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won't freak out and call the cops all the time. I can't turn my amp down enough. I took window units out and I am thinking of making framed foam things to place in the windows during playing hours. I have a neighbor who's a mean old witch and she politicizes the neighborhood while she is standing outside smoking. I don't socialize so she wins. Everybody hates us just from one old lady's spite.

Anyone know what the legal home player decibel level is? If I could buy a meter and prove I am below it that would be real funnnnnn.

On top of plugging up your windows, you can always try buying a bunch of foam. I used to get those foam mattress pads and cut them up to fit around my room, especially on my door. Do you live in a house or apartment building? Is it just your amp, or are there drums involved? If you guys have drums, I don't think there's much to be done....

Also, I assume you don't play into the night, right? I try to kill it by 9ish since I have an upstairs neighbor. If your other neighbors are relatively reasonable, you can try talking to them to see what they think. I've had an instance dealing with grumpy, controlling old people, and they basically won't bend unless you can pull some legalese on them. Good luck!

get an isolation cabinet and run the output of it to some studio monitors/small speakers/headphones??

im thinking about doing that soon. this is the one iso cab im looking at: https://www.jlhproducts.com/comersus7f/ ... dProduct=1

its expensive, but it would be worth it in my living situation and it'd be ideal for recording into an interface.

Make sure that your amp is off the floor. A lot of what they can be hearing are vibrations coming through the floor, rather than the sound actually coming out of the speaker.

Kill them.

hclapp219 wrote:Make sure that your amp is off the floor. A lot of what they can be hearing are vibrations coming through the floor, rather than the sound actually coming out of the speaker.

Oh yeah. That's a good one. Also, a cheap trick I use when recording is to wrap one of those foam pads I mentioned around the amp like a little wall. It doesn't super-drastically reduce the sound, but it muffles the hell out of it for sure. Plus you won't get as much string sounds and pedals clicks in your recordings. If you were to lift the amp off the floor as well, it might bring the sound down even more.

Thanks guys, all good advice. I would kill them, but there's so many. But if there was a way to pin it on the old lady that would be swell.

Josh Pelican wrote:Kill them.

Use their bodies to muffle your sound.

perhaps there's a way you could baffle the neighbors. a red rubber clown nose?

I think I did baffle my neighbor when she came over by not telling her to go to hell. I was actually nice and told her I'd try to cut the noise. I think I baffled myself but she was a decent sort of young woman and mother and I have this thing for women in general. If it was a guy I probably would have hefted the axe I keep right inside my door and split his forehead. But the best offense is in fact to baffle the other team. And the best way to baffle most people is by having actual decent intentions. I spent so many years high that now I might as well try mighty, aye?

Try making a deal with them.

Are there certain hours you find yourself playing? Or do you just plug in whenever you've got spare time?

I keep working hours - 9-5 while my wife's at werk.

I'm sure you can work out something out with them. I don't know what it's like down there, but around here we are legally allowed to make noise until a certain time of day.

He has an agreement with the woman (lawyer) that lives below him. Monday through Friday, he can be as loud as he wants between 9:00-5:00. She's pretty chill about weekends. Saturday nights, he's usually partying until the early hours of the morning.

I can tell the old lady isn't as nice, but try to make an agreement. I'm sure the police agree you're allowed to play during the day. Better than you riffing at 2:00 in the morning!

Haven't put it to the test really. Not yet. We have a subpolice dept for 'quality of life' issues. They don't get filed directly into police reports just passed down the line. fwiw