In a typical Burbank home studio, a full loud kit is the one source you usually cannot track well, and the honest plan is to record it in a room built for it and bring the files back. Two things stop you at home. Burbank is its own incorporated city with its own noise ordinance, not a Los Angeles neighborhood, and a drum kit puts out low-frequency energy that residential walls do not hold. Below is what the ordinance allows, why the low end is the real wall, what a home room can record, and where the kit actually goes. My room sits near the Media District in Burbank, so this is a scheduling question I answer most weeks.
What does Burbank's noise ordinance actually allow?
Burbank runs its own environmental noise code, and it is stricter than a general nuisance rule (Burbank Municipal Code, Title 9, Chapter 3). A musical instrument or sound device that raises the ambient level by more than 5 decibels, measured inside an adjoining dwelling, is treated as prima facie evidence of a violation. Quiet hours run 10 pm to 7 am on weekdays and 10 pm to 8 am on weekends. A drum kit in a shared wall unit clears that 5 decibel bar the moment the drummer counts in, at any hour. The practical window for anything loud is daytime, and even then a full kit against a party wall is a complaint waiting to happen.
Why is the low end the real problem, not the volume alone?
A hard-hit kit reads around 110 to 130 dB SPL at the kick and snare, and the hardest part to contain is the lowest. Kick and floor tom energy lives near 50 to 90 Hz, and long low wavelengths pass through drywall that would stop a cymbal. Standard residential construction gives you maybe 30 to 40 dB of isolation in the mid band and much less down low. Acoustic foam does nothing here, because foam absorbs high frequencies and ignores the bottom two octaves. Real containment needs mass, decoupled walls and airtight construction, which is a build, not a rug and a few panels (Sound On Sound on recording drums). A converted bedroom or a garage unit does not have that mass, so the kick goes straight into the neighbor's living room.
What can you record in a Burbank residential room?
Almost everything else. A treated room in a residential unit tracks vocals, acoustic and electric guitar through a load box or an amp simulator, keys, synths, hand percussion like shakers and tambourine, and programmed drums, all at levels the ordinance never notices. It is also where the real time goes: comping, tuning, editing, production and mixing. The limit is one source, the loud acoustic kit, and it is a firm limit because it is physics and a city code at the same time, not a preference.
Where do you actually track the loud kit?
At a room built to hold it, and the closest ones are minutes away. North Hollywood and Van Nuys, both districts of the city of Los Angeles rather than separate cities, have proper live rooms with high ceilings and decoupled tracking spaces, about 4 to 6 miles from Burbank and 10 to 15 minutes by car up Lankershim and Vineland or over the 134 and 170. I book a half day there for the kit, run it with the drummer and a scratch reference, and print the multitrack. Everything I wrote about tracking drums in those rooms still applies to the load-in and the mic plan (tracking drums in NoHo and Van Nuys). Then the session comes back across town.
How do you make the drums sit once they are back in Burbank?
The same way any tracked-elsewhere part gets folded in, which is a workflow I lean on constantly, sending the loud sources out and finishing in Burbank (what comes back to Burbank from a Van Nuys console room). Phase-align the close mics to the overheads so the kick and snare do not smear. High-pass the overheads around 100 to 150 Hz so they stop fighting the kick mic for the bottom. If the tracking room was small, reinforce the kick and snare with a matched sample under the live hit, aligned to the same transient, so the attack is consistent without erasing the room. Decide the low end between kick and bass early, because two elements can own the bottom, not four, and the rest gets high-passed without sentiment.
Frequently asked
Can you legally record a loud drum kit in a Burbank home studio? Not without disturbing neighbors under the city noise ordinance, which treats a musical instrument that raises the ambient level by more than 5 decibels in an adjoining dwelling as a violation, and sets quiet hours from 10 pm to 7 am on weekdays.
Where do people track live drums near Burbank? Proper live rooms in North Hollywood and Van Nuys, both districts of Los Angeles, about 4 to 6 miles away and 10 to 15 minutes by car. The kit gets tracked there, then the files come back to Burbank to produce and mix.
What can a Burbank residential room record well? Vocals, guitars through an amp simulator or a load box, keys, hand percussion, programmed drums, overdubs, editing and mixing. Everything except the one loud, low-frequency source.
If your song needs a real kit
Tell me whether the drums are live or programmed before the session, because it changes the room and the calendar. What comes back is a plan: where to track the kit, what to cut at home, and how the two rooms hand off. Credits and background at /credits and /about.