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Apartment practice

#42
I keep a Peavey Max 158 which is a tiny 8" bass practice amp in my bedroom and an Ampeg BA-112 on a Gramma pad in my home office. If I really want to go undetected I use headphones.

George
 
#43
Wademeister,

I have the same situation. I like my neighbor and would fell real bad if my bass woke him up.

So i just bought the Peavey Max 126. It has a 6.5 inch speaker an is only 10 watts. Only $70.

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It sounds, well, non-bassy but it serves the purpose very well and the sound grows on you.
I can play a a decent volume and NO bass vibrations are waking my friend.

Now when he's at work I crank up the Carvin BRX212 and BRX 10.2 neo's and the Apartment trusses are shaking <G>

Mike
 
#45
I totally agree that using good headphones at a low volume is the way to go. Senheisser 280's(shure's in ear series too model E2) are great. They cover your ears and block outside noise from coming in. They have good bass response and sound much better than a cheap practice amp.
You can then play softer and hear all the nuances of your bass. It's important to practice amplified. Your tone will suffer from playing without an amp. Most people will play too hard to compensate for not hearing themselves. When they play through an amp their touch will be off. Record yourself and you'll see.
Get a cheap mixer (Behringer xenyx 802) and you can run a cd player, drum machine/metronome, stereo, tv,keyboard etc For under 200 bucks (actually $160)you will have a great way to practice anywhere.
peace

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HD280Pro
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#46
i live in an apartment and have a eden nemesis 10" combo. even at low volumes i got noise complaints so i got some nice big cans for my ears and plug them in the amp. i actually like that better than just the amp alone. i can hear more details than i can through the speaker at a low volume.
 
#47
or even do this ... talk to the neighbors ... ask them to help you with testing to see if they hear or feel vibrations when running through different types of setups. Just get on their good side (I know you spoke to the manager you said) ... And let them know your attempting to remedy the problem... would like to still play your bass ...

That way you don't have to wait until a neighbor complains again to see if your setup worked .. just ask them and spend an hr or so and see if any of the above techniques works.
 
#48
Wademeister63 said:
I have nothing against research, but it seems like every time I try researching any kind of equipment I find so much information that it takes days to sort it all out. Even then the results have been hit-or-miss in my experience. I'm more trusting of info from the other bass players here like myself than I am from the general public too.

Thanks for all the responses guys, looks like I'm heading out to the headphone store tonight! I'll be sure to check out the AKG K-55's if I can find them too.
Click to expand...

I hear that, Wademeister. The only reason I tend to hold off on recommending headphones is because I believe headphones are a very personal choice; there is no universal fit. The K-55's are cheap enough that even if you do not like them personally, they are good to have around they are generally very comfortable and it is nice to have an extra set of phones around if someone comes by to jam or something.

Just watch the volume. ;)
 
#50
I use a Korg Pandoar px3b into either my computer or a set of headphones, either the ultimate ears 3 eb (maybe the le model?) or a pair of beyerdynamics. I am sure the sennheiser 280s would be great. But the key on all of this is, the pandora actually becomes MUCH more useful of a practice machine with the recording and drum machine abilities. I used it on amps some times for some of the effects, but mostly the drum machine to help my time out. that, and playing cabs at low volume don't do much for me.
 
#51
alfredpunkjazz said:
I won't put the exact link since its in Spanish, but here you have some other links that should be helpfull:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/20/electric_earbuds/

This one its very good:

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interesting:

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I think that's enough.

Actually, that thing that most people find to be "tired of using earphones" is the result of giving your ears a bad use... They are not supposed to bve used like that.
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Maybe I misinterpreted your previous post, which I thought recommended never using headphones. If so, my apologies. The articles you've linked suggest using headphones at moderate volumes, which I completely agree with.

I still think practicing through headphones, at levels that won't damage your ears, is the best way to go. I find it frustrating to try and play my Walkabout Scout at 9 pm or so at a level that won't bug my neighbors--I'm much better able to hear my playing, warts and all, through headphones.

BTW, Alfred, enjoy that SVT-VR, but watch your ears when you crank up that bad boy.;)
 
#53
If your cab is light enough you can pick up a stand at GC that will lift the speaker off the floor. This way the vibrations won't be moving through the building structure so much.

I also use a headphone most of the time I practice since my main practice time is during lunch at work. I find the headphones allow me to analyze my technique much more closely because noise from bad technique isn't masked at all.
 
#54
Wademeister63 said:
I might have had a little whoops this week. Seems two of the people in my building sent in complaints of noise. Rather vibrations I guess but they couldn't tell where it was coming from. I suspect it was from me and I told the apartment manager so and that I'd make sure I didn't do it again if it was from me. So no doubt my 15" speaker told on me even though I had it turned down to about normal speech level.

...
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Why on earth would you tell the apartment manager that the noise might have been your fault if you weren't sure???? Now, you've set yourself up as the scapegoat for any future noise...like all of your neighbors home theater systems...

Anyway, as many have recommended, this would certainly help:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Auralex-Gramma-Amp-Isolation-Riser?sku=422640

If you have one of these and the mgr comes knocking on your door, you can show them that you have a professionally designed and produced product intended to prevent transfer of vibration...
 
#55
I've got an acoustic 4 string, I practice with that a lot, and sometimes I play my 5 string Warwick Corvette $$ unplugged, but usually with headphones... When I plug in at home it's usually to tweak settings or to noodle with a new effect. No need to blow my ears out, or my neighbors for that matter... I've got my amp and sound for the most part dialed in, so I don't really need to plug in for practice.
 
#56
Luckily I live in an upper unit and the only thing underneath us are garages. I use an Eden CX110 cab for practicing at home and I have it elevated (not on the floor). I haven't had any complaints.

But when I want to really dig in and play 'loud' I actually opt for my AKG K240 Studio headphones. It's amazing how immersive a good set of headphones can be.
 
#57
Well there's several intersting points coming up in this discussion. So I'll through my hat in the ring as well. In my opinion, I have a lot of students who've been practicing acoustically - and when they come for a lesson and plug in - well everything is different and they back off. You need to practice and hear something very similar to playing live - I don't mean ear busting loud, but realistic. You need to feel comfortable with your own sound and what you're putting out - and practicing unplugged is nothing like what you do for your audience. You'll never get anywhere near the correct volume in an apartment - so headphones is probably the way to go unless you can locate the speaker near to head height and near your ears. (Decoupling the cab with foam, whatever, is a good idea, but getting the cab off the floor and up to your ears is better).

You probably gave yourself most of the answer when you said you'd never tried good headphones. Professionals wear these things for hours every day - you need comfortable professional quality headphones that cover your ears completely. Match that up to a stereo (why not have some fun as well?) foot pedal or processor and use the phones out capability - if you want to go louder use a headphone amp or your amp with the headphones plugged in. These headphones won't be cheap but nothing good ever is. Just don't deafen yourself with too much power. there's nothing quite like listening to yourself in stereo by wearing decent phones. Just take a look at photos of pro broadcasters/studio staff to see what they are using.
 
#59
Even before the great deal the Audio-Technica ATH-D40 are my fave cans for bassin' out of the many cans I've used. Don't sound hyped but have enough bass to make up for Fletcher-Munson, clean and clear and even at any volume, very efficent, and comfortable for long periods (on my head anyway):

ATHD40-large.jpg


http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ATHD40/
 

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