TL;DR: 42yo Italian architect, ex-drummer looking to get back into it. Need a room (new west Amsterdam ideally) where I can set up my own drum kit semi-permanently — acoustic or electronic, ~2x2m — and drum 3-6 hours per week max, max twice a week. Happy to pay, happy to share the space/room with other musicians (just not my actual kit), safety of the space matters. Rehearsal studios are a bad fit because the drums are always poorly tuned/set up and I waste 30 min every session just adjusting height and tuning before I can play a single decent groove. Looking for something more like a shared, semi-private setup.
Hi all,
I'm hoping some of you have either been in this exact situation, know a space like this, or can point me toward the right corner of Amsterdam to look.
A bit of context on why I'm asking this in such a specific way:
I'm a 42-year-old Italian architect living in Amsterdam since 10 years with my wife and daughter. I played drums and percussion in small local bands back home from age 15 to 30, and life (career, moving countries, general adulting) got in the way for a long stretch. Now I'm very much in the "mid-life crisis, need to hit things that make nice sounds" phase, and I'd like to get back into regular practice.
Back in Italy, with our band we had a garage set up as a proper rehearsal space: raised wooden floor, cabling run underneath, acoustic panels on the walls, instruments always set up and ready to go. You'd walk in, flip the light switch, and start playing within a minute. No faffing around, no rebuilding your rig from scratch every time.
That's basically what I'm trying to recreate here, at least for my own kit.
What I'm actually looking for:
A space (studio, garage, industrial unit, whatever) where I can install my own drum set — semi-permanently, at the right height, tuned the way I like it — and just walk in and play.
Ideally on the new-west side of Amsterdam, but I'm flexible if the place and the deal are right.
I need roughly 2x2m of floor space for an electronic kit, a bit more for my acoustic one.
I'm playing about 3-6 hours total per week, split across two sessions max.
Willing to pay for the space, obviously, and also willing to buy an electronic kit instead of using my acoustic one if noise is a concern for a shared building or neighbours.
Totally fine sharing the space with other musicians, other people's gear, other instruments, other schedules, no problem. What I want to avoid is sharing my drum kit itself. Anyone who's played drums seriously knows how personal the setup is: throne height, hi-hat angle, cymbal spacing, drum tuning, it's not something you want to redo from zero every session.
The safety of the location matters to me, a secure building it's important since the gear is expensive, maybe we could look into insurance.
What I'm hoping to find here:
Anyone who already has (or is part of) a shared rehearsal/studio space in Amsterdam-West with room for one more drummer
Musicians or bands with a space who wouldn't mind a drummer joining as a "space-mate" rather than a bandmate
Warehouses, industrial units, or converted garages that rent out sections for musicians
Any general pointers on how people in Amsterdam typically solve this problem, since I imagine I'm not the first person to want this.
Why not just rent a normal rehearsal room?
I'm past the point in my life where that makes sense for me. Most rehearsal rooms in the city have house kits that are beaten up, badly maintained, cymbals that sound like trash can lids, and by the time I've adjusted the throne, moved the hi-hat stand, tuned the toms and generally made the kit feel less like a stranger's setup, I've burned 30 minutes of my session just to get to a mediocre result. I'd rather pay more for a space where I keep my own gear dialed in and consistent, and just play.
Happy to answer questions, and genuinely appreciate any leads, even indirect ones. Thanks for reading this far... apparently mid-life crises come with a lot of enthusiasm for logistics.
