+1 - Very best advice so far.

If you've been playing longer than a couple of years, you should be able to control your volume without losing 'your sound.'

John

60's MIJ drums have lower volume,and you can find a kit cheap,and sometimes in a very hip finish!

Lighter touch, lighter sticks (wood tip) or the Hots Rodz things. Not sure how long you've been playing, but just think about dynamics. Play with the mix, not louder than it; whatever room you happen to be in. There's more action, anyway, at lower vols. How much stick control can one have whilst pounding, anyway?

B

Arbiter flats or Traps kits are cheap, tiny and not loud. I use my Traps from time to time and it's always been great.

Or just play quietly. As Azbill said you could try using Hot Rodz, or maybe Flix brushes to aid you. It depends on the level your required to play at.

These are all great suggestions Gary and all have their merit. What you need to decide would be based on the following:

- just playing a standard or even modified kit with an eye toward using technique to play at an appropriate (and greatly reduced I might add) volume is a fine solution, but it may depend on the type of music you are playing. If you are already comfortable playing the music at hand then I would agree that this is a great way to develop some additional technique. So if practice for your band is just about getting song forms down then I would suggest this approach as 'playing to the space' should be part of your performance arsenal. If, however, the material is a little more aggressive or progressive in nature and you found that you had to develop some additional skills to play it, then this may not be the way to go. As an example, if you are a great quarterback then walking through plays to determine locations of players is fine because when you walk out on the field you already possess the skills to execute at game speed. On the other hand, if you are actually having to learn to throw a 50 yard pass, that would be hard to do if all you are doing at practice is lobbing the ball 20 yards. I say this because of my recent forays into trying to play speed metal with my 15 year old son. I am sure that would be funny to watch by the way as I am near to having a heart attack!

- if you deaden the drums, the tone won't be there but you can stay closer to your standard technique. That may be important to you.

- If you choose smaller sticks, or Blasticks, HotRods, etc. that will feel very different but your drums will be unchanged. It will feel different though but the drums will sound more like drums. That may be important to you.

- good tip on MIJ drums as they are more porus and are just not as loud. I have often thought about picking up a beater kit and spraying the interior with something like truck bed liner just for that purpose. I have no idea if that would work, but it would be worth a shot.

- of course there are e drums, they feel different and also require a lighter touch (or at least they should). I don't mind them as much as I approach them as a different instrument. A keyboard player doesn't play a weighted grand piano and an unweighted synth the same way. The piano is an outstanding instrument but there are a lot of things you can do on a synth that you can't do on a piano. When we view electronic drums simply as a quieter drum kit, then we will always be disappointed because it is just not a fantastic drum experience. If we view them as a unique instrument then they become far more interesting. This may not be a good choice for you, but again, if you are just working through song forms, perhaps it is a good choice.

Thanks for all the replies, I bought some lighter sticks and that was a huge help. Technique was part of it also, lighted up the attack also helped, but playing my own drums is the way to go. I just have to get out of my hard rock mode. LOL