That's great, love it!
You get a lot more if you try a friendly approach like you are doing. People are more likely to be tolerant (within reason) when they know you and have some kind of rapport with you.
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Please help me keep the lows in my own house
- Thread starter Riff Ranger
- Start date
That's great, love it!
You get a lot more if you try a friendly approach like you are doing. People are more likely to be tolerant (within reason) when they know you and have some kind of rapport with you.
While it's interesting to know the actual sound levels (at what frequencies are you measuring 'though?) I would not use 'the law' until all other avenues are exhausted. If a neighbour is genuinely bothered, even if you're within what the law allows, it's still sensible to work together and compromise, in my opinion. A neighbour that hates you can make life very unpleasant, and I want peace in my home. Pick your battles carefully.
I haven't read all the posts. . . . . . . have we ascertained whether it's the volume that is causing the problem or the songs the OP is playing?
I wasn't sure because your first comment was to turn down or use headphones, which I specifically asked people not to suggest because I already knew that those approaches would work and how to implement them. The point of the thread was to determine other feasible alternatives. I think we determined several pages ago that, in my case, there really aren't other feasible options. The discussion continues, which is fun, and I'm here for it, but in my case we're just waiting to see whether neighborly harmony has been restored.
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it appears to me, from this chart, that in this jurisdiction there is no time in which it would be legal to operate a lawnmower or string trimmer if it's gasoline powered, at least not in a residential area. That would be fine by me.
The timing aspect did occur to me right away, but so did the many factors that @pcake and others have mentioned: a number of other neighbors that haven't said anything may also be annoyed, each with their own schedules and concerns, and I don't want to bother anybody. I neglected to mention earlier that I worked overnight shifts once upon a time myself, and while I didn't expect quiet during the day while I slept, I respect that more people than usual are spending more time (often working) at home right now. I also neglected to mention that I never plugged in before 9am or after 8pm, FWIW.It took 300+ responses for someone to observe this -- the note said that the writer wanted piece and quiet after work. It was in the OP...seems like an obvious accommodation.
I can't say that I'm surprised that the new amp didn't make any difference -- that's a little bit of what we call "seeking an electronic solution to an acoustical problem." But good luck, OP...it sounds like you've got the right attitude about it -- unlike some folks, many of whom I'm glad are not MY neighbors.
The classic Peavey cabinet and the brand-new Traynor were both on the way before I got the note, neither intended to solve this problem, haha! The Peavey cab completes a collection of sorts, while the Traynor solves the problem of my older combo fizzling out.
No, no head to head, lawyers, courts, should never have to come to that. The OP should also not have to take the crappy advice of 'just use headphones' either. I just think he has his own house and he's allowed to play his amplified bass within reason. The whole sound meter thing for me was enacted by the actual cop who came out to shut my band down that night, and the cops used their own meter. Maybe they thought it genuinely was a case of just a cranky neighbor and our sound was not that loud. I would have never thought of it myself and that probably would have been the end of our band practices at my house. I just think the OP should get a baseline of where he needs to be using a meter for his own knowledge, which he can translate to a number on his volume knob never to exceed so as to not bother the neighbor, but the neighbor should not dictate to him some ridiculously low level he needs to be at either.
Isn't that crazy? So if you look at it that way, the neighbor could use the ordinance and call the police and ask them to use their sound meter to take readings of the obnoxious lawnmower, which clearly would exceed the ordinance level. Who writes this stuff anyway..
One band I'm in converted an isolated light building to rehearsal room. Isolated meaning that our starting point was from the start double walled with some thermal insulation between layers. Basically we did - what was proposed some pages back in this thread - build a room in the room with inner walls and ceiling of double layer of overlapping plasterboards, well supported with lightweight steel profiles. Floor was floating - and needs to be.
To stop long wavelengths you need to make everything airtight. Tight materials and tight joints all over. Don't forget the door - which is needed so you can get food in also needs to be completely air tight. If you intend to have a ventilation shaft have a valve on it so you can close it while you play.
So - if has nothing to do with amp gear. The only kind of gear which helps considerably is an speaker stand which will throw the soundwaves directly into your own face, as this means you will be forced to reduce volume but it will still be loud to you - which seem to matter. You are on a tight budget but your $$$ will take you a long way if you can use mostly 2nd hand materials and do the work yourself.
Almost forgot: We played loud and never had complaints - afterwards that is
To stop long wavelengths you need to make everything airtight. Tight materials and tight joints all over. Don't forget the door - which is needed so you can get food in also needs to be completely air tight. If you intend to have a ventilation shaft have a valve on it so you can close it while you play.
So - if has nothing to do with amp gear. The only kind of gear which helps considerably is an speaker stand which will throw the soundwaves directly into your own face, as this means you will be forced to reduce volume but it will still be loud to you - which seem to matter. You are on a tight budget but your $$$ will take you a long way if you can use mostly 2nd hand materials and do the work yourself.
