Noise control for late-night practicing

[Matt DeBlass]

I recently started a job that keeps me out of the house from about 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. most days, leaving me only some pretty late hours for practicing. Anybody have any tips for muting the sound/keeping noise levels down for late-night practice? I'll happily be loud on my days off, but I can't stand not playing at all the rest of the week. I just don't want to get a ticket for "late night, trashy mandolin music" or annoy the neighbors/family.
Cost is still an issue, there is supposedly good money in this job (it's sales-based) but I have yet to see any, otherwise I'd just soundproof my bedroom.

[rico mando]

i knew a guy who used to practice in his car so as not to annoy his roommate

[Jill McAuley]

I've had the same issue because I live in an apartment building where you can't play instruments/loud music after 10pm. My solution was to get an emando and play it unplugged (I got one of the J.Bovier ones when Jeff was doing pre-order deals on them) and I have to say it's worked out awesome. I can play at all hours, plus I'm on the road for work every Monday so I bring it with me and when it's my co-worker's turn to drive I get 3 hours to play! It's a 4 string emando so it took me a wee bit to get used to the string spacing. One of these days I want to get an 8 string, but for now it's doing the job. I tend to split my practice time into two parts: playing my Weber to go thru tunes I know/ones I'm working on and then after 10pm I switch to the emando and learn new tunes - it's a nice way to tentatively pick thru a new tune because any mistakes you make are quiet rather than at full volume and slapping you across the face!

Cheers,
Jill

[Mike Bromley]

Get yourself an Epiphone Mandobird VIII. Quiet as the dickens, because it's a solid-body electric. I have used one while working on the rigs overseas, when I don't wish to disturb anyone.

[Tom Wright]

Practice mutes for violin are a heavy metal or rubber version of the normal tone mute. If you could make a discreet but substantial clamp that could attach to the bridge you'd knock out most of the volume. Flannel-wrapped visegrips might be a start, at less cost than another mando. But then again, what a great excuse to get an emando! I use my solidbody as practice, also.

[Mattg]

here's another vote for the Mandobird VIII. I've used a small jack amp (Pocket Rockit) that mixes the Mandobird output with an MP3 player output and sends it to head phones. Great way to play along with existing tracks.

[Jim]

You could use a strip of leather through the strings just above the bridge as a mute, you could practice palm muting. You could practice playing quietly with a light touch. When that money starts rolling in ,buy an emando.

[John Flynn]

I see you have an oval hole mandolin. Take a medium sized piece of cloth, like an old T-shirt, and feed it under the strings into the sound hole. Stuff the whole thing in there. If it won't fit, cut it down until it will, but the cloth should be packed in there pretty well. It will mute the instrument substantially but it will still sound reasonably good. I used to do this all the time to play late nights at home. If you keep the cloth all one piece, it's easy to remove. You just pinch a bit of it and coax it out under the strings.

[MikeEdgerton]

+1 for the solid body emando but I'd get a small personal amp (about the size of a deck of cards) and a set of headphones. Nobody has to hear you but you.

[CES]

Took my mandobird to camp with my 5th grader's class last week...only got about 20 minutes to play, but it was perfect...quiet, but loud enough for me to hear. And I got it for 125 bucks...it's a four (because more often than not I plug in and didn't want to have to deal with the tuning issues with 8 strings on distortion). I play through my amp with headphones late at night at home as well...

Another less expensive option is the elastic of an old school classical guitar capo...just wrap it around the bridge so that the upper edge touches the strings...it'll even make a banjo quiet. Jim's t-shirt trick works OK on my open back banjo but have never tried to use it on my pancake...

[walt33]

Matt, I see you've built an IV kit as an oval. How's it holding up? I read that the top collapsed on Avi's IV oval, apparently because he didn't run the X braces far enough out toward the rim.

[barney 59]

I like to sometimes play late into the night and after babies came along there arose a conflict so I got myself a mandocaster an amp and a set of headphones. I could then wail through the night and didn't have to worry about it. Other than that I guess you could build yourself a sound proof cubical which was an alternative I considered at the time but having built sound proof rooms for recording studios I also knew that it is a little tricky and expensive to make a room totally sound proof and be able to breath at the same time. You could buy a cheap acoustic and remove the back --I'd bet that would be pretty quiet.

