A Milestone Achieved!

It has been a very exciting and stressful week here at Moon Door Studios. First, we were able to successfully launch RAMP Fitness, that included getting the YouTube channel up and running, getting a better grasp of Instagram and Facebook and of course getting another Podcast out for people to enjoy. So far the response has been pretty damn good and I am extremely proud of what we were able to do. However, that is not the achievement I am referring to in the total of this post…

Oh no what I was referring to was my first official noise complaint! Ah yes, in my 40 years of living I have never gotten one until this week. I will say this also came as a shock to me. Here is a little context:

I built the studio last year right before my 40th birthday in order to record with my brother and my friend. After that I was playing drums, making some tunes. Keeping in contact with the neighbor right next door, making sure I was giving them respect. Luckily that relationship has been really good so far. Fast forward about a year and things have changed.

First off the neighbors I mentioned, still great. Nothing has changed there thankfully. The space went from just being a place where I would come to practice and do my thing to an official business, registered and all. Also, this pesky COVID-19 thing has come up.

With COVID, life has changed for us like most people. Specifically with work and my ability to practice and do music work at reasonable times. The one thing that I have kept up is my Monday drums lessons, I take them not give them. So we have had to adjust to doing Skype lessons, and that happens Mondays at 2:30 PM and last 30 minutes. So you add the few minutes I warm up before and the few minutes after the lesson is over, call is 40 minutes in the afternoon on Monday’s. Where as before if I was not traveling for work I was playing at least for 30 minutes Monday through Friday.

So to my surprise on Monday I had a neighbor complain that the drums were too loud! Now I’m not trying to be a jerk, I do respect the people around me. But come on, 40 minutes on a weekday in the afternoon, to complain seems a bit excessive to me.

See the magic unfold…

This was the first text I got. Obviously I was taken back by this and frankly a little bit shocked. But I knew the response would be key. And I will admit I thought about the response for a little while bore I sent it. On one hand, yes I understand it sucks to have a neighbor who is loud, in Oakland I had those, except it would start at midnight and not end until 5AM.

So after what I felt was a well crafted response, filled with empathy, offering a solution to adjust play times while informing them that I had in fact did my due diligence in getting the room “sound proofed.” I thought it was over. I was wrong, now they offered me a solution…

So when I got this message I knew exactly what they were going to send me. Having done a tone of research on what materials to buy to “sound proof” I told my wife, my bet is she means acoustic paneling…

And yes I was 100% correct in my assumption. Dear people who don’t know, that does not sound proof anything, those are mean to absorb sound to get better room acoustics. They are not a magic bullet to prevent sound from escaping, that is extremely difficult to do, especially for a home studio.

So after I was done being annoyed and laughing I let them know, thank you. The fact is I spent over $2,000 on just acoustic treatment, in addition to several thousand dollars on insulation, sheet rock, acoustic sealant for as many joints throughout the walls as I could possibly get to.

News flash, it is sound it is not going to be perfect. The thing that bothered me about this whole thing is the fact, I literally play for in total one hour a week if I am lucky and all playing is done at reasonable times. Also, the fact that my bedroom is 10 feet away were we can hear almost nothing. The neighbors I share property with will always tell me they can hear but it is not intrusive. Then I have this person clear across the street complain.

Let’s be honest, the only reason they are is because they think they can. It’s because I have a business run out of my house that is a recording studio and some people feel that gives them more leverage. Nothing more. But thank you for motivating me to play more drums now…