Almost forgot: We played loud and never had complaints - afterwards that is
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Our local municipality has grappled with sound ordinances for a long time -- at least 35 years to my direct knowledge. I used to be able to dance around the ordinances a bit because I had a good (enough) meter and knew how to use it. I also knew of some deficiencies in THEIR meters that I was able to exploit. When the city finally began to get serious about it, they got really serious -- they purchased multiple B&K SPL-logging systems that record data every 15 minutes in one-twelfth-octave bands, beginning at 16 Hz. There is definitely no fudging that system -- but we WERE able to confirm that our directional sub array deployed at an outdoor festival was working as intended. That was data that would have been difficult to acquire otherwise.
Airtight, and also rigid, high mass construction. If the wave front can move the structure, it will transfer the wave back into the air on the other side of the walls.One band I'm in converted an isolated light building to rehearsal room. Isolated meaning that our starting point was from the start double walled with some thermal insulation between layers. Basically we did - what was proposed some pages back in this thread - build a room in the room with inner walls and ceiling of double layer of overlapping plasterboards, well supported with lightweight steel profiles. Floor was floating - and needs to be.
To stop long wavelengths you need to make everything airtight. Tight materials and tight joints all over. Don't forget the door - which is needed so you can get food in also needs to be completely air tight. If you intend to have a ventilation shaft have a valve on it so you can close it while you play.
So - if has nothing to do with amp gear. The only kind of gear which helps considerably is an speaker stand which will throw the soundwaves directly into your own face, as this means you will be forced to reduce volume but it will still be loud to you - which seem to matter. You are on a tight budget but your $$$ will take you a long way if you can use mostly 2nd hand materials and do the work yourself.
Almost forgot: We played loud and never had complaints - afterwards that is
This is why speaker builder go to great lengths to build rigid, braced cabinets when bass frequencies are involved.
Someone may have said this already, but I'd try and social engineer a solution. Invite your neighbors to see your rig and give them a demo from ground zero. Talk over a solution with your neighbor. Letting them know you want to be a good neighbor is key. Let them help you come up with a solution. Help steer them in a direction that YOU want. Help them to have reasonable expectations.Moderators: the Amps/Cabs forum seemed like the best fit for this, but obviously we have more to consider than amplification here; please move this to Live Sound or elsewhere if more appropriate, with my thanks and/or apologies.
Contributors: I have read a bit about this subject on TalkBass and elsewhere, but obviously do not have a comprehensive knowledge of the topic or what has already been said on TalkBass. I hope you will kindly provide advice with my specific circumstances in mind. I would strongly prefer to solve this problem by containing my sound rather than changing or eliminating it. In that light, please do not suggest turning down, using headphones, or radically altering my settings. I can figure out any of those approaches easily enough on my own if containing my current decibels and frequencies proves infeasible. I can probably spend up to 500 USD if necessary.
With the preliminaries out of the way:
2020 forced an unexpected and unwanted major relocation upon my family, but at least we landed somewhere wonderful. We moved from a very rural location to a relatively dense neighborhood of single family homes in a college town, and I have literally no complaints about my neighbors. I wish they could say the same about me! We found this on the door this evening:
View attachment 4032003
The care they took to put this as kindly as they did indicates just how good we have it with neighbors, I think. (I suspect that this would have come up in an equally friendly conversation if not for the ongoing pandemic.)
I DO NOT want to be "that guy" around here, but I would rather not retire my big iron. Can I contain my sound? If so, how?
I currently have things set up like this:
View attachment 4032008
Things I have tried:
•1x15 solid state 80w combo on a stand facing the outside wall. This seemed unobtrusive until that 30-year-old combo stopped working.
•Tube 200w 1x15 combo on floor facing outside wall, or solid state 200w head w/1x15 cabinet on casters facing outside wall. Perhaps not surprisingly, these setups seem to project into my neighbor's home
Things I could do now but have yet to try:
•I could put my extremely heavy tube combo on the stand.
•I could face any rig in any other direction.
Fun things on the way:
•I have finally cracked and will receive a brand new 200w Class D combo with a neo 1x12 by the end of the week. I can easily put that on the stand.
•I also have a period correct 2x12 on the way, but unless I use it as a somewhat expensive platform for elevating other speakers, it won't help matters.
Things I am considering that would require expenditures:
•Something other than a stand to elevate the modular solid state rig
•Gramma pads or similar
•furniture blankets hanging everywhere
•garage door insulation, if it would allow continued use of the garage door
•a (relatively) inexpensive drum booth
It also occurs to me that I probably haven't thought of everything.
What should I do?
Thank you for any helpful suggestions (or clever jokes).
Oh: nobody playing but me just yet, but my son's acoustic drums will likely enter the picture soon as well.
- Feb 12, 2006
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- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
If the meter is as inaccurate as most at low frequencies, there's no baseline to be had. When a 6dB change in LF SPL level shows up as 1dB on the meter, it again becomes a random and false sense of security.
You would be ok blasting The Spaghetti Album at full volume once a week though!
And different "tap tones" (eigenfrequencies) of inner and outer shells, skewed bracings and walls and such ...
Which is one thing we did that I forgot to mention: The sidewall were made a bit skewed - unparallel - to void standing waves. Not in the gap between the walls but the room itself.
