practice space

where do you practice? what various paying-for-practice-space situations have you found yourself in over the course of your musical career?

i rent out practice space and am getting ready to have to kick a dude out. i really don't want to do it, but he owes me for october, september, and 2/3rds of august! i might have let it slide even farther, but he's a drummer, and that's a lot of equipment just sitting around taking up space. have to psych myself up for that.

Last band had three different practice spaces that we rented over our history.
1. First was a tiny room with no windows and one bare lightbulb, couldn't really turn around without hitting someone with the guitar, it sucked and we moved out pretty quickly when we found our next space.
2. Second was awesome - really close to where we lived, nice big room with brick walls and good windows. There was also an in-house equipment repair guy and the owners were pretty cool. Biggest problem was it was on the fourth floor of a building and there was no elevator, so moving in and out for shows could suck pretty bad. Eventually there was a bad fire in the building, we lost a bunch of equipment (mainly due to water damage from fire hoses) and the practice space people closed their business.
3. Last space was OK, again it was a decent size and had windows, but the building was scuzzier and in a pretty dangerous neighborhood (our drummer evaded an attempted mugging right near the end of our time there) that was a longer drive from our homes. The owners were also pretty shitty people, after we rented it we found online complaints about them not giving back security deposits and sure enough we were never able to get them to refund ours despite multiple calls, emails, and letters.

My band rehearses at the guitarist's house, he lives in this amazing sort of open warehousey Ikea-riddled space that used to be an Op Shop, so theres room for us all to spread out (here's the lads going at it)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/q83/s720x720/1381429_10151614990122757_726644258_n.jpg

I do worry his neighbours hate the loud drumming - even tho its an electric kit we crank it up p loud. I've recommended we start doing proper sessions with real drums in a rented rehearsal rooms. Seems p affordable.

Me personally as I just sing/play keys at home I just do my doodles in my room at my desk :)

practice spaces i have had:
1. a small room in the back of an arts space I managed that I had to myself. not soundproofed, so couldn't practice when there was a show, but i had to work all the shows so it wasn't an issue. Major plus is that I was there all the time so I didn't have to make a separate trip to the practice space when I wanted to practice.

2. shared practice space with a regularly changing group of other musicians and bands. paid $60/month. Was good when there was plenty of room in the schedule. Got to a point where 2 newcomers booked all the weekday evenings so it was hard to schedule practice time with bandmates who had 9-5 jobs. did not practice as often as when in previous space. Also, a yoga place opened around the corner and the parking got shitty, and it was very much "hip white ppl problems" when I had self-righteous indignation that I had a greater right than the yoga people to parking so I could practice music.

3. shared practice space in show space run by an 8 person co-op I am a member of.

I have had to evict ppl from practice space situations, and it sucks, even if the ppl turn out to be assholes

I like reading these stories.

My old country band that I was with for many years practiced in tons of spaces, most notable tho was the stint in MY PANTRY. it was so cramped that we could signal changes by elbowing each other! A terrible but wonderful time. I kinda cherish the memories of that tbh, though at the time it seemed really dismal and depressing.

We also practiced in a sardine can storage unit that was extremely hot in the summer and extremely cold in the winter. We shared it with lots of other bands that were our friends. I have no fond memories of that place.

There were others, none interesting, mostly rooms in our houses.

trayce's practice space looks very well lit and spacious, compared to what I'm used to

I love this thread gr8 idea rox!

The band I was in in college practiced in a frat house basement, which was pretty much like what you would imagine a frat house basement would be like (gross). Our drummer was in the frat and we would often have to go upstairs and spend half an hour waking him up for practice.

My post-college band practiced in an outdoor storage unit - the kind that's basically a bunch of garages. No heat, no a/c, one outlet coming out of the ceiling. Lots of local bands practiced in that storage space facility. The nice thing about it was it was in the middle of nowhere so there were no noise issues.

Currently I practice (and have practices) in the basement of the house my gf and I are renting. It's a finished basement, and I've never gotten any neighbor complaints.

I've been in bands that practiced in artists' studios (cramped, as the artist was a sculptor), and plumbing supply warehouses (great sound).

Previous residence was a small house in the middle of an auto salvage yard. No neighbors within earshot, sometimes had 2am band practices, was glorious.

Current space is the spare bedroom of my house, but when we're playing with our drummer we're usually renting something. Annoyingly, the spare bedroom doesn't have enough space for a drum kit, otherwise we'd put everything in there.

Previous practice spaces over the years include several different painting/photo studios, a converted garage, and a martial art studio for kids.

We're having practice space issues. Used to share a bungalow in the middle of nowhere with our drummer which was great cos we turned the garage into a practice studio, but the landlord decided to sell the house in the end. Then we started practicing round his new house and his housemates eventually had enough and pulled the plug on us. Now we tend to do a bit of acoustic practice at mine (which is still too loud for our neighbours at the best of time, or have to hire space at one of the local studios which becomes rather an expensive business and involves a lot of logistics in moving equipment about.
Roxy, renting-out space is a good idea. How does that work?

idk do you mean renting space for yourself to practice in, or renting out space you own to others for them to practice in? i have experience with both. right now im renting out space to others.