Moving Tips

Hey all-
After visiting multiple times a year for the past 5 I've finally decided to make the permanent move to Connecticut. Been an Angeleno all of my life and it's definitely time to change it up to real pizza, fresh air and a lower stress atmosphere.
I've got a gang of stuff (console, 3 full racks, synths, guitars, amps....). Anyone have experience with a cross country or similarly far move and some wisdom to impart?
Also, any tips on neighborhoods for studio / shop space? I usually dig the artistic  vibe. Any locals with tips I'll definitely buy you a beeeerrr.

Cyrus

I like using wardrobe boxes for moving studios.  They work great for cross-town or international moves.  Wrap the outboard in bubble and stack inside, and toss cables on top.  You can get them really heavy and the movers (or your friends!) use handtrucks to move them around.  Smaller amps and keyboards can go in them as well.  Number the boxes and keep a separate inventory rather than write on the boxes.
The bigger stuff has to be wrapped in cardboard and/or moving blankets, and put double-wall cardboard on the front of any speaker cabs before wrapping.  Original boxes for monitors if possible.  Consoles get dealt with depending on the size and brand.

Unlimited large cardboard available at body shops.

If you want fresh air, why not Napa?  A friend who has lived modestly all over the world says that area is his number one favorite spot to live.  Or Pacnorthwest, below the rain zone.  CT is a place we drive through to get to better places in New England.  It gets better the farther from the coast you go, like over the state line into VT or NH.

Theres no real pizza in LA?  I don't consider New Haven "burned black crust- palatene raphe blistering" pizza real pizza either.

Mike

MountCyanide said:

Hey all-
After visiting multiple times a year for the past 5 I've finally decided to make the permanent move to Connecticut. Been an Angeleno all of my life and it's definitely time to change it up to real pizza, fresh air and a lower stress atmosphere.
I've got a gang of stuff (console, 3 full racks, synths, guitars, amps....). Anyone have experience with a cross country or similarly far move and some wisdom to impart?
Also, any tips on neighborhoods for studio / shop space? I usually dig the artistic  vibe. Any locals with tips I'll definitely buy you a beeeerrr.

Cyrus

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I Lived in CT for over a decade in the 70s-80s.  Surely different now but i would never consider it a mecca for pizza (at least they don't put pineapple in it like CA), while you can get better pizza there than MS (which is why a make my own here).

I do have a CT pizza story... Back in the 70s I was waiting to pick up a pizza order with a friend inside a local shop (in Westport, CT). The guys working behind the counter were talking Italian to each other, making crude comments about the women waiting for their orders. My friend despite having red hair, spoke fluent Italian, having spent a few years there while he was growing up (army brat). After several minutes of listening to racy commentary in Italian about women's shapes, when our order was ready for pickup, my friend told them to have a good day in perfect Italian and they shut up, tight as a drum.   

Live music scene used be best in New Haven area (around Yale), but like I said that was decades ago.  Friends of mine operated recording studios, one down in Norwalk, another up outside Hartford.

The self described artist community was probably Westport. I lived there about a year and it was not cheap back then, surely not cheap now. Several well know celebrities live(d) there back then  ( like Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Martha Stewart, etc).

State  spending and taxes are not well managed IMO. Housing prices may be weak with people leaving, so there could be some (relative) housing bargains. 

I young friend of mine who was living in CT recently moved to MD.

I don't miss shoveling snow. Weather is a little more moderate down by LI sound (heat sink), but snowfall accumulation is higher inland. 

JR

PS: +1 Napa is pretty but probably even more expensive than CT.

Frank Pepe and Zuppardis fresh clam pizza are not the only reason. I omitted the fact that Westport is my girl's hometown, my bills will be cut down to 1/5th of what they are now and I've got a lot of scoring work in NYC and an hour and change's drive is no sweat for me. Sometimes it takes me 2 hours to get to Santa Monica from Atwater Village. I'll be around New Haven. Thinking about setting up shop near Yale.

Great idea on doing it inventory style - duly noted. I've been hesitant about cardboard boxes and was considering rackmount flight cases. I found some second hand out here and the same sellers happen to have an old custom PM-2000 flight case (my exact model). Then using cardboard for accessories. But your vote for boxes will have me still considering it.

With the cut down on monthly expenses I'll once again be able to save and buy a house. For me it's astonishing to get a 3+2 for 250k. In my current neighborhood you get a 2+1 for 900k. It's mental.

cross country or similarly far move and some wisdom to impart?

