# City Drummers: How do you avoid noise complaints?



## Ordacleaphobia (Feb 2, 2016)

Hey dead board, how's it hanging.

I know there's got to be more than a few people here like myself that play drums as much as they play guitar (or more so), and of those people, I'm imagining most of you have neighbors. I'm moving back into the city from the middle of nowhere. I am used to having 20 acres in between myself and my would-be-police-calling-complaining neighbors. I'm also going to be renting, so the extensive modifications to the room you would do if you owned the place will not be possible. 

So my question to you is, how do you manage to keep a manageable sound level? Is a basically treated room enough to avoid complaints when playing during reasonable hours? Is it Roland or bust if you want to play after 10pm and don't have college students as neighbors? In addition to figuring out my own plan of attack, I'm just generally curious about how you guys are set up.

What are your guys' situations and how did you sort them out? How reliant are you on having chill neighbors?


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## gnoll (Feb 2, 2016)

At my parents place, I used to just not play late at night and never had complaints... I did run into a lady at some point who asked me if it was me or my brother who played the drums, and I said a bit awkwardly that it was me, worried that I'd be told off about it. She just smiled and said something like "oh, we hear it all the time, it sounds cool!"

Neighbours aren't always that cool though. One time I had set up a temporary rehearsal space at my grandparents house for practising for a show with some friends. It went alright and complaint-free up until the final practise before the show, which we had at like 7 pm or something. My parents and grandparents were there to listen and be sort of "test-audience". Right when we had finished the set we heard this frantic banging on the door and ringing of the doorbell. My parents and grandparents ran down to the ground floor to open and outside was this lady who had gone completely bananas and was screaming about us ruining the night and how her children wouldn't get to sleep and stuff. After listening to her rant for a while my grandma apparently just calmly offered the lady some earplugs, at which point she exploded and went "NOW I GET REALLY ANGRY!!!!", smacking my grandmas hand and sending the earplugs flying. Lol.

I guess the moral of the story is neighbours differ. Mind you though, these examples were both villas. In an apartment I wouldn't play acoustic drums at all I think.


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## Metalworker (Feb 2, 2016)

I think you had it right with "Roland or bust"


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## asher (Feb 2, 2016)

It's also maybe worth just asking the neighbors "at-risk" what their schedules are/how bothered they'd be. You may well be able to find an agreeable window at which you can practice at volume while people are out/expecting it (so they can adjust accordingly)


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## TheKindred (Feb 2, 2016)

our rule of thumb is:

"If it's an appropriate time to mow the lawn, it's an ok time to rawk the fawk out"

Cities (and neighbours) make a lot of noise during the day, so I figure if one kind is ok (construction, leaf blowers etc.), then my kind is ok (drums, 4x12's etc). So far the only time we got a complaint was when we were actually using the electric kit, but that's because we were running it into a massive sub (oh those doublebass runs were glorious!) and didn't realize it was after 10pm.

tl;dr - Keep it to respectable times and you've got the law on your side.


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## boywellesley (Feb 3, 2016)

Putting up some of those sound panels on the walls is also something to think about. My old band use to play in a basement with a couple on on each wall and they make a noticeable difference outside of the house. We also took at scrap piece of Styrofoam insulation and cut it to fit in the window frame. My band mate's wife said it helped with the noise in the rest of the house too.


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## Lasik124 (Feb 4, 2016)

Roland here 

Hey, I've even gotten noise complaints for that due to being on the 2nd floor before!


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## Aso (Feb 4, 2016)

I live in an apartment with an acoustic kit. I switched all the heads to Remo silent strokes and the Low Volume Zildjian cymbals. Haven't had any complaints yet but I stick to not playing before 8am and not playing after 8pm. Adding a second bass drum later this month so the complaints thing may change and I will have to look for a practice space.


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## Mike (Feb 4, 2016)

Best I can say is know the city/areas noise ordinance, only play during reasonable hours (maybe noon to 7pm at the latest). Meet your neighbors before you start trying to play and maybe prewarn them that you play drums, but respect their opinion on the noise matter. 

Shipping blankets work better than any foam for trying to keep the sound in a little better, but nothing other than reconstructing the walls with multiple layers of concrete and other sound dampening material is going to truly stop the sound from getting out.

I switched to a Roland TD-11K recently from playing on an acoustic kit for the passed 6 years and it's definitely much quieter. Though at night when it's quiet out, you can still hear it outside like someones hammering on something. Reason for my switch is I now live by nothing but crotchety old people. Even though I may not be breaking any laws, I'd rather not have to deal with neighborhood warfare of any sort.


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## TheKindred (Feb 4, 2016)

Apartments and such can be an issue unless you're on ground floor. We tried tracking an album with an e-kit thinking it was silent and forgot that sustained double kicks is still the equivalent of jumping up and down on the neighbours ceiling at 260 BPM for 3 hours.

