What was the worst rehearsal room you ever had - and what was the best?

[BahamaDada]

So for anyone not blessed with a huge house/garage/farm to hone our art in a band setting we need a rehearsal room. The band place. The melting pot of our whole creative outcome. Or something like that.

If you are like me and we have 2 things in common, then a) You moved quite a bit throughout your adolescent life and b) you have seen and played quite some different rehearsal rooms (with different bands or not).

What got me thinking about this topic was the Fender modeler and its encoder footswitches. In no way I'd touch any encoder after stepping on it while being in our current rehearsal room.

So tell me the good, the bad and the ugly.

My example:
The best was actually my/our first *real* room. It was on a farm the other guitarists family lived in. Cows, chickens and goats anywhere. We had a little room with a wood oven (Had to chop wood in fall/winter) and the whole room was actually concrete. With some old dusty carpets on the floor. Back then it did annoy me, but looking back it was the best. No other band, animals to see, no "dirt" other then a cow sometimes shitting while going from one pasture to the next.

The worst was in my twens when we had a tiny space in the cellar of a "youth center". It was full of mold, dirt and sometimes puke. The room was at the end of a "party room" where some people often partied at the weekend. Never saw anyone there. When we got there monday we could just tell from the leftover bottles and glasses. Our bass player one time slipped on some puke from a party before and almost broke his arm. These are the times, that make you glad for some things you have now! :-)

 

[DrewJD82]

Fortunately I've been fairly lucky with this, despite having those 2 things in common.

The worst was a finished room built into a garage, the room itself was fine but there was no heating or cooling in the place and it was in Massachusetts. We had a space heater in there and usually someone would fire it up an hour or two before practice, but if you didn't you'd walk into a 15 degree room and my lord, hitting your fingers on anything felt like they were going to burst.

If you can see your breath, it's too fucking cold for band practice!

 

[sleewell]

Worst was like a disgusting cement room in a basement. Dudes house was filthy. The basement flooded when it rained hard and he'd never clean up. He had cats so their litter box was down there and obviously they didn't keep up on it. The acoustics in the room were horrible. Only jammed there a couple of times and the bassist was like yea we should jam at my house lol.


Best is our current spot. High ceiling so you can jump around. Lots of space. We have couches down there, going to get a mini fridge soon. The room actually sounds good and just has a good vibe.

 

[itchyfingers]

There's a pretty popular rehearsal room rental spot here in town that's been around for as long as I've been here. They have shitty amps and 4x12s in every room, PA, stands, mics, cables, and a drumset that needs cymbals. Honestly its super convenient for band meetups and not too expensive when you divide it up amongst the band, but the place is pretty nasty. Who-knows-what-stained couches in some of the larger rooms. Nasty sticky carpet. The mics were the grossest; the mesh was always filled with gunk and food particles - like straight up disgusting. I've owned my own mic ever since seeing one of those, always in my gig bag. Anyway, we had an epidemic of hoof in mouth disease in San Diego, and no surprise - this rehearsal spot was like a super spreader site. It was those nasty ass microphones!

Spot that my band rehearses in now is pretty cool, its the singer's living room in Oceanside. Big open space, probably three stories tall. Doesn't record well, but it sounds pretty good in there, and has a chill vibe with all the artwork and wood beams n shit.

 

[Bruce]

Not too long ago we couldn’t get our usual good room so picked another studio. It was actually a very well equipped recording studio. Their rehearsal room was a nightmare. Some old 6 channel PA head, every pot was scratchy. Everything in that room was old, dirty and just gross. Couldn’t run our IEMs, not enough channels. I tried hooking up my board and the noise was terrible. Ran my board into a Marshall MG which sounded like dogshit, but was perfectly matched to the room we were in.

 

[la szum]

6'3" in the basement of an old house with low ceilings. Yikes! Still trying to work off the those concussions.

Been super fortunate since those days. Past 20 years had nothing but big, open spaces.

Have done the living room thing a few times here and there and that blows hard, too.

Whatever it takes to rock! I try and remember when I was young and was just happy to be able to
play guitar, and then to play with others. What a joy! Been blessed. Shove me into the bathroom if
ya have to!!

 

[fretworn]

Chicken coop, slanted roof. Drummer sat under the low bits, bass player, singer and I took the tall sections of the room.

 

[BahamaDada]

Chicken coop, slanted roof. Drummer sat under the low bits, bass player, singer and I took the tall sections of the room.

Holy moly! Need to be Angus Young to rock out in that place.

 

[HotRats]

The best one has been the 5x5 mt room in our basement, my parents let me turn into a rehearsal room when I was 16 (more or less).
With the help of my band mates and my older brother we put a wooden floor, polystyrene on the walls, carpets, ecc, lights and electric sockets.
The drummer made a small stage for his drumkit.

We played there for 8 years and that's the place where I've spend tons of hours every day writing music, learning drums and how to record music properly.

30 years later I've been in a band that had a really nice room in a farm. Big cool place filled with sound treatment material, Nice vibe. Decent sounding.

Had a couple of other ok places during all these years but nothing like the first one.

Worst one is a rental place with small rooms with broken equipment, mics that smell of years of spit, alchol and I'don't wanna know what else.
I've been there few times with a band I've left quickly!

 

[megametal7]

Worse was one of the studios with mouldy walls and fucked up gear…. Stank as well…. Now its closed down…

Best one ??? Yet to play one … I always find something to bitch about…. lol

 

[Bruce]

Honorary mention. There was this place in Astoria Queens I used to rehearse in. They had this one smaller room with a 100w dual rec half stack. Man that thing sounded like lukewarm ass no matter what knobs I twisted. It was just THAT amp in THAT room did NOT work at ALL.

 

[cragginshred]

Worse was 105* temps in Fresno garage in HS -no AC and crappy singer

2nd best is my studio mancave 12 x 24' room with heat and AC -no Marshall fridge yet

Best is current one- huge room super clean, not too loud. Drummers shop/mancave/rehearsal space!