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Just  don't do like I did a decade ago and stack some speakers in a covered trailer and think some foam around them will suffice.
When I finished the 2k+ mile journey and opened the uhaul, I found my speaker enclosures had halfway turned to sawdust.  :
Which is to say if you've spent any time on a boat, treat your stuff the same way (prolly goes without saying). But not only bubble wrap, but tie it all down tight and check it every 500 miles or so. 

Edit: Godspeed!

I'm not speaking from experience but you might consider hiring a carpenter or handy-man to build crates. That will prevent things from getting squashed. That's probably the number 1 thing. The number 2 thing would be vibration damage. For that, you could rest each unit on a foam pad and use the rack ears only to hold them in place. Then add blocks of wood in the corners as spacers and a piece of ply to make a new deck. Then foam, unit, block spacers, ply, foam, unit ... just keep stacking. For vibration resistant / less critical units you could make the crate just large enough for "racking" everything face up. Use plastic washers and short decking screws into pilot holes.

MountCyanide said:

and I've got a lot of scoring work in NYC and an hour and change's drive is no sweat for me.

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Parking in Manhattan will cost you upwards of $60/day. That doesn't include bridge tolls. You can get from Wesport to Manhattan without bridge tolls but it adds time. Each bridge is $15 a pop each way. Probably hard to avoid the Tri-Borough or the Henry Hudson. There is congestion pricing in the works which could make it even more expensive.

MountCyanide said:

Frank Pepe and Zuppardis fresh clam pizza are not the only reason. I omitted the fact that Westport is my girl's hometown, my bills will be cut down to 1/5th of what they are now and I've got a lot of scoring work in NYC and an hour and change's drive is no sweat for me. Sometimes it takes me 2 hours to get to Santa Monica from Atwater Village. I'll be around New Haven. Thinking about setting up shop near Yale.

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I guess I won't lecture you about Westport.  ;D Real estate is all relative but Westport is not the cheap part of CT,

===

From Westport the train is pretty convenient to get in and out of manhattan during normal business hours. You can even see the traffic jams on I-95 from the train windows.
----

Ask your girl if she saw my poem published in the local Westport newspaper? (If she was even alive in the 1970s).
The newspaper published some truly crappy local poetry so I wrote a joke poem playing on Ode to a Grecian urn...

Great idea on doing it inventory style - duly noted. I've been hesitant about cardboard boxes and was considering rackmount flight cases. I found some second hand out here and the same sellers happen to have an old custom PM-2000 flight case (my exact model). Then using cardboard for accessories. But your vote for boxes will have me still considering it.

With the cut down on monthly expenses I'll once again be able to save and buy a house. For me it's astonishing to get a 3+2 for 250k. In my current neighborhood you get a 2+1 for 900k. It's mental.

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I've always loaded and drove U-haul rental trucks for moving myself and helping others (I moved my parents from NY to NC driving a 24' uhaul towing a 16' trailer... that was fun, getting passed by literally everybody.

These days I think you can contract mini-containers that they'll pick-up and deliver for you. easy-peasy

JR

> I think you can contract mini-containers that they'll pick-up and deliver for you.

My parents did that to move from Delaware to New Hampshire. The company "PODS" was OK to deal with. They loaded over the course of a month. Their new apartment did not want it in their lot so my folks found a labor-rental agent who sent a young couple over to unload it in a morning (in the rain). However this was not studio gear. Even Mom's piano went to my brother before the move.

In Downeast Maine we got 3 bed 2 bath and 5 acres for $150k. There's not a lot of high-pay work near here but everybody is crying for live bodies for tourist season. Help Wanted signs ALL over. Road resurfacing projects are coming in 90% over estimate due to worker shortage.

I would recommend driving if you are not already planning to do so. Shipping a car is expensive,  it works out better to just take your time and make a nice road trip out of it.  It becomes a memorable experience in and of itself.

Consider downsizing and what things you truly need to keep.  Something like a 4x12 I would just sell locally and then buy another one there.  Since you will be in NY regularly there should be a good marketplace for buying gear.

The usual shipping companies offer freight service, usually a cheaper option when you need to ship a lot in bulk. You could also do a one way trailer rental,  but that brings other complications.

Music stores,  universities,  and super markets can be a good place for free shipping materials.  They get so many deliveries,  with leads to lots of excess materials.