They...were not stoked.


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## Konfyouzd (Feb 4, 2016)

I had a neighbor that would bitch and moan no matter how I tried to work w him so I got an e-kit.


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## shredfreak (Feb 5, 2016)

I just use 3 practice pads.

Since that actually makes you practise & not dick around most of the time.

Ekit would be cool to get i guess, but if you're just going to time align everything by the end of the day you might aswell program it really.

Playing on other people's kits is something i utterly despise since everything is in the wrong place or just too damn far away for me 

Still on the fence for selling my entire kit or not since apart from the odd practise i don't really do squat anymore.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Feb 7, 2016)

boywellesley said:


> Putting up some of those sound panels on the walls is also something to think about. My old band use to play in a basement with a couple on on each wall and they make a noticeable difference outside of the house. We also took at scrap piece of Styrofoam insulation and cut it to fit in the window frame. My band mate's wife said it helped with the noise in the rest of the house too.



This is more along the lines of what I was thinking about. I haven't picked a place yet, so I wanted to bide my time as long as possible to find somewhere where I'd have the best chances at still being able to play.

Window treatments, acoustic panels, bass traps, diffusers, and padding for days are all on the table. Just don't know if it'd be enough. 

My first experience with the rental struggle was an apartment, I brought this awful e-kit with me and it both sucked to play on and irritated my downstairs neighbors. Can't really seem to win with apartments.

Really don't want to have to give up the acoustic kit though. Especially since a decent Roland kit is in the thousands. 
Interesting responses guys, keep 'em coming!


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## Mike (Feb 7, 2016)

Rent a storage unit close to your new place. Store your drums there. Play as loud as you want.


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## BuckarooBanzai (Feb 7, 2016)

I have nothing substantial to contribute to this thread since I live in a house with a basement precisely to avoid these kinds of issues, but I do think that it'd be an interesting challenge to try and soundproof an apartment room so that percussion doesn't carry.

I'd try and build a cost-effective plywood/foam platform to put the drums on so as to minimize the kick noise, then go to work with some shipping blankets (as mentioned above) and acoustic foam on the walls to deaden the rest. Acoustic foam can be found in bulk online for cheaper than the Auralex stuff from specialty sites; they just refer to it by its specification rather than by calling it "acoustic foam." I know that there are various tutorials kicking around the internet about DIY monitor isolation pads involving these types of materials, so I'd imagine that you could save a bit of coin by doing some research in this regard.


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## Smoked Porter (Feb 8, 2016)

gnoll said:


> Neighbours aren't always that cool though... lady who had gone completely bananas and was screaming about us ruining the night and how her children wouldn't get to sleep and stuff. After listening to her rant for a while my grandma apparently just calmly offered the lady some earplugs, at which point she exploded and went "NOW I GET REALLY ANGRY!!!!", smacking my grandmas hand and sending the earplugs flying. Lol.
> 
> I guess the moral of the story is neighbours differ. Mind you though, these examples were both villas. In an apartment I wouldn't play acoustic drums at all I think.



Sorry, nothing to add here, but that's just a hilarious story.


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## Royal Reserve (Feb 11, 2016)

I've had more problems with my roland kit than with an acoustic. 

You think they are silent but in an apartment every pad and kick hit transfers directly to your neighbours ceiling. So if you get an apartment ground floor is the only option. The problem with ground floor though, its easy to see what you have and to break in to steal it. Happened to a buddy, twice.

What I've learned over the years is when comes to neighbours, be polite, but don't make compromises. If you offer to play at certain times, or at certain levels, it can backfire on you. I've given out my phone number to call or txt if its a bad time, and guess what for some people its always a bad time. If you're both renters, go on with your art and they can pound salt. I once had a chick come up yelling and screaming about her PHD thesis she was working on, my responce was I was also working on my PHD of rhythmic studies. (that was with the roland kit)

I've also had a neighbour in a basement suite under us come up pounding on our door at 7pm wondering who was playing the drums.. Ended being my classically trained GF on a keyboard with weighted keys. You think drums are bad! Thats alot of pounding through the floor. We didn't know what to say as there was no drums, ended up putting her keyboard on a stack of foam to lessen the transfer, but once you compromise, they want more and more.

One other thing. Don't suck. I know its practice, but if you're just doing rudiments over and over or play poorly, people get pissed. I found playing to a PA or loud stereo even better so they can at least hear the context even though you might raise the vol a few dB's.

Now that I'm 30 with a house, I play more than I have since I moved out of my parents place. Go figure.

I like the practice pads idea, save your kit for rehearsal at a rehearsal studio or storage container.


