Do you use your garage?

Gap · Post by **Gap** » Mon Dec 27, 2010 12:22 pm

Bit of a vague question, do you utilise your garage for rehearsing as a band and/or recording?

As a wee three piece, we struggle to organise ourselves and getting to one of the two local studios is always a mission as they're a good distance away and only one of us drives! The main issue is really the plain old expense of it all. We would prefer to practice at least twice a week but the better of the two studios flat fee is Â£35 for 3 hours and we can barely afford that. Though not being too worried about money it seems to be the money could be better invested (whereas the studios still need support and are homegrown industries run by friends, they're generally always booked and fairly happy)

My thoughts of late have turned to finding a space, a disused room, friend's basement, etc, which can be 'our' space where we can leave all our gear up and/or share. Renting the thing wouldn't be an issue it's just finding a space that's not too audible to other humans!

So my thoughts have returned to an old idea about converting the garage into a usable space. I'm familiar with the amount of DIY and rockwool that'll be required but I'm curious if anyone else has tried it especially if you live in an urban abode! How you dealt with spillage, neighbours and a loud drummer!

If I can persuade the landlords (read parents) I'll be sure to document the process here...

Al_ · Post by **Al_** » Mon Dec 27, 2010 3:59 pm

It's possible to do but quite a bit of work to get a sufficient amount of isolation. You need plenty of mass (e.g., layers of sheet rock; solid core doors) along with sealing all corners and other leakage points that can let air/sound out. Then you need to figure a way to get the "box" ventillated now that you've excluded all the normal air paths. I helped a buddy of mine set up a studio in his garage (room within a room basically) and we tried to follow all the "rules"; but at the end of it all we didn't get great isolation and you can still hear the kick drum over at his neighbors house. For him it wasn't a deal killer as his neighbor turned out to be ok with it provided it's at reasonable hours. I did a similar thing in an outbuilding on my property and got pretty good isolation; but again not total. I'm in a pretty rural area though so my neighbors don't complain either. I can help with specifics and building techniques if you decide to embark on this path; though it will be fairly expensive in terms of building materials and whatnot so may end up outside your budget at the end of it all. Rod Gervais wrote a good book and studio building as well. Maybe you can get your folks on board by pitching it as a future "media room" and get them to chip in on the construction.

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Mon Dec 27, 2010 7:30 pm

You might be better off finding some sort of headphone based solution for rehearsal/writing. I've been doing this recently when writing with one of my bands and it's pretty cool. we still are pretty loud, i just mic stuff up through my pc interface and we monitor through phones. compared to a rehearsal with pa system we are pretty low volume.

Check out the 'JAMHUB'. I'm sure everyone has thought about this before, but finally somebody made it!

http://www.jamhub.com/

Gap · Post by **Gap** » Mon Dec 27, 2010 8:02 pm

Cheers for the feedback guys, I certainly like the idea of an in-ear system (something I'd like to use more live too) and a electronic drum kit is arguably cheaper than going down the DIY route. That said there's still the dream of having a 'space' as opposed to my bedroom!

Already have the folks on side to a degree as the space is useful as a guest space (or granny flat) at the moment it's just full of junk. I'm not phased by the doing the work myself (other than a sparky to upgrade the suspect electrics), it's simply the case of whether the amount of isolation would make enough difference to our neighbours! Currently the garage is simply red brick with concrete floor and fairly large roof space (plenty for storage and insulation). I guestimate any amount of insulation will shrink the amount of usable space but I need to get in there with a tape measure and clear it out.

Trouble with living on a condensed island is property is fairly dear (everything worthwhile eventually gets turned into ugly flats) so there are no derelict spaces up for grabs near enough away from humans to be utilised (I rather like Field Music and the Futureheads model, like oher bands, for sharing a space).