What type of building are most people out there in? I just got thinking about it today because I went to look at a loft space that was very cool but, unfortunately, suffers from what seem like common problems with loft spaces: inadequately insulated walls, with lots of visual artists in the building who prefer things to be quiet.
Someday, I'd love to be a stand-alone building that's 3,000 sq. feet or so, but in Boston, that's a tricky proposition. Christina Files' comment in the last issue about recording being less affordable in Boston because of the high cost living hit home for me.
I'm curious if there's a trend with people having good luck in any certain type of real estate situation: rural barns? urban industrial spaces? mixed-use storefront type buildings? Especially anything that can bridge the gap between getting out of the basement, developing a client base in some sort of lower rent situation, and then someday getting into the studio of your dreams once you have some financial security.
Do tell!
What kind of building are you in?
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David Piper
- gimme a little kick & snare
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A.David.MacKinnon
- ears didn't survive the freeze
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+1 for edge of town industrial space. Used to be our family's custom wood window and door manufacturing facility. Now we lease out the wood shop, use the offices and I keep the warehouse for storing a little bit of product and some furniture and the free space I record in and store my gear.
I'm flanked by a Buddhist temple, a community garden and a small army of crackheads and crazy homeless people. This neighborhood used to the Chinatown in Salinas that John Steinbeck wrote about.
I'm flanked by a Buddhist temple, a community garden and a small army of crackheads and crazy homeless people. This neighborhood used to the Chinatown in Salinas that John Steinbeck wrote about.
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David Piper
- gimme a little kick & snare
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A.David.MacKinnon
- ears didn't survive the freeze
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trodden
- on a wing and a prayer
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i picked "my house" though it is not mine... i'm a renter, and i live with the landlords..
Has been pretty good for the past 4 years, but it is nearing time for me to move on.. Its starting to effect my relationship with them in a negative way, always having people over, even though its usually only once a week.. but I'm tired of having to walk on egg shells whenever i want to track a band and hearing people talk shit upstairs when i turn the heater off to do a vocal take.
kinda starting to make me panic.
Has been pretty good for the past 4 years, but it is nearing time for me to move on.. Its starting to effect my relationship with them in a negative way, always having people over, even though its usually only once a week.. but I'm tired of having to walk on egg shells whenever i want to track a band and hearing people talk shit upstairs when i turn the heater off to do a vocal take.
kinda starting to make me panic.
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xhavepatiencex
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buzzaudioguy
- gettin' sounds
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I'm upstairs from a mexican resturant/music venue. I'm actually across the hall from the green room for the bands playing downstairs. I usually don't have any bleed issues because I just try to avoid tracking quite acoustic projects while there's a metal band pounding downstairs. Plus I do most of my sessions during the day anyway. But having a bar downstairs is definitely handy, as well as the cheese dip!
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DrummerMan
- george martin
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My recording spaces since starting to seriously pay attention to the process:
1) My bedroom in my old brooklyn apartment. I lived by myself and was fortunate enough to be in a small corner building that shared walls only with a warehouse and and alley way, so flanking sounds weren't an issue. I was lucky enough that the only other tenant in the building was one of my best friends who was also a musician who I played with a lot. He lived upstairs. Downstairs was a plumbing dispatch office run by my landlord. He didn't care what kind of noise I made.
2) My landlord moved his plumbing dispatch office a couple years later, so I took over rent on the downstairs commercial space and built my first studio. Didn't do much in terms of soundproofing because I figured my apartment was going to be the only one effected poorly by it. The problem came when I started renting out rehearsal time to some other bands to offset the rent. THEY played fucking LOUD!!!!! Of course, my apartment shook from the bass and the PA cranked way up, but also my upstairs neighbor's place too. I felt really bad about that, though he never gave me too much shit about it. It was still an undercurrent strain on our friendship though, I think.
3) Left that whole building on bad terms a few years later and found a warehouse building in DUMBO that was starting to rent out loft spaces for a decent price. Went in on it with a friend who's band I played in. When I moved in, I asked the building manager if soundproofing was necessary. She said "no need", so I did very minimal work to it. The first 6 months were great. There were a few people on my floor, but they didn't seem to mind. I did most of my recording at night, and most of the other businesses were daytime hours and went home at 5 or 6, so it worked out well. Eventually, though, the floor filled up with tenants. More artists working at night, a couple more "studios" with poor/no sound isolation so there was a crapload of cross bleed going on, and even a few people illegally living there, so I'd get knocks on my door when trying to record some drums at 11pm from people complaining that they were trying to sleep. My general answer was "screw you, this is a commercial building. I'm working...", though I said it in a much nicer way. This just got worse and worse. The building manager started calling me with complaints and when I reminded her what she said about soundproofing when I moved in, she denied ever saying such a thing. I toughed it out in that space until the wife and I decided to move out west.
