Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

> ceiling and the floor, and for complete ridance of vibration, is to
> have such a platform in which thousands of opposing refrigerator
> magnets are attached to each surface for suspension, obviosly you
> would have to attach lanyards to keep the platform from hitting the
> walls, 

Unless you also install another thousands' group of those fridge magnets along 
the walls and the suspended platform edges.  You may want to build a short 
perimeter wall fitted with those magnets.  That wall would encircle the 
platform, giving about 9 inches of space (or however it works out depending 
on the magnets) in each direction.  However, don't forget to install several 
magnets on the corners of the platform and walls so that the platform can't 
rotate in place.  You not only want to keep the platform floating, you also 
want it to stay in place horizontally and not spin on its vertical axis.

But two things...  I didn't know that there are these refridgerator magnets 
around.  Won't they be too heavy for floors built out of wood?  What about 
health effects of being inside these giant magnetic fields?

If you know you're going to be there for a long time, you can build an 
isolation room inside the room your drums are in.  Just don't build it so 
that there's construction on the structures of the apartment itself.  Try 
building it so that it can be taken down and moved to another apartment, 
leaving no evidence that such a room was ever there except for the 
depressions in the carpet (furniture does that, too).  Also, make it so that 
you can easily substract or add floor/wall space to fit the dimensions of the 
new room whenever you move.

Here's what you can do.  I don't see myself owning a house in this lifetime, 
but the next best thing is to rent room and board in a house owned by someone 
responsible, someone who works for a living (so you can play while she's out 
somewhere).  In other words, the home owner is my roommate.  I pay $350 + 
utilities a month for my own use of part of the house, instead of the $450 
(not good areas) to $700 (pretty nice areas) a month that's common in Austin.  
That way, sharing common structures is not an issue AND I get to use my money 
for other things, like getting more drum stuff and lessons ;-).

If you're in an apartment lease and you have a few months to go, talk to your 
landlord about moving to a ground floor unit in the apartment complex.  
Sometimes, they'll allow that, like they did with my previous roommate when 
we moved in together into a larger apartment.

I hope this helps, because it's made a big difference in my life when I 
decided to make changes that would benefit me as a musician, and I feel very 
good about it.

Good luck!  Let us know how it goes!

Stephanie