Renting your Rehearsal/Recording & Mixing place?

Quai34

Junior Member
Hi Guy,
Attached are my mixing/Vocal booth place and my Rehearsing/recording treated basement (Treatment will be finished in one month). Lots of musicians, when they come in, prefer to play with my gear instead of theirsw2wàààà and really like the Quality of what we can get out of the recording system.
So, question 1:
Do you think an average of 50$ per hour would be too expensive? For each, studio and recordings place?
Question 2:
How would you manage the fact that you don't want to invite in your place some people you like really keep out of it? Like meeting them outside of your place, asking ID? Singing a little contract?
Are old musicians more prone to steal from you more than younger one? Or the opposite ? What kind of criteria/rules to list that you would start to put in place in order to help you (like a ch do lost of red flags} avoiding gear stolen?
Let me know

Mixing room and vocals recording (3.60m X 2.40m)
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Recording room (Recording room):
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Obviously, it's your place, so you get to decide who gets to rent it. You know those signs posted at businesses that say "We have the right to refuse service to anyone"? That's basically what that's saying. If you don't like somebody, then you can recommend they go elsewhere.

But if you ask me, I think you have too much stuff already set up. None of it looks like you can easily reconfigure the room for the client. Usually, places that are studio spaces only supply what the client would need. Which means alot of the gear is stored somewhere until it gets needed. What if someone wants to use their own drum set? Or they have their own computer rig playing a rack full of modules? The stuff you have set-up is just going to be in the way. The smart business model is to provide clients a list of what you have, and they can pick and choose what they want to rent (if anything). Then you just set-up what they need in the room. I think your space is a really neat personal recording space. But if I was a client, you may have things I'm not interested in using.

As far as people stealing things go, that's a case-by-case basis. I generally believe there are more nice people than bad ones - but I'm not going to make it easy for people to take things - which is another reason you store your stuff, and only bring out what they're renting. It's easier to keep track of things that way. And if you want to make it more "business-y", lose all the personal touches in the room that are personal to you (like family photos and such). Do you have a separate entrance for this basement? That would be a cool thing too.
 
Bo makes an excellent observation... "But if you ask me, I think you have too much stuff already set up. None of it looks like you can easily reconfigure the room for the client. Usually, places that are studio spaces only supply what the client would need."

We are in the same city Phillipe. I know of/use two rehearsal spaces here that charge $50 for a 3hr block of time. Both have a good selection of gear onsite. They are also open to bands bringing in their own gear if prefered. However set-up/tear-down falls within your allotted time.

For recording... I think you need to half your rate. Even then, the limitations of your space may work against you.

I have recorded demos, and full CDs, in both of the rehearsal rooms mentioned above. However nothing beats going to a purpose built studio; spaces like Bedside Studio, or Exchange District Studios.

For a little more than your proposed rate (+$10-$20/hr), bands can access those rooms. In addition to the experienced engineers, they offer a wide selection of gear onsite (from vintage to current), and flexible use spaces that can be tweaked easily (adding/removing acoustic baffels, etc).
 
Thanks Bo for this fat response and two very good point, it's our personal practice place and thus was set up the way we want but as more people are telling me that I should rent it, I came to the idea off "why not try".;but yes, it's cluttered so, that's why we put what we needed and that I didn't think about your vet good suggestions.

Yes, I could have one door, separated for the house, there is on in the back yard that could go directly to the basement if I build a small roof for it and another door coming from the house. It could be a solution as we were thinking to rent the rooms downstairs, not sure why wife will be up to that though.

I could offer to be their record staff if they want or their keyboard player if they need one, for those who did that, were you part of the proposal as a drummer too?
 
Bo makes an excellent observation... "But if you ask me, I think you have too much stuff already set up. None of it looks like you can easily reconfigure the room for the client. Usually, places that are studio spaces only supply what the client would need."

We are in the same city Phillipe. I know of/use two rehearsal spaces here that charge $50 for a 3hr block of time. Both have a good selection of gear onsite. They are also open to bands bringing in their own gear if prefered. However set-up/tear-down falls within your allotted time.

For recording... I think you need to half your rate. Even then, the limitations of your space may work against you.

I have recorded demos, and full CDs, in both of the rehearsal rooms mentioned above. However nothing beats going to a purpose built studio; spaces like Bedside Studio, or Exchange District Studios.