4) Living room in our L.A. apartment. Fine for what I've mostly been doing for the past year, but limiting, especially with a crawling, knob-turning, stuff-breaking little 1 year old crawling all over the place. Can't leave drums or mics setup. Have to pull the boy away from the gain knob on the pre I'm using before he turns it up so loud that I have permanent hearing damage, then deal with the ensuing tantrum because I took him away from "his" toy.
5) My new attempt at a good situation.... the studio in a trailer. With all the mistakes and good things that have come out of the last bunch of recording situations, I'm hopeful that this'll work... for me and my situation, that is. L.A. seems like a good place to do this kind of thing. Boston might be tough.
Ideally, I think that, in a major city like yours, it's good to find a place that you plan on being in for a LONG time, then taking the time and investing the money to soundproof it correctly so you don't have to have the worry about bothering other people affecting your creative flow.
1) My bedroom in my old brooklyn apartment. I lived by myself and was fortunate enough to be in a small corner building that shared walls only with a warehouse and and alley way, so flanking sounds weren't an issue. I was lucky enough that the only other tenant in the building was one of my best friends who was also a musician who I played with a lot. He lived upstairs. Downstairs was a plumbing dispatch office run by my landlord. He didn't care what kind of noise I made.
2) My landlord moved his plumbing dispatch office a couple years later, so I took over rent on the downstairs commercial space and built my first studio. Didn't do much in terms of soundproofing because I figured my apartment was going to be the only one effected poorly by it. The problem came when I started renting out rehearsal time to some other bands to offset the rent. THEY played fucking LOUD!!!!! Of course, my apartment shook from the bass and the PA cranked way up, but also my upstairs neighbor's place too. I felt really bad about that, though he never gave me too much shit about it. It was still an undercurrent strain on our friendship though, I think.
3) Left that whole building on bad terms a few years later and found a warehouse building in DUMBO that was starting to rent out loft spaces for a decent price. Went in on it with a friend who's band I played in. When I moved in, I asked the building manager if soundproofing was necessary. She said "no need", so I did very minimal work to it. The first 6 months were great. There were a few people on my floor, but they didn't seem to mind. I did most of my recording at night, and most of the other businesses were daytime hours and went home at 5 or 6, so it worked out well. Eventually, though, the floor filled up with tenants. More artists working at night, a couple more "studios" with poor/no sound isolation so there was a crapload of cross bleed going on, and even a few people illegally living there, so I'd get knocks on my door when trying to record some drums at 11pm from people complaining that they were trying to sleep. My general answer was "screw you, this is a commercial building. I'm working...", though I said it in a much nicer way. This just got worse and worse. The building manager started calling me with complaints and when I reminded her what she said about soundproofing when I moved in, she denied ever saying such a thing. I toughed it out in that space until the wife and I decided to move out west.
4) Living room in our L.A. apartment. Fine for what I've mostly been doing for the past year, but limiting, especially with a crawling, knob-turning, stuff-breaking little 1 year old crawling all over the place. Can't leave drums or mics setup. Have to pull the boy away from the gain knob on the pre I'm using before he turns it up so loud that I have permanent hearing damage, then deal with the ensuing tantrum because I took him away from "his" toy.
5) My new attempt at a good situation.... the studio in a trailer. With all the mistakes and good things that have come out of the last bunch of recording situations, I'm hopeful that this'll work... for me and my situation, that is. L.A. seems like a good place to do this kind of thing. Boston might be tough.
Ideally, I think that, in a major city like yours, it's good to find a place that you plan on being in for a LONG time, then taking the time and investing the money to soundproof it correctly so you don't have to have the worry about bothering other people affecting your creative flow.
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DrummerMan
- george martin
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trodden
- on a wing and a prayer
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You nearby the RWAKE/Downtown Music folks?buzzaudioguy wrote:I'm upstairs from a mexican resturant/music venue. I'm actually across the hall from the green room for the bands playing downstairs. I usually don't have any bleed issues because I just try to avoid tracking quite acoustic projects while there's a metal band pounding downstairs. Plus I do most of my sessions during the day anyway. But having a bar downstairs is definitely handy, as well as the cheese dip!
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buzzaudioguy
- gettin' sounds
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Haha! No, but not far from there. I'm actually above Juanita's if that means anything to you. I do know those guys as well as the venue. They actually moved next door from their old spot to a bigger, cooler spot. Very cool place!trodden wrote:You nearby the RWAKE/Downtown Music folks?buzzaudioguy wrote:I'm upstairs from a mexican resturant/music venue. I'm actually across the hall from the green room for the bands playing downstairs. I usually don't have any bleed issues because I just try to avoid tracking quite acoustic projects while there's a metal band pounding downstairs. Plus I do most of my sessions during the day anyway. But having a bar downstairs is definitely handy, as well as the cheese dip!
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