How do you make music with summer heat & AC noise?

[Jace-BeOS]

I've spent way more time naked in this house than anywhere else. Doesn't help when you need to sit on things that aren't made for naked skin, plus I have cats and cat hair abounds in my other floors (they're banned from the studio floor).

I've used fans. They're not quiet either, but they're less offensively noisy. They offer zero cooling, however. If I left my studio floor without AC, my equipment would be destroyed by heat, fans or no fans. In fact, I have an Amiga 1200 with melted feet thanks to my dad shutting off the AC in my house whilst I was in hospital.

My basement is utterly useless for anything but cat toilet, utility, and laundry. I cannot buy a new house (I would LOVE to relocate).

I have spent many years living in the night and sleeping in the day. This is part of my disability, actually, but living in this hellhole has encouraged it because I want to sleep through the noise and heat of the daytime during summer. Doing that in summer doesn't give me many hours of AC-free time. This month, maybe. Last month, no way. The house doesn't cool off over night even if it's cool outside. I cannot open enough windows to get air in and out because:

1. The 2 third-floor windows are entirely blocked by AC units.

2. Second floor front windows are blocked by Sheetrock (as noise-blocking plugs in my bedroom windows - this requires the third floor AC units to cool the third floor AND my bedroom across from the stairwell... which requires hanging sheets in the hallway and near one of the third floor AC units, as well as fans, to act as air conduits to move the cooler air to where I need it; moving around in here sucks).

3. The ground floor windows are useless due to assholes smoking cigarettes at all hours outside on the porch or out back (row houses SUCK for EVERY reason).

Plus, being on a day-sleeping schedule makes life so much more difficult in general. There's nothing serving night people around here. No businesses are open at those hours. The grocery stores are, but that's all. Plus, it negatively impacts socialization. I have no friends to begin with, but having a day-sleeping schedule makes random dates or gatherings really problematic.

The AC I suffer with all day on the ground floor is indeed further injuring my damaged hearing.

Of course, once summer ends, I'll hear all the other noise these assholes make all throughout the day and night. I HATE this place.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

I sit right next to the A/C, and I'm in an extended stay inn near a highway. I use high SPL in my Sennheiser HD280 Pros.

Works "good enough".

[incubus]

No music this summer. I don't mind the outside AC noise so much, but I have to keep the door to my room open or it gets very hot in there. And when people move inside the house, it's bye-bye focus.

So I just stick to demoing plugins...

How is this any different than any other time of the year? (not directed at e@rs personally )

[incubus]

1. Buy a house with a basement that doesn't leak

What is a basement?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

1. Buy a house with a basement that doesn't leak

What is a basement?

a place where the monsters live

[HeretikBeats]

I live in Denmark. Here, no-one has AC's (that I know of). Simply not necessary. Some might turn on a fan occationally if it gets too warm in the summer, but it's very rarely a problem. Actually, our average tempature of June-July 2015 (measured over 57 days by the DMI institute) was 14.1°C (57.38°F) which was the coldest for June-July in Denmark since 1996! The tempature has risen slightly in general over the last 15 years due to global climate changes, however.

It's strange, us Scandinavians, who generally import relatively large parts of North American culture and grow up with its brand-names, video-games, movies, music, cultural + political influences, etc., etc. etc. - are still unaware of such there are still "small" elements of your lives like having to live with high temperatures/noisy AC's that we never could imagine.

Off-topic question: Is that kind of heat a general problem throughout most of North America or is it only particular areas? I hope it isn't a tendency the global climate changes will bring to Europe, and in particular, Scandinavia (which Denmark is part of ).

OP: I can't offer a solution, but you have my (useless) sympathy! I also hate heat! I can't even imagine having to cool down my equipment just to keep it from being destroyed! However, I'm ATM visiting my parents, and when my father gets home, I'll ask him if he has any ideas for a solution. He's very practical and knows a lot about stuff like this. But no guarantees...

PS: This is BTW my first post on KVR (not with-counting my (very) old username which I used for a couple of posts) - woohoo!:)

Peace!

