Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

My band rehearses in our bassist's basement, which is approximately the size of a shoebox. There are four of us and we all have microphones, but the feedback is so uncontrollable that we can't have all four on at once. EQing doesn't help the situation and we can't get the volume out of the PA speakers high enough to hear the vocals over the instruments (drums included). It's just a nightmare.

One problem that comes to mind is that the room is not acoustically dead. I believe a rehearsal space should be as acoustically dead as possible, right? We don't have any carpeting on the floors, the walls are bare and there's no batting or anything on the ceiling to absorb the sound, so we've got one badass echo chamber. One solution would be to lay some material that will absorb the sound, but I don't know what's out there that's safe (i.e, fire-resistant), effective and inexpensive.

There's also the issue of how the amplifiers and microphones are configured, but I think we've done our best to deal with that so we're not feeding a mic directly back into a PA speaker.

Any thoughts on how I can make this tiny basement more band-friendly? We're starting to lose our minds...and our hearing!

- Keith

 

[aleclee]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

Have you considered not using a PA and just going with in-ear monitors? Not only will that eliminate feedback, in-ears also double as ear plugs so the volume getting through to your ears will be more reasonable.

 

[Pink Unicorn Horsey]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

Is that a cost-effective solution?

(Man, did I just sound corporate there or what?)

 

[tone4days]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

not only is it 'cost effective', it reduces room clutter, improves the ability to hear the music so as to play better / sing more in-tune / etc ... it is also better for your hearing ...

another option is to look into a 'feedback destroyer'

hanging some very inexpensive carpet on the walls can help too ... go buy the cheapest carpet 'remnants' you can ... even very cheap carpet on the floor will help too


good luck
t4d

 

[ksmith63]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

carpet works wonders. what about fiberglass? doesnt that absorb sound too?

 

[aleclee]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

Is that a cost-effective solution?

Wired in-ears aren't that expensive. What's your hearing worth? It's possible for a single feedback event to cause permanent hearing damage.

 

[aleclee]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

what about fiberglass? doesnt that absorb sound too?

It does. As a bonus, fiberglass fibers cause a variety of respiratory maladies.

 

[ksmith63]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

It does. As a bonus, fiberglass fibers cause a variety of respiratory maladies.

i've always wanted some of those!

 

[D-EJ915]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

Bookshelfs with varying sizes of books in them help a lot too, but might not be the best idea there...

as for the carpet/thick blanket idea for the wall, that's a good one. If you've ever had a bare bathroom and then put carpets on the floor and towels on the wall and around you'll know how much it helps.

 

[MikeS]

Re: Help with a Poor Man's Rehearsal Space

I'm experiencing the exact same issues with a studio rebuild right now (both sound quality and sound isolation). I can give a few pointers based on some of the research I’ve done the last few days, but I’m by no means an expert.

If you contact Auralex (www.auralex.com) they should be able to help you out with your room (supposedly, calling them is on my list of things to do today). Depending on how big the room is, you might be able to go a long way in deadening the room for under $500. Not sure if that’s in your budget or not…

Fiberglass batt insulation works to attenuate air-borne sound transmission, but only if it’s exposed. The minute you put drywall over it you’ve essentially wasted your dough. For safety reasons, you don’t want to expose that stuff in occupiable space.