Lighting Up a Garage Band Space

BORNintoMUSIC

New member
Hey everyone, my band and I are practicing in a fairly big garage.

Live Room - Imgur

It's about 20ft in Length, 15ft Width, and 10ft Height. This is an old picture but I do have some sound proofing setup inside, as to not get the cops called on us and to make it sound reasonable when practicing. However, the big issue I have right now is the lighting is terrible. There is a florescent light that you dont see in the picture, but not only is it a bad feeling color it just doesn't fill up the garage at all.

What do you all recommend that I can put up in here that would make it look and feel warm inside? I have a small budget but am willing to look around. Thank yoU!
 
What do you all recommend that I can put up in here that would make it look and feel warm inside?

A dozen lava lamps...and burn some incense. :cool:

Look...if this is just a place for band practice...just hang a couple of lights off the door rails or whatever and get on with band practice.

I mean, are you trying to improve visibility...or to create some sort of appealing ambiance...?
It's a garage...:D...unless you've changed it a lot from what it looks like in the picture...making it look "warm" will require some remodeling.
Also...in the picture, I don't see any "soundproofing"...so you should really worry about that a lot more...a LOT more...if it's for band practice.
The cement floor and walls and garage door are a lot of trouble left untreated.

Now...if you are talking about remodeling the garage into some sort of permanent rehearsal/recording studio deal...you have a lot of work before you get to the lighting. That said...track lights are nice...they are easy to mount to the ceiling, and you just need to tap into the electric at one end if you string the tracks together.
Any other "individual lights" will all require power taps.

For just basic garage band use....any lights will be fine. Just go buy some and plug them in. :)
 
I WOULD suggest LED lamps but they must use switching mains converters and I am not sure how much electrical noise they might chuck out?

Quick, cheap&dirty solution? You can buy battery powered LED 'floods' for peanuts from RockBotton type shops or, probably even cheaper off the web. Get rake of those and buy AAs cells in bulk. The lamps last a good while on batteries and you can hang them just where you want them. Many have magnets.

A working solution while you get on with the "Grand Design"?

Oh! 'Warmf'? Paint a wall pink.......
Dave.LED Motion Sensor Light - Battery Operated Strip Light - Stair / Wardrobe / Cupboard Light - 10 LED PIR - Wireless - Olixar - 19cm Length: Amazon.co.uk: Lighting Sorta thing???
 
Head to home depot and get a fluorescent bulb of a different color temperature. 3000K is nice and warm. Stay away from cool white, which would be more in the 6000 or 7000K range.

If you have a supply of batteries, grab some of those stick-on lights and scatter those around.

Grab a couple light cans from Wal-Mart for $7 each, put a bulb in, and point them at the wall for some indirect light.

Tons of options out there.
 
For all reasons in 2018 find a "dimmable" LED solution... sometimes you might want to have it in interrogation mode and sometimes you might want a candle light dinner effect... LED's provide VERY low power consumption, are noiseless and have a VERY long burn life..Slightly more expensive on the front end but pay off in the long run in multiple ways.... least that's how I see it...

I have used fluorescents in the past and though they are cooler and use less energy than incandescent lights they have a transformer that can make a noise or go bad and the lights themselves can create a hum that is audible when recording ...no mo fluorescent lights for this kid..
 
A dozen lava lamps...and burn some incense. :cool:


I mean, are you trying to improve visibility...or to create some sort of appealing ambiance...?
It's a garage...:D...unless you've changed it a lot from what it looks like in the picture...making it look "warm" will require some remodeling.
Also...in the picture, I don't see any "soundproofing"...so you should really worry about that a lot more...a LOT more...if it's for band practice.
The cement floor and walls and garage door are a lot of trouble left untreated.

I get what you're saying here lol. For sound proofing, I've got a row of audimute sound blankets that cover the entire garage door itself, then I've got one blanket each for the remaining walls. The floor is still concrete and the ceiling is just drywall, so there's definitely a lot of soundproofing left to do, but it's manageable for a practice space at least. I think I would need about 10 more of those blankets to really make the space sound it's best, but I gotta get more funds lol!

I think the dimmable LED solution would be the best route!! That's a great idea TAE! And Tadpui the color range you're talking about is exactly what I'm looking for. It would be nice to have an "interrogation mode" when I need it but then dim them down so were not all "sweating" under the lights.

I appreciate everyone's suggestions. Thank you! :)
 
I put led lamps in my studio - GU10 types, and expected some problems and got none whatsoever. In one of the other rooms where the heating is a bit inefficient, I have a couple of ceiling mounted Arri Fresnels, which produce nice amounts off heat as well as light. If you want a bit of 'mood' LED can be a bit sterile, but the coloured ones are pretty good.
 
i will prefer using this kind of ceiling lighting inside garage because it has wide beam angle and high power. for the large garage as you mentioned, i prefer using warm color temperature of 3500K because it looks pretty comfy

Thanks for your recommendation. I also think of replacing the existing metal halide lamps because they are easily going off without any "forecasting behavior". Having the durability garage lighting is very important to me.
 
Back
Top