thought http://www.musiciansfriend.com/stupid

[TrooperFarva]

You can rent a 3 bedroom house for $900? Damn dude, I can't even rent a 1 bedroom apartment around here for that price.

[TrooperFarva]

Originally Posted by spudmaster34

the MF stupid deal of the day is an electronic kit with mesh heads, if you got it today you could save a few hundred bucks. Just a thought http://www.musiciansfriend.com/stupid

Careful, the sound module isn't included.

[bass349]

yeah i lived with a drummer for a few months and those drum mutes really won't do the trick if you're sharing a wall with someone and want to practice at night. especially the bass drum - still seems to send a pretty big boom that travels through walls!

during the day we would use the mutes and use a little mixer with headphones for my bass... seemed to work alright i guess.

one thing to remember is that all kits - even electronic ones make some noise.. and if your sharing a wall or two in an apartment, it's very possible that the kit could be setup very close to where the guy next door is trying to sleep. imagine a guy smashing a rubber pad with a mallet in the next room while you're trying to sleep - it's definately still audible!

best thing i could suggest is that wherever you end up get really friendly with your neighbours! invite them over, tell them that you're a musician and be super considerate. the neighbours i've had (moved house 5 times in the last 4 years) have always appreciated this. give them your number and say to call if it gets too loud etc.

for me, since you asked, been lucky enough to always scam rehearsal space at the fully equipped rehearsal rooms at the Uni where i study (or.. used to study...). which is great cause all the amps are there and we only have to bring our instruments in! have had to dodge security a few times because 4 of the 6 members of the band don't go there anymore haha.

best of luck with it though.. hope it all falls into place for you. be sure to keep us updated with what you end up doing..

andy

[MoD_Scotty]

I'd definitely opt for the house. It's a little more, but the ability to play whenever you want and however loud you want is SOOO worth it. I've pretty much tried every scenario that has been listed in the previous posts, and I've found that it's just way better to be able to practice at "stage volume."

Electronic kit or not, if you live in an apartment, you will more than likely run into issues with neighbors. That's added stress that no one needs.

There are other benefits to living in a house. Like house PARTIES. Having a yard. Not worrying about people messing with your car in the parking lot. Etc, etc, etc.

^My 2c.