I’ve been watching too many stupid dramatic horror movies and TV shows lately so I’ll call this event The Silencing. This was the time at which I converted the kick pedals on my electronic drum kit to use triggers and isolation pads on the floor, making my kit truly stealthy within my apartment building.
The Silencing happened just over a year ago, so it’s fun to look back in retrospect. When I first moved into this apartment, which contains a lot of hardwood floors, panel walls, and things that generally have bad acoustics, I had been using a kick pedal and pad with my electronic drum kit. That setup was fine in my previous place, I had been on the ground floor with carpet. Now I had neighbors below me and hard floors.
Within a couple weeks I already had the neighbors below me knock on the walls to indicate that my kick drumming was annoying. I couldn’t complain, I had expected it to happen. But you have to give it a try when you move into a new place, right? I didn’t like the sound of the kicks on the pad either, it was too loud for me too, especially with my new acoustics.
So I switched to the drum triggers and also put some isolation pads under the kick pedals.
It has worked out great. I was sitting here thinking, today, and realized that I have had no noise complaints from the neighbors since The Silencing. Over a year. It’s a great feeling to be able to play drums with as much energy as I want to, in this wooden apartment, in an old, old building with sound issues, and not have to worry about bugging my neighbors.
