Small Drum Room

Started by blueshadow on 22 July 2014. 0 replies.

Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 19545.

Hi, First post on this great forum. I’ve read a lot and learned a lot and still don’t know enough I’m sure! I’ll first apologize for being vague and for any stupid questions. I am only in a planning stage to see if I can even accomplish what I need/want. I live in a small house in a neighborhood. I don’t currently have a dedicate practice place to drum. I’m considering 2 options and hoping for an opinion of which would be most cost effective and get the best isolation. I’m probably not as loud as some drummers. For home or small clubs I use a kit with smaller sizes 18” kick, smaller cymbals etc. and I’m not a hard hitter. Typically go through 3 pairs of sticks a year (50 gigs a year) I do realize that drums are loud even if I’m not a heavy hitter and that I’ll probably need a room within a room to get any acceptable amount of isolation. Not as worried about quality of sound in the room as isolation from neighbors. Either option would still be close (less than 25 feet) from a neighbor’s house. I don’t plan on playing at 3 am either, that’s when I sleep would mostly be 2 or 3 times a week and never past 10 pm. I don’t know what would be an acceptable amount of noise. We’ve had full band practice in our living room in the past and one neighbor said she did her yard work and enjoyed listening to us. She also said she couldn’t hear us inside her house. I would think that would be acceptable to hear me if they were outside but not inside their home. Option 1: We have a two car dry walled, attached garage, concrete floor. I’d like to still be able to park our small car so I’d only use half the garage and still leave access for the garage door to be operational. Basically at rough measurement I could get about a 8x10 finished room figuring on 2x6 construction of the drum room with 2x4 staggered studs (if that’s what you suggest). Option 2: We are considering a 10x12 storage building built on concrete, I’d assume I could get the same 8x10 used area built inside of this but I haven’t done much calculating. This option would leave our two car garage open and would give me some isolation from our own home. More on Option 2, going to go look at TuffSheds this weekend. They do somewhat custom, so what could I ask them to do to the outside structure that would help in my effort? If any? http://tuffshed.com/ Also I know I don't list a budget, and I appologize but I don't know, the shed portion would be financed and then interior would be done by myself and a helpful handy man or two friends, and would be probably $2 - 300 usd per month to completion, but I don't really know how much that will be. For HVAC ideally thinking of the Mitsubishi, Pioneer or similar minisplit system. Edit: as I read more today this won't work as far as getting fresh air in. So would look at maybe the portable air conditioners? Heat, I'm in Texas, maybe need heat for a month out of the year and could probably drum enough to warm up the place. Appreciate any input.