The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I have got a new band coming together. And that's great but we are slowly realizing that we need a place to rehearse and don't have one. So I was curious- where do the bands of Songfight make their music.

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Parker Street Cinema practices here: http://www.secretstudios.com
Bravo Bros. here http://www.rhlrehearsal.com

My recordings all happen in my computer room, where I have a more-or-less permanent studio set up.

But I play with a few bands, and in all cases, practices take place in the house of one of the members. None of us rent a rehearsal space or anything like that. It's always load in, rehearse, and load out.

I wish there was a Jamspot up here. That place is great.

I rehearse/annoy my family in my family loungeish area. It's all a big open layout, so I just kinda wander around strumming to myself and the cat. I record in our studio/study. It's more an empty room with a whole load of papers in messy piles and some recording equipment. It's not nearly awesome sounding enough. When we move house one room will probably be dedicated just to music.

One of the few advantages of living by yourself is being able to utilize space the way you want to. Well, that, and be seriously messy

The spare bedroom, where recording and formal rehearsing happens. This is the electronics corner.

Drums/percussion corner, with recording toys (computer, board, rack stuff) in foreground.

Wall of strings.

Vocal closet, literally. Used to have sleeping bags on the inside walls, but now I've just taken to moving the mike to the adjoining room and yelling into it.

Living room, where most writing happens. Violin's a new addition, still leaning on its shipping box.

Every bedroom needs a working organ. Conveniently next to the computer, for noodling whilst the old sf was hanging.

My jealousy overflows. I wish I had that kind of space to devote to doing music. Not only would the kids destroy the place but the landlord has a problem with rehearsals. That's why I'm currently trying to figure out my alternatives.

Wow, that is serious messy, RG. Though quite enviable.

My studio still crawls out of a closet at night. But now and then I have a day to myself and take over the kids' castle...

<img src="http://roymond.com/images/misc/studio_castle.jpg">

We keep our eyes open for a place with another room but that's not going to happen in this town.

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Now if I could only play all those toys to my satisfaction, heh.

Depends how much you want to spend, and how much carrying you want to do.

There are probably a few rehearsal complexes in your area where you can rent a room, full time. We used to pay something like $550 a month, which isn't too bad if you can split it with a second band, and that's inflated crazy Boston pricing. The nice thing is that you can leave all your gear there, so you aren't wasting a lot of time and effort carrying all your stuff around every time you want to practice. I'd check craigslist for your area to see if anything is available, and try asking around. These places don't usually advertize much. At least, not in my area; but again, I think that's a local supply/demand thing.

There's probably a cheapo recording studio or twelve nearby, too. Some might be willing to rent out rehearsal space by the hour, if that's more to your taste. It can't hurt to ask, and even if a place can't help you, they probably know who could.

Also, 24-hr (and non-24-hr) storage places will have units that have juice and lights, sometimes. Some of the storage places out here in Portland will cater to bands this way, and hey, who's going to complain about the noise, heh. Can't hurt to ask around.

Our 3rd bedroom in the house is set aside for one of my cats, my computers, and all my studio stuff. I haven't had to go to an external rehearsal space, and even if Siena's in bed I can usually get away with using headphones (except for vocals - that's the rub).
-bill

My first band practiced in the drummers garage. He built a small rehearsal room enclosed by insulation batts.

My second band rehearsed in a shed at a local tennis court. One of the blokes dad's had a key and we could go there at night when no-one was playing tennis..

Places are there if you look for them I suppose

It's a little messier than this with all the cables in place, but I found a computer desk at Big Lots that has been great for keeping the studio set up and ready to record whenever... I added some extra board spacers so that the keyboard tray is a little lower than normal, to make room for the PodXT and Vocalist. I guess this wouldn't work for somebody who is recording on a computer, but it works for me. Pretty much all the cabling goes through the patchbay, so if I need to patch in a piece of external equipment or take, say, the output of the Pod and feed it to the cassette deck across the room, it's real handy...



Charles (KA)

When we're not working with Ken, Erin and I do our recording in our spare bedroom:



It's pretty disorganized at this point, and there are some street noise issues, but it's good enough most of the time.

Hey RG!!! You working on a macbook?

I spy a G3 PowerBook, and possibly a mini...

I wish, Tone. (Hey! Tone! Long time, yo.) Lunkhead's got it, mini in the bedroom, same ol' G3 laptop (Wallstreet) in the yellow room. There's some other computers scattered around in that room, mostly hidden in the chaos (all in various states of disrepair, of course).

Where Octothorpe was born:


The Octobarn, practice space and studio for over a year:


Current practice space:

I think I win the award for the practice/recording space that looks the least like a practice/recording space.

iBook!!! Yep, you do at that.