[jancivil]

I come from a place where summers are fairly brutal. The apartments I lived in, apparently my mother was wise to the gag and chose places w. central air. Still, the last summer I did there was sweltering, but another feature of these kind of joints was there was a swimming pool. I never lived anywhere in Charlotte where there wasn't, except for one place which had a lake, but that place was designed to cool out and it was the roomiest place we ever lived. I chose the SF Bay Area as an "adult" which does not typically feature AC in dwellings. I kind of liked that summer of 1980 where I made some quite humid and sultry tracks, I mean I would go jump in the cold water when I thought I was gonna die, you know. I'm bugged by car noise, alarms and gunning engines more than anything in Oaktown. I lived in SF for some 25 yrs and I swear I came to feel like 72F was godawful hot. It's het up since then with the climate change significantly.

[Jace-BeOS]

Yeah it's not just the AC noise. Vehicles and people drive me batshit too. I hate people that own motorcycles. I hate douchebags with pimped cars. But the AC noise is utterly destructive to my ability to function, all day long.

The USA has a lot of varied climates because of existing over such a large landmass, but I live in (and am financially trapped in) an area that's supposed to be what they call "temperate". Four seasons. Supposedly.

It's more like 2. It's not temperate. It's "temperamental" (or just plain bipolar). It's getting worse each year. The cooler days are usually humid, too. So every season sucks, but there are occasional beautiful days. I love some of the geography, in the hilly, or mountainous, areas (the type of place I grew up), but i currently live in a shitty little mid-urban area with no hills and almost no trees.

I wish I was born in one of those cooler and more socialist countries some of you are talking about

[Frantz]

In the New York suburbs, the insect chorus is very intense in August and September. I find these sounds more annoying than air conditioning. I took a walk around 8pm tonight and the katydids, who live in the trees, were "singing" directly in my ears.

common true katydid: http://ifasgallery.ifas.ufl.edu/entnem/ ... 141ss1.wav

snowy tree cricket: http://ifasgallery.ifas.ufl.edu/entnem/ ... 585ss2.wav

I enjoy walking around listening to bird songs but the birds are completely drowned out by these buggers.

[jancivil]

She ruled the Toads of the Short Forest
And every newt in Idaho
And every cricket who had chorused
By the bush in Buffalo

[DocAtlas]

In Germany most people don't have AC (in their apartement or house). If it's too hot, they go to the next lake instead of making music!

i didn't know that Germany commonly doesn't have AC in homes. Is the climate generally cooler?

i hate where i live. There's nothing to do here, and i have no friends locally. And no money to travel.

That sucks. I've been in that situation in the past, and there wasn't really anything I could do about it at the time. That was many years ago, though; I've been back home for about 25 years. I wish I could offer some useful advice, but short of moving (which probably isn't doable right now), there probably isn't much you can do about the lack of things to do, or people nearby to do them with.

I know professional studios use special equipment to keep heating/cooling noise to a bare minimum, but it's not a solution that most people can afford to do in their homes. One thing that comes to mind might be to do recording at night, if your schedule and your neighbors' ears permit. Back when I was working swing shift, I got a lot of my best work done after second shift. Hopefully the nights are cooler in your end of the state than the days are.

I live in western PA, and the weather is rather unpleasantly hot of late. I have my equipment in the basement, which is usually pretty comfortable. I have a fan running right now, but it isn't very noisy. If I have to record something with a microphone, I turn the fan off while I'm recording, but often in the summer, it's still cool enough that I don't need to run it.

The ironic thing is that I'm currently going to school for HVAC, and I have a split system here at home that we don't run (A/C aggravates some health issues my wife has).

Edit: I posted before I read your more recent posts, so just ignore my suggestions above, I see you've already tried them and the don't work for you. Sorry.

[NystagmusE]

I turn off my computer when it starts getting too hot and usually I'm too hot also. So lately I haven't made any music.
But I like to read music forums still and get ideas about music-making. Night time is a good time to work if you don't have as many responsibilities during the day.