Thanks all for the great tips.
I'm getting used shockmount flight cases for the rack gear and using heavily lined/cushioned/wrapped boxes for the toys. I'll ship them off. Yep I'll be road tripping my car with a slimmed down version of our clothes and liquidating (donating) most of the house stuff. Haven't seen all of the country and am hella looking forward to it. I'm sure it will be grueling at times.
Found an artist building around New Haven but need to wait for a vacancy. I definitely want to be around where there are great orchestral players that I can bring in for my sessions. However if anyone's got building space I'm still all ears.

JohnRoberts said:

Ask your girl if she saw my poem published in the local Westport newspaper? (If she was even alive in the 1970s).

The newspaper published some truly crappy local poetry so I wrote a joke poem playing on Ode to a Grecian urn... I've always loaded and drove U-haul rental trucks for moving myself and helping others (I moved my parents from NY to NC driving a 24' uhaul towing a 16' trailer... that was fun, getting passed by literally everybody.

JR

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HA that's awesome JR.  I'm sure she would have because she's definitely a thorough reader but wasn't born until the 80's.
And yep, I'll be doing the mini-containers for the shipping.

PRR said:

In Downeast Maine we got 3 bed 2 bath and 5 acres for $150k. There's not a lot of high-pay work near here but everybody is crying for live bodies for tourist season. Help Wanted signs ALL over. Road resurfacing projects are coming in 90% over estimate due to worker shortage.

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Here's where my love/hate with the internetting of the music business leans to the love side. I've conceded to the nonexistence of album sales and now just focus on commissioned composition work so I do everything online now. Work, upload, revise, rarely ever an in-person meeting. So I'm finally fully open to living in a normal place with normal housing prices instead of the psychotic million dollar cottages of LA.

> the psychotic million dollar cottages of LA.

We had those near here, 1880s-1930s+. Rockefellers,  Morgans, Vanderbilts, Astors, and Atwater Kent and his radio money.



Most of these "cottages" fell into decline in the Depression. Massive fire in 1947 spelled the end of the Gilded Age. One which missed that fire burned in the 1970s.

Haha well I'd like a cottage like that.
Here's something I'd call a cottage right down the street from me.

If you're sure you'll Never Move Again it doesn't matter, but if you've got a lot of books, I make bookcases that one person can move with a handtruck with the books on them, saves a lot of time in moving:
http://blog.freesideatlanta.org/2013/11/a-portable-storage-system-for-dead-tree.html

john12ax7 said:

The usual shipping companies offer freight service, usually a cheaper option when you need to ship a lot in bulk. You could also do a one way trailer rental,  but that brings other complications.

Click to expand...

About 18 years ago I used upack.com. You load/unload yourself (or hire local labor to do it). It was just what I wanted.  Whatever you do, don't use the "traditional" moving van companies. Just don't...

Made it!
I rented a mini-RV van conversion from Escape Campervans. As they need more inventory in NYC, I got a ridiculous price for driving it one-way across the country. Trekked my fiancé, dog and cat along the beautifully scenic northern route. 15, 70, 80, 95. Colorado was particularly beautiful albeit challenging with a big van through the Rockies. America is such a beautiful land. And the people I came across were all awesome, polite and overall classy. I'd never have known we were in the middle of a civil war if it weren't for Fox News and MSNBC . It took 4 days of hardcore driving.
My cargo is due to arrive next week so until then I'm on forced vacation and enjoying some rare day-drinking and beachgoing.  Enjoying a lobster roll and a Peroni at the moment.

Glad you made it.  The drive from LA to Utah and Colorado is great. Must be a thrill to finally have some square footage at a decent price.

Thanks John.
Driving through the opening shot of The Shining was really something.
And how the 70 goes along the river - wow that was unreal.
Yes, indeed. Incredible being in a place where prices are at the very least normal.
The town vibe is feeling quite good in my neck and shoulders and the nearness of the big city is exciting and convenient.
Exhale.

First off as an Angelino I know where you are coming from and wish you the best in your journey. Congrads on making the move.
I helped a buddy make a similar move to nashville. He had a full studio worth of gear and a ton of synths as he plays as well collects and sells. We moved a console, outboard, the works. This was along side household items large and small.
What we did was contract with a storage pods company. We packed the pods ourselves, very carefully.
The pods then got picked up and delivered to nashville.
If you pack them properly and with planning, can avoid damage.
In the end worked out well.

You could uhaul, but one way trips out of the golden state for uhaul are nearly impossible to book.