bass in apartments

[ugo]

Consider buying a house and having equity, instead of flushing rent money down the loo?

i've certainly been thinking about it. i just wasnt in mental/financial position that i felt comfortable doing it right now. (as low as rates have been.) perhaps next year though.

of course, its extra tough to buy a house in my area because the prices are rediculously high. the average home price in my county is over $500,000 now. its insane.

-ugo

[bduffy]

i've moved to a 3rd floor apartment and i'd like to know if there is anything i can do to minimize the amount of bass the people below me might end up hearing.

Consider buying a house and having equity, instead of flushing rent money down the loo?

Not so fast: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/lo ... mailedlink

I'm holding off on buying - the world is too nutty right now, could totally backfire.

[rogerperrin]

At one time I had a 4 track studio in my apartment and had the same problems. Here's how I was able to put a full drum trapset into the apartment and none of my neighbors even knew we were playing. It's a bit long winded but here's how:

Bear in mind that there are 3 paths that sounds can be transmitted to your neighbors ears. Floors, walls, and ceilings. Funny but true. These are your 3 main problem paths.

First, floors: I found a bed mattress large enough to hold the drumset and laid it on the floor. cover the mattress with plywood. Build a structure from 2x4's, similar to wall construction, (framing style construction), and lay it down on top of the plywood. Now lay down another layer of plywood on top of the 2x4's. Of course all of this should be nailed together. Place drums and amps on the raised platform and play. Ask your neighbors how bad your sound bleeds into their apartments. Problem solved?? NO!! - see next paragraph:

Wall treatment. For minor bleeding you can hang heavy quilts on the walls. For major bleeding you can measure plywood a few inches taller than your ceilings and wedge the plywood into the wall with the top of the plywood touching the wall and the bottom spaced away from the baseboard. No need to use nails or even attach this way. Cover the plywood with heavy blankets or carpet remnants . voilla (hopefully this will seize a small bit of nirvana for your personal use.)

Ceilings: (I didn't have to go this far, thankfully.) Cover some sheets of plywood with pieces of carpet and hang the plywood an inch or two from the ceiling. Preferably find the ceiling joists and put eyescrews in the joists, drill holes in the plywood and use wire or 1/4" cord to hang the plywood - carpet side probably down. If there is too much dead sound you could put the carpet side up toward the ceiling.

All, and I mean all speakers, however small should be placed on layers of foam rubber or pillows, or hung from the ceiling. For my large, top-heavy monitors I built small platforms similar to the mattress idea but not as extreme. You just want the platform to be, say, 3" wider than the speaker base so the speaker won't wobble. Just use one layer of plywood on top of a layer of foamrubber mattress.

This stuff worked like a charm for me and gave me a great amount of personal nirvana, knowing that I could mix songs at 2:00am and not arouse the neighbors at all.
I know there are professional (expensive) materials to do all of this, but my method lets you use common building materials sold anywhere you live.

Maybe this will give you some ideas.

[/b]

[james0tucson]

i've moved to a 3rd floor apartment and i'd like to know if there is anything i can do to minimize the amount of bass the people below me might end up hearing.

Consider buying a house and having equity, instead of flushing rent money down the loo?

Not so fast: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/lo ... mailedlink

I'm holding off on buying - the world is too nutty right now, could totally backfire.

General statistics are from the point of view of the builders of burbclaves. The only thing they measure is "new construction" in places where (I hope) you don't even want to live.

There's much more to real estate than "construction."

I recently bought a house where one of my main criteria was "within walking distance of a university, a second-hand bookstore, and an independent bakery."

Real estate statistics don't measure the value of these criteria, because they *can't* be measured in a way that's meaningful to anyone other than myself.
Since everyone else seems to be looking for "large as possible", and "built this year", and since they all seem to be people who would not kill themselves rather than drive in traffic two hours a day, there wsn't much competetion for my house.

Something else to consider. The people who bought when prices were low, got their loans when rates were incredibly high, and end up paying just as much.

Even if you don't expect to "make money" on property, even if the property *depreciates* $15000 per year, you come out ahead of rent.

Believe the hype if you want to, but don't deprive yourself of a better life because you're afraid you should hold out for a more advantageous deal. That strategy can backfire too, and it has for many people.

