Electric guitar: How loud do you usually practice?

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm talking about when you're practicing alone, at home. Not when you're practicing with your band - that's technically not practice, it's rehearsal.

 

I'm trying to determine how loud you typically play when messing around / practicing / noodling / etc. at home. I'm also interested in the type of rig you use for those "practice" sessions, so please describe that in a post...

 

Since most of you probably don't have a SPL meter and can't do accurate measurements, I'm going to use the human voice as a "reference". So when I say "whisper level" or "conversational level", I'm equating your volume level to the level of human speech.

 

If one of the poll options is somewhat close, please use that one. If it's not, please post and tell us about it.

[Offthiscentury]

AC15c1 master all the way up and top boost channel from noon-3 depending on how much grit I want.

 

Granted, I do live alone in a rented house on a busy street, so I'm not disturbing anyone.

[Ming Chow]

huh

[ponch]

ive got a music room at my house that used to be a garage, so its not connected to the house or any other building.

 

i play pretty loud in there, mainly because i always have a huge stereo system going on too, and playing with a 4x12 cab quiet sounds terrible.

 

i would say i do play with my amp about half way, so its well loud, but sound awesome !!!

[AnderMocs]

I've usually got my ampeg between 2-3 (50 watt 1x12). It's not really loud. That's the lowest volume before it starts to sound like {censored}.

[Dolf]

Pretty quiet. Almost off, in fact.

[claytonjohn18]

I leave my Gemini on at about 8 o'clock...It's a little louder than conversation level, but you can usually talk over it if you have to. I play with my full pedal board unless I'm too lazy to unpack it.

[distance21]

I too have a music room. I usually run my JC-120 and my Avatar 2x10 with the JC usually on 3.

[BHz_econo]

I used to just practice with my electric unplugged but I would play too hard and would translate badly when I hooked it up to the amp. Now I have a small fender champ and I sit on the floor next to it band play at a little louder than I what I assume to be conversation level. Sometimes my wife disagrees with my assumptions.

[tronus]

I use these little guys to practice. I saw somewhere on the web once a volume description called "trumped level." I think that's about where that BadCat sits. Volume and master at noon. The MicroCube gets used late night or when my roommates baby is asleep. I just keep it at whisper volumes because at 3 in the morning, you can hear it pretty damn well.

 

[cryptosonic]

Pretty loud for my small apartment. I run my Princeton around 6, where it just begins to get gritty.

[Dr.Picklebottom]

i usually play at what id call tv/ conversation level.

 

ill crank it up louder occasionally when im fucked up or when a friend talks me into it.

[melx]

Laney 120w head into a 4x12... If I'm only playing for a short while in the day time I can get away with playing fairly loudly... I guess shouting volume. I'm mid terrace, but I know the neighbors well and they know that if I'm bothering them they can just knock on the door and I'll turn it down. But they are usually out during the day time anyway, in the evenings I either play loudly though headphones or turn it down to like TV volume.

[RoboPimp]

loud

[Rizza]

From "cans" to "conversational level".

[peavey_impact]

Raised voices. Blackstar HT-5 FTW!!!

[macadood]

if its not too late at night then pretty loud but nothing extreme. tho sometimes i just unplug it in front of tv/computer while watching something

[murch33]

Probably somewhere between "raised voices" and "loud". When I had half stacks I'd definitely say loud, but I've only got a combo now. It's still cranked, but a little 1x12 can only put out so much volume.

[Neilrocks25]

Coversational level, one of the reasons I got my Axe-Fx is its great for practising as well as recording..

 

But its more fun to practice through a dimed Marshall, shame my neighbours hated that.

[RolloGreb]

raised voices, definitely. I live alone in a house, in a part of town where nobody calls the cops unless someone gets stabbed and/or shot. It's awesome

[orange worker]

usually around raised voices level, though in the middle of the night talking level. ac4 is quite handy for this since the ampeg sounds like {censored} so low.

[Cougar Hunter]

I play loudly enough at home that when I go to a drummer's house, I need to adjust my gear to be quieter.

[RiffDaemon]

I live in an apartment with thin walls. So, I practice unplugged in the dining room - has a nice natural reverb when I play in there

[bowlingshirt]

I use headphones, as most of my practicing is done after my daughter goes to sleep.

[Johnny'sGotTheBlues]

I practice unplugged, into cans, and conversational level.

 

So I split the diff and voted cans although that's only to learn tunes/practice tunes I know.

 

Scales, exercises, etc. are usually done unplugged and writing music is done on an acoustic or low level electric where I can sing at an easy volume level.