[HddnKat]

I just take my mandolin to work with me. Although I can't practice at my desk in the cube farm, I can take a couple of 15 minute breaks downstairs and play a bit. I already have the deli owner in the basement of my building on board to let me sit in there for my practice sessions once the weather gets too cold to sit outside in the courtyard. I figure if my co-workers can go outside for a cigarrette break, I can take a mando break.

[Eddie Sheehy]

I play a Mandobird VIII late at night - unplugged. I'm the only one that can hear it and I really enjoy playing it. Saved my marriage...

[Gelsenbury]

You could use a strip of leather through the strings just above the bridge as a mute [...]

I have the same problem as the OP (my practice hours have gone down substantially since my new neighbours moved in, with the inevitable consequences for my progress), and I'll try this and/or the "stuffed T-shirt" approach. But one thing I wanted to ask about this: Why leather specifically? I've heard before that any unwanted noise from the portion of the strings below the bridge is often dampened by threading a strip of leather through the strings. I'm just wondering if there's something special about leather that makes it suitable for this?

[billkilpatrick]

a felt or stiff-ish leather pick - though buying a mandobird is a great suggestion - always wanted one.

[M.Marmot]

I have spent most of my mandolin practice playing at night or in situations where i would play with a light touch, it actually got so that one of my own major obstacles was to learn to play the mandolin at a loud volume.

I basically would play lightly just enough so that i could hear, after all there was no audience, and i got so used to doing that when it came to playing in a group i'd tend to over-compensate for the added instruments and it would seriously cramp up the right hand technique.

I have never had to go as far as stuffing the mandolin, strapping it with leather, or even buying an electric mando,though theyre all ideas i'm gonna keep in mind just in case i might need them in the future, but i think its possible to just play lightly... though i cant say in the long run if thats a hindrence or bad habit or not... at the very least it may help improve dynamics?

[blmjr]

My buddy Ben told me socks in the f-holes.

It works pretty well, but now my Kentucky smells like a men's locker room...

[Mattg]

I figure if my co-workers can go outside for a cigarrette break, I can take a mando break.

Amen!!

[mandroid]

yea, Hang Heavy drapes, or play into some , to absorb sounds..

and don't worry too much its the Bass that goes thru walls , treble will not travel far.

[Markus]

My buddy Ben told me socks in the f-holes.

It works pretty well, but now my Kentucky smells like a men's locker room...

He could have told you that underwear works best, just to mess with you.

--

While my toddler daughter says she likes hearing me practice after I put her down for nap every day ... she also takes shorter naps if I practice the whole time.

I'm interested in this topic - have found cotton towels in the f-holes to cut a fair bit of resonance from the body, yet need more dampening when I'm the last one up at night.

Socks, as you're inserting a fair bit of cloth into the mandolin might work better.

It has me thinking about those very-thin-cloth-covered hair scrunchies my wife has around the strings near the bridge, but I need to find a way it doesn't bother my right hand which lightly rests near the bridge. It would seem like if you could dampen the strings a bit, that would be most effective.

[bobby bill]

I have spent most of my mandolin practice playing at night or in situations where i would play with a light touch, it actually got so that one of my own major obstacles was to learn to play the mandolin at a loud volume.

Same thing happened to me. I do not recommend just practicing quietly since you would be reinforcing poor technique.

[Ben Milne]

solid body emando still works for me... one of the features i liked when i bought the epi was late night practise. I went for months without an amp - I even used up a set of ballend accoustic strings someone had given me.
While my VIII feels and plays like a regular mandolin, my Tuccerelli has a bigger feel to the FB layout (scale, fretsize neckwidth etc) which is great for training and practising...

[nickster60]

I use a dollar bill rolled up to mute my violin a piece of leather would also work. If you really want to step out you could use a $20.00 bill. A electric mando is also a great idea and you get to buy a new mando.

[Martin Stevens]

Looks like I'm going to be having this problem shortly as well.... I'm not too interested in buying an electric mando to practice on because, for me at least, it does me way more good to practice on my normal mandolin. Hoping I'll have neighbors who don't mind some bluegrass picking