[james0tucson]

of course, its extra tough to buy a house in my area because the prices are rediculously high. the average home price in my county is over $500,000 now. its insane.
-ugo

Of course, just a few hundred kilometers from you, [edit, time flies] five months ago, I saw main street store fronts going for $10,000, and two-story houses with acres of land in the $60,000 range.

I saw this with my own eyes, in July, in Richwood WV. I even got to talk to the mayor of Richwood at length. Here is a town that's desperately trying to get artists to come to it, with a very cool mayor, and nobody's taking them up on it.

I know, realities, etc. But you could be setting up your studio in its own building, and hanging out on your farmhouse, for a tenth of what it costs to live in a townhouse in Georgetown.

Who's insane?

[bduffy]

i've moved to a 3rd floor apartment and i'd like to know if there is anything i can do to minimize the amount of bass the people below me might end up hearing.

Consider buying a house and having equity, instead of flushing rent money down the loo?

Not so fast: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/lo ... mailedlink

I'm holding off on buying - the world is too nutty right now, could totally backfire.

General statistics are from the point of view of the builders of burbclaves. The only thing they measure is "new construction" in places where (I hope) you don't even want to live.

There's much more to real estate than "construction."

I recently bought a house where one of my main criteria was "within walking distance of a university, a second-hand bookstore, and an independent bakery."

Real estate statistics don't measure the value of these criteria, because they *can't* be measured in a way that's meaningful to anyone other than myself.
Since everyone else seems to be looking for "large as possible", and "built this year", and since they all seem to be people who would not kill themselves rather than drive in traffic two hours a day, there wsn't much competetion for my house.

Something else to consider. The people who bought when prices were low, got their loans when rates were incredibly high, and end up paying just as much.

Even if you don't expect to "make money" on property, even if the property *depreciates* $15000 per year, you come out ahead of rent.

Believe the hype if you want to, but don't deprive yourself of a better life because you're afraid you should hold out for a more advantageous deal. That strategy can backfire too, and it has for many people.

Thanks for the advice. This is, of course, totally OT, and complex, so hard to go into it here. My wife and I are not buying right now because of a bunch of things, but I suspect my less-than-stellar credit rating would line me up for a very repressive bank loan, if I were to even get one, so I don't think it'd be wise for me to buy right now. What I'm worried about is that if I buy and take out a mortgage at a certain interest rate, and the bottom falls out of the real estate market - which it will - that my mortgage payments will jump outrageously. I have read many articles about that, that first-time home-buyers are susceptible to this and is in fact what many real estate developers are counting on.

Anyway, I don't want to be some statistic on the roadside of the free market economy. I don't know what "hype" you think I'm buying...Morgan Stanley isn't exactly a reactionary left-wing commune...but I do a lot of research into corporate/elite/Wall Street economic cons, and it seems to me that the bubble is propping up a seriously sagging economy. I just don't want to be a part of it.

And I don't have enough cash for a friggin house anyway! And in all fairness, if my money comes together and a nice place comes along, I will be open to buying. I'm just a little freaked out by global happenings.

[Roman Empire]

What about the technology that´s been discussed here where the sound is beamed into the ears? That should solve all such problems!

[ugo]

At one time I had a 4 track studio in my apartment and had the same problems. Here's how I was able to put a full drum trapset into the apartment and none of my neighbors even knew we were playing. It's a bit long winded but here's how:

thanks for the info. thats pretty impressive that you were able to keep them from hearing a kit. hopefully thats more than i'll need to do (no real drum kit here, only a midi kit.) i guess i'll try a few things and then see what the neighbors say. (i forgot...in this apartment i've also go neighbors on other sides of me now too, not just below.)

Of course, just a few hundred kilometers from you, three months ago, I saw main street store fronts going for $10,000, and two-story houses with acres of land in the $60,000 range.

wow, those certainly are excellent prices. i've known several people who have moved out to west virginia in order to get less expensive property. i live on the eastern edge of loudoun county now and i work 45 minutes further west, in purcellville, making it even that much closer to west virginia. however, acording to mapquest, richwood is over 5 hours from here. thats much further south and west into the state than i had in mind.

although there is a chance i could stay with my current job and work from home, i'd likely have to get a new job...and whats the job market like in the middle of west va?

I know, realities, etc. But you could be setting up your studio in its own building, and hanging out on your farmhouse, for a tenth of what it costs to live in a townhouse in Georgetown.

