When life gives you bad practice rooms, grab life by the throat, throttle it, hide the body somewhere and do this.

I hate the practice rooms at BYU. Boasting worse ventilation than the men's locker rooms, sub-par pianos, poor lighting and no sound-proofing, if I didn't know these rooms were on a church-run campus, I'd say they were straight from a hell designed by 16th century monarchs looking to torture their more disappointing court musicians.

The ugly face of HFAC outer darkness.

It's a bleak picture to walk into after the euphoric triumph of passing the school's aural exams and making it into the school of music. For all the hype associated with the school and its subsidization via tithing funds, one would think the facilities would've been upgraded by now to help meet the unique challenges associated with 21st century competition in America and elsewhere. Alas, 'tisn't the case.

And while that might be distressing, discouraging even for some, I think I've found a way to account for most of the problems associated with the fact that these facilities were designed to coerce performers into more realistic careers as teachers.

Rather than blabber on endlessly about my solution, here's a few pictures that highlight my ideal practice room in a few deceptively short steps.

Stick a chair over there...

Put a laptop with your favorite affordable DAW over there (make sure your ram, CPU and hard drive are sufficient)

Then stick an audio box up there so your compy can talk with your mic. I like the Roland Quad Capture.

Throw in a quality dynamic mic, some amazing German headphones to account for all the noise and shwalla.

And suddenly, things were sounding a lot better. And the tuba blaring in the room next to me was only coming in at 15 decibels instead of 110. All told, this set up probably cost me a little more than a thousand dollars. The laptop didn't break 800, the quad capture was about 250, the mic I got for free (though usually those guys run around 500), and that's it. I could set this up in my truck if I wanted to because it all can be crammed into a 2x2 foot space. You could literally set this all up in a bathroom stall. Though I don't recommend it. If people get uncomfortable at the sound of other people's turds dropping audibly, I doubt they'll care much for your attempts at finding yourself creatively in the local porcelain palace.