Drumming in the live room

light40

New member
My "live room" does not sound good for drums.
It is an old spare bedroom, I'm not kidding when I say the room is perfectly square. I have treated the walls with some foam panels and they make it sound a little better but I am afraid that it is the ceiling that is making my overheads pick up a boomy or boxy sound.

My best bet so far is to mic everything as close as possible and add artificial reverb later on.

I have two twin sized mattresses to push around as makeshift baffles and anything expensive like raising the ceiling is completely out of the question.

So what can I do to improve the sound of my live room? (especially drums)

Where in the room should I place them?
Is there anything creative I can do with the mattresses?
Are there any other cheap methods of improving the rooms sound?

I'm open for anything as long as it's cheap!
 
You can raise the ceiling "Acoustically" by adding compressed Fiberglass or mineral wool panels above the drumkit.
Probably the best thing you could do for yourself.

I hung framed panels by finding the ceiling joists and screwing eye hooks into them , then hung the panels on small (3 to 4 inch) lengths of chain screwed to the wood frame.

Good luck.
 
Is there anywhere in the room I should place the kit that will be better than other places?

Should it be facing a wall or away from it?

Does it even matter?
 
Is there anywhere in the room I should place the kit that will be better than other places?

Should it be facing a wall or away from it?

Does it even matter?

Definitely matters. Ideally, the drums should be in the middle of the room. If that's not practical, then as far away from walls as possible...and absolutely NOT in a corner.
 
uh oh,

my drums are in the corner, facing out, so i have to clamber over them to get in and get headphone wires tangled round the stands and all that. anyway i get a nice room sound so i guess it depends on the walls and size of the room, but maybe i would get a better sound in the centre. my room is stone walls with curtains and rugs all over them. i'm not pro :)
 
it does these are special magic ones.

ok..ok, tell the rest off my band that i should be in the middle.
 
drums need room for the sound to breathe and blossom (especially above), so anything described as a "small bedroom" is always going to be a sonic compromise. there's just no way around it.

it's more so when the room is perfectly square, or worse when all 3 dimensions are the same. you end up with significant sonic nulls and spikes in a perfectly cubed room.

the best thing you can do (outside of finding another room to record drums in) is to try to remove the room from the equation.

you can use rigid fibreglass or mineral fiber (Owens Corning 703 or 705, or Roxul Rockwool, etc)., to cut down on all bad reflections. in your case, i'd put a couple 4x2 panels on each of the walls and just about cover the ceiling with it. it won't be cheap ($500 or so?), but it'll take care of the bulk of the problem. or rather, it'll make the room not sound so bad. check out GIK Acoustics or Ready Traps. You can also DIY them yourself if you have more time than money.

oh, and i hate to tell you this, but foam really doesn't do much except bleed off some high end.

as for where the drums are located, being in the corner is a compromise. the best answer is to walk around the room hitting the snare drum and put the kit where the snare sounds best. but if you've gotta put other people in there too, you're gonna have to compromise. just deaden out that corner real well.

home recording is often a study in finding ways to work around the problems of a room not designed for recording.


cheers,
wade
 
My room's a horrible shape, I record in my bedroom which is an Attic conversion with slanted ceilings, and my kit is under that because it won't fit anywhere else! Luckily I can get into proper studios at college.
 
it does these are special magic ones.

ok..ok, tell the rest off my band that i should be in the middle.

Dude, you asked for advice. You're getting it. You don't HAVE to go in the middle of the room, but the corner is the worst place for you to be.

EDIT: Sorry, elly-d isn't the original poster. I though that's who I was talking to.
 
Thanks guys, you are giving me some great advice.

Is there anything creative I can do with the mattresses or are they useless and/or make my situation worse?

Just for clarification there is only the drum set, nothing more.
 
Dude, you asked for advice. You're getting it. You don't HAVE to go in the middle of the room, but the corner is the worst place for you to be.

EDIT: Sorry, elly-d isn't the original poster. I though that's who I was talking to.

nope i am just sticking my oar in :)
 
Light,
What mics are you using for overheads (brand/model, omni/cardioid/figure eight, large/small condensor /ribbon? How are you setting up the overheads? What is the height of your ceiling and room dimensions? How much clearance from the top of your cymbals to the ceiling? How are your skills at tuning your drums and your playing technique when recording? A lot more variables to consider but with the above questions answered maybe others might be able give more suggestions.

IMHO, RAMI is offering you great advice in saying "get out of the corner" but the walls DO matter as well in the overall scheme of things.

In general terms / IME , if your room sound isn't great then close miking / cardioid pattern / small condensor mics are usually the way to go for overheads for tracking. Then as you've eluded to you can add room ambience/size later with reverb, etc.
 
I am using two cardioid small-diaphragm condenser microphones I got out of a cheap CAD drum-mic kit. I had been using XY but I got no separation between left and right (which I'm assuming is the room) and have now switched to a spaced pair as close to the cymbals as I can get.

The room is an average bedroom. The dimensions are approximately 11ftX9ft and the ceiling is 8ft high.

As far as the set goes..
I have a variety of local bands that come in so I get a whole bunch of drumsets (good and bad) and a whole bunch of different drummers (some good, some bad). I usually tell the drummer to tune his own drums, as I am busy tightening things that rattle and WD-40ing the kick drum pedal.
 
I am using two cardioid small-diaphragm condenser microphones I got out of a cheap CAD drum-mic kit. I had been using XY but I got no separation between left and right (which I'm assuming is the room) and have now switched to a spaced pair as close to the cymbals as I can get.

The room is an average bedroom. The dimensions are approximately 11ftX9ft and the ceiling is 8ft high.

As far as the set goes..
I have a variety of local bands that come in so I get a whole bunch of drumsets (good and bad) and a whole bunch of different drummers (some good, some bad). I usually tell the drummer to tune his own drums, as I am busy tightening things that rattle and WD-40ing the kick drum pedal.

1) are the CADs icm-417s? i've used them, and they're not great, but usable. you'll probably want to upgrade soon.

2) xy and ortf are not what you want in a small room (as you've found out). look into recorderman & glyn johns (can we please do a sticky on drum recording???), or keep experimenting with the spaced pair. word to the wise, though--using your OHs as "cymbal close mics" is gonna sound nasty. the 2 methods i mentioned work really well in bad rooms.

3) wd40 sucks. get yourself some 3-36, made my crc. best spray lube ever.
 
They are CAD CM217's and yes, I know I need to upgrade!
However my problem is the boxy sound my room gives the kit, so even the most expensive mic's will not sound to hot. It's not something the mic is doing.

When I put the mic's too close to the cymbal it makes them sound trashy. I have never heard of the Glyn Johns but this is what I'm getting from descriptions:
"Hint: it only works well if you have a good drummer and a good sounding room to record in..."
However I will give it a try anyway!

My initial question was- Is there anything I can do to the room or to the kit to stop the boomy boxy sound of kits in that tiny room?

Thanks for the good advice!
 
My initial question was- Is there anything I can do to the room or to the kit to stop the boomy boxy sound of kits in that tiny room?
.....the answer is "yes" and i addressed it in my post above. :D

you need to remove the room from the sonic picture, at least as much as possible. it won't be cheap, but it's worth every sheckel.

anything other than that is going to be wasted money. you can't remove a boxy sounding room with mics, preamps, compressors, or even placement. the room WILL leave a stamp on the recording. that's what rooms do. :D


cheers,
wade
 
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