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## noise in my mind (Apr 6, 2016)

gnoll said:


> At my parents place, I used to just not play late at night and never had complaints... I did run into a lady at some point who asked me if it was me or my brother who played the drums, and I said a bit awkwardly that it was me, worried that I'd be told off about it. She just smiled and said something like "oh, we hear it all the time, it sounds cool!"
> 
> Neighbours aren't always that cool though. One time I had set up a temporary rehearsal space at my grandparents house for practising for a show with some friends. It went alright and complaint-free up until the final practise before the show, which we had at like 7 pm or something. My parents and grandparents were there to listen and be sort of "test-audience". Right when we had finished the set we heard this frantic banging on the door and ringing of the doorbell. My parents and grandparents ran down to the ground floor to open and outside was this lady who had gone completely bananas and was screaming about us ruining the night and how her children wouldn't get to sleep and stuff. After listening to her rant for a while my grandma apparently just calmly offered the lady some earplugs, at which point she exploded and went "NOW I GET REALLY ANGRY!!!!", smacking my grandmas hand and sending the earplugs flying. Lol.
> 
> I guess the moral of the story is neighbours differ. Mind you though, these examples were both villas. In an apartment I wouldn't play acoustic drums at all I think.



yeah, but did you .... on her doorstep?


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## Lax (Apr 6, 2016)

Roland Vdrums, especially with the jamhub for silent rehearsing


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## bostjan (Apr 6, 2016)

Lots of styrofoam and a curfew on practices.


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## MajorTom (Apr 17, 2016)

The drummer of the band I'm in used to live in a flat that was almost on the center floor of the building. He kept two drum kits in the flat, an acoustic kit, and a Roland electic drum kit. To get around any noise complaints he would basically use common sense, don't use the acoustic drum kit too early in the morning or too late at night, and to not use them for too long at one stretch, so he would limit for how long he would play his acoustic drum kit for at a time, he would still play the acoustic drum kit he had in the flat for three or four hours a day, he just wouldn't play them for three or four hours straight.

The electric drums, which he hated, he bought so that he could both practice and play both early morning and late into the nights, he used to actually play his electric drums without bothering to turn them on, he actually played them that way the most. The room in which he kept and played his drums in was treated to a degree, he didn't spend big money nor make any permanent alterations to the room, after all he was just renting the flat so he didn't want to spend a lot of money on it and wasn't allowed to make many changes to it. He had very thick underlay under his carpets throughout the flat, and a very thick carpet thoughout the flat, he had square foot acoustic foam tiles covering all the walls and ceiling in the room with the drums, and he also had the drums raised off the floor on a platform which was from memory about six inches high, so the people living in the flat below him wouldn't be subjected to the thuds and such coming through their ceiling.

I know the platform he kept his drums on was insulated, I don't know the specifics about how he made it and what it was insulated with, I can find out for you, but I would imagine that it would of been filled with some form of sound insulating foam, but like I said I can ask him and get the specifics if you want. 

He never received a noise complaint while he lived in the flat.

He has now bought a house, and doesn't have to worry about noise complaints anymore. The whole having to worry about noise complaints and the difficulty in taking drum kits to gigs and rehersals, the length of time it takes them to set their drum kit up and break it down again when they are finished really makes me feel sorry for drummers and glad I didn't take them up.


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## FILTHnFEAR (Jul 11, 2016)

Best bet is to find a house, sound treat the drum room as best you can, and know what the noise ordnance is. If it's before noise ordnance there isn't much your neighbors can do. Besides think you're a dick, of course but oh well. What's more important, their opinion of you or being able to do what you love?

Playing drums, electronic or acoustic seems like a nightmare in an apartment. And I could be wrong, but I don't think the noise ordnance principle matters in an apartment, they can shut you down any time if your playing drums. Especially acoustics. 

I'm pretty fortunate. My drummers house has train tracks on an embankment behind his house, and a neighbor on only one side opposite of where his drum room is, and lives on a really busy main road. On top of all that, we have foam panels on the walls and put carpet and padding down. 

We can jump on the drums, crank the 4x12 at 3am, loud as we want,and never have a complaint. Some times you're just lucky.  We is blessed.


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## Ebony (Jul 11, 2016)

Playing drums in an apartment is simple.

You just have to kill everyone else living in the building, soundproof the basement, play between 1pm and 4pm, and use mutes, brushes and soft beaters. 
Then MAYBE you avoid complaints.

Seriously though, even the pad I used to practice with my hands was sometimes too much. I tried rigging up once, after 3 minutes of snare drum with a mute I got complaints.
But I lived in a tower block where you could hear the neighbours peeing, once got armed police on the door for playing Anaal Nathrakh too loudly...
So if you live in a better isolated building, electric kits may work.


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