For a little more than your proposed rate (+$10-$20/hr), bands can access those rooms. In addition to the experienced engineers, they offer a wide selection of gear onsite (from vintage to current), and flexible use spaces that can be tweaked easily (adding/removing acoustic baffels, etc).
Hi my god, I didn't know that, maybe we met in the past in my search for a drummer, the 50$ was on the advice of a sale rep at my store but I was thinking that it could be too much.
As you are a summer in the same ton, I will ok you, thanks a lot for the reply.
 
Just to clarify, you want to rent this room:

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With all that gear, for $50 per 3-hours?

Your trust in humanity is much greater than mine.
I’ll take that surfboard off your hands. It’s in the way.
 
Yes, this room, it's small tough and what do you mean by "your trust in humanity..."? like with all that gear, people will steal or will know where it is and then, will plan a robery? That's my fear...For the surfboard, I have 2 of them, small souvenirs from my 10 years as a surf shop owner...
 
Yes, this room, it's small tough and what do you mean by "your trust in humanity..."? like with all that gear, people will steal or will know where it is and then, will plan a robery? That's my fear...For the surfboard, I have 2 of them, small souvenirs from my 10 years as a surf shop owner...
What I meant was, if strangers were to rehearse in there, you stand a very good chance of ”losing” some equipment (e.g., an FX pedal, a few cables, etc.) and have equipment broken by someone who doesn’t care for others’ property.

I managed a commercial photo studio in Detroit for several years. It looked like this:

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When the studio was ”rented out”, there was a fee for the day in the studio with only power and washrooms provided. If they wanted to rent lights or stands or flags or whatever, that was added on, á la carte. That meant the studio was clear of everything, and the stands, lights, etc., were placed in a large side room. Everything was ”taped”, so that if something was used the tape was broken and a charge incurred. Back then, this was SOP because some photographers wanted to uses their own strobe lights or dolly or whatever.

Because I was the studio manager, I was also required to be on site at all times during the rental to assist the renters with their needs (e.g., Change a busted bulb, make coffee, re-stock toilet paper, etc.).

If you’re gonna rent out your space, I recommend you develop a tracking method for your gear. It would be a real drag to go in there after renting it only to find your keyboard/patchbay/whatever was broken or missing.
 
Yes, it was my main concern, the issue is that we practice in this room too...well, not anymore, that's why I was trying to find solution to help to amortize the gear and to still have fun with music, not necessarily mine but fun like being with the other musicians too.
I will take into account your advices...What do you mean by "taped"?
 
What do you mean by "taped"?
An example of our poor man's technique was to take white duct tape (the cheap kind) and wrap it one or two times around a group of light stands then staple it so that if it was undone, the stapled area would be damaged. This was done on any group of items or item (strobe light with its cable taped). This method allowed the renter to use gear without having see/ask anyone. Because I was nearby, they knew they could find me for anything.

The pro method is to use the foil bands that truckers and shippers use on their cargo doors.
 
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That’s a LOT of gear to leave out for people to use and possibly abuse. I would stash the majority of it away during a session, unless the renters wanted to rent some of it during their time block. I certainly wouldn’t want somebody to carelessly roll their 4x12 cab into the space and accidentally knock over a cymbal stand, or step their full weight on a pedal board, or even knock that music stand over onto the soundboard. That would make me nervous. I’ve seen how people treat other people’s gear they care about, and backline/rental gear gets treated even worse!
 
Well, my idea was that they use the gear I have because there is no place to bring something else...and a 4X12 cab is too heavy, the wood floor would be damaged...ok, so, FBI, "fausse Bonne Idée"....Thanks for the input, if I do it, it will be with people I know and of they use the gear in place and that's it...Might not be the best for people who want their keys of drums but usually, most of the people who came to my house to practice say that they prefer to use mine because it's higher end than theirs...
 
yeah first of all that's an extremely nice studio, looks like a lifetime of preparation for that room.

I agree with some people here, I think the best way to rent a place to strangers is keep the room as bare bone as possible, then add the equipment the people need as extras that they can loan for a few bucks. At least that's what happens in the studios near me. They all have drum kit, PA, guitar/bass amp and mics, the rest is add on for 2 or 3 bucks. I wouldn't trust strangers to not damage something when there is that much gear to play around with, so maybe ask for ID and make a copy, then inspect your gear after each session even if it will take a lot of time, but just to be safe. I used to rent a studio until a few months back that was 50 per month, 4 hours a week. had a kit, PA, mic preamps, interface, mixer, but you had to bring your guitars, basses, keys, mics. I admit that was a pretty killer deal, so it's not really going to work for every studio. I think 50 for 2 hours is a good price, looking at the quality of the instruments and the room in general.
 
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