Who's insane?

point taken, and moving to the country is certainly something i've considered...particularly since its not like i take much advantage of my proximity to DC. (though i am going to the bauhaus show in maryland tonight.) i do wonder though if i'd miss being closer to the shopping and few activities i do occasionaly take advange of around here in the DC suburbs.

when i was a kid, i lived in sperryville VA for around 6 months. (a little town at the edge of the blue ridge mountains.) as pretty as it was, and although i didnt have music to take up my time then, i remember thinking it was a bit of a drag out there.

unfortunately, all the places i know i actually would like to move to are all even more expensive than where i already am. (like hawaii or SF.)

maybe i should start taking vacations to places that are cheeper to live in case i find a place i want to move to.

What about the technology that´s been discussed here where the sound is beamed into the ears? That should solve all such problems!

-ugo

[Roman Empire]

I couldn´t find the thread, but I prolly didn´t try hard enough.
Here´s a webpage anyway which seems to belong to a company who manufactures this kind of technology:

http://www.holosonics.com/

[androidlove]

my dad made house payments for a looonnnng time. when the house was paid for, he died. he spent buttloads on upkeep and repair. i pay less per month renting. upkeep and repair are free. and, a crew takes care of my yard

[jackson]

unfortunately, all the places i know i actually would like to move to are all even more expensive than where i already am. (like hawaii or SF.)

Yeah it's rough out here in the Bay Area. We just moved here and everyone keeps telling us to buy buy buy, but I can't fathom how the prices here won't hit a peak sometime in the next few years and drop drastically. I mean, $500k for a 1 bedroom dump? How is that sustainable?

When we do decide to buy, I've got a pretty good feeling we'll move out to the country (but as close as possible to the city still) or overseas. We have three citizenships between us, so we can move to a bunch of other countries easily.

Mike

[bduffy]

I couldn´t find the thread, but I prolly didn´t try hard enough.
Here´s a webpage anyway which seems to belong to a company who manufactures this kind of technology:

http://www.holosonics.com/

Yeah, that's real. My boss showed me an article on that, like, a year ago or something. And I seem to recall some concern about advertisers being able to project their ads at you...

[Amberience]

I'm leeching off the taxpayers. w00t.

[eduardo_b]

thanks for the replies. i had a feeling there wasnt much to be done.

A lot of the problem comes from only one or a few bass frequencies that resonate with the room and thus the walls and floors. I've found that when you EQ out the problem frequencies, not only does the amount of problem bass go away, but all the bass actually sounds tighter and much more like it does in properly tweaked live setups. If you take time to notice at live concerts where sound reinforcement is done right, there's lots of bass, but despite the volume it's not boomy or mushy. You can either buy a sound meter from Radio Shack for $40, also buy a test CD for setting up sound systems and EQ the problem frequencies, or you can use a favorite CD and play with the EQ. You might be surprised how much better many of your CDs will sound. Try playing with the frequencies between 80 and 240. If you can afford a parametric EQ, you can be more precise, but I've had good results with regular graphic EQs. You may find that the right and left channels need different settings, so avoid EQs that don't have left and right channels.

[ugo]

I couldn´t find the thread, but I prolly didn´t try hard enough.
Here´s a webpage anyway which seems to belong to a company who manufactures this kind of technology:

http://www.holosonics.com/

interesting stuff! i wonder what the sound quality and frequency range is like...as in, does it still sound good? if the system sounds good, and if it eventually hits the consumer market (and at consumer prices), that really might do the trick for home/bedroom studio musicians.

i did a search too, and ran into a thread with an mp3 of samples that sound like they are above you, even through normal headphones. not that those samples will help with bass and the neighbors, but it was cool to hear.

A lot of the problem comes from only one or a few bass frequencies that resonate with the room and thus the walls and floors.

proper EQ's is something i really need to learn more about. (along with all the other mixing and mastering techniques.) however, you could only use that technique you mention for playback right? (like with cd's or a home theater.) if you tried mixing with that EQ setting, wouldnt you be tuning your mix to the room and running the risk of making the mix sound messed up in any other room/environment?

on a partially related note, i read a short article in sound on sound about new jbl monitors that supposedly can tune themselves for your room. (for stereo or surround.) cool idea, if it works.

-ugo