will eggcrates on the ceiling help the ride cymbal sound?

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dontouch

New member
I have a basement room that's carpeted WTW. It's shaped like a square but with one wall dented in a bit between 2 doors. It's supposed to be a bedroom as there's an attached bathroom. It's about 14x13 with 8' ceiling...very short ceiling i know. For now, it's my control room, tracking room, and rehearsal room for my two-piece band. There's a drum setup in the room at all times. Walls are covered in absorption blankets. The drummer plays muted by putting napkins on the toms and snares . But the ride cymbal really rings! It's a 22" big one and we just can't get the wood stick sound out of it on recording. The drummer plays very consistent and controlled. But the ride cymbal just doesn't sound good on recording... ceiling reflection perhaps? Tried different mic position with no veil. Will egg crates help? Please share your thoughts!
 
Wall to wall carpeting, egg crates on the ceiling, blankets on the walls - all of these things work together to make your drums sound like shit.

Since you seem to be going out of your way to destroy any possibility of being able to get a good drum sound, why even have cymbals? Why not just mount some wet cardboard on a stand and have your drummer hit it with a turkey leg?

Reflective floor. Non-reflective ceiling. Broadband absorbers.

Lurk moar.
 
Supercreep said:
Wall to wall carpeting, egg crates on the ceiling, blankets on the walls - all of these things work together to make your drums sound like shit.

Since you seem to be going out of your way to destroy any possibility of being able to get a good drum sound, why even have cymbals? Why not just mount some wet cardboard on a stand and have your drummer hit it with a turkey leg?

Reflective floor. Non-reflective ceiling. Broadband absorbers.

Lurk moar.
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I didn't go out of my way to destroy anything. The carpet came with the house. I can't even begin to contemplate replacing it with wood floor. The sound absorption blankets are there to be considerate for the neighbors. When you say broadband absorption, do you mean leaving gaps of bare walls between absorption materials? I can do that by simply taking down some blankets. But what can I do with the carpet? Is there anyway I can get this room to sound good?
 
The "sound blankets" aren't offering much in the way of isolation for your neighbors........ it takes mass to make that happen....... they will (however) help to make your room sound more dead......

The odds are that you have a hard ceiling in a home - (painted drywall - or even a sprayed "popcorn" ceilings are hard surfaces).

Typical room design would be hard floors soft ceilings - but the reverse can work as well (carpet is not always a deal killer in rooms folks)

Understandable that you can't just start ripping everything out of the room in order to make it sound better.

So let's see if we can't deal with the issues you have without a major makeover of the space......

Egg Crates are pretty much useless - so don't even bother to consider them (aside from the fact that they are fire hazards - burn real fast if anything screwy ever happened).

Let's begin by taking a look at the mics you're using - as well as the cymbals.......

As was mentioned here - the wrong mics can cause problems in and of themselves - and some cymbals just don't work well for recording (although there are some fixes that can be applied to cymbals depending on what the real problem is)

Rod
 
Supercreep said:
Wall to wall carpeting, egg crates on the ceiling, blankets on the walls - all of these things work together to make your drums sound like shit.
Click to expand...
Don't forget:
The drummer plays muted by putting napkins on the toms and snares
Click to expand...

I'm not piling on, OP, but like Supercreep said, you're doing pretty much everything possible to completely ruin a drum sound. I know this has nothing to do with your question about the ride cymbal, but you might want to re-think and research.
 
Good points on the napkin thing -

If your drummer needs to tone it down - them have him play softer - great exercise in dynamics.........

If he's doing it to try to kill drums that are ringing - then have him get some moon gels........
 
Rod Gervais said:
The "sound blankets" aren't offering much in the way of isolation for your neighbors........ it takes mass to make that happen....... they will (however) help to make your room sound more dead......

The odds are that you have a hard ceiling in a home - (painted drywall - or even a sprayed "popcorn" ceilings are hard surfaces).

Typical room design would be hard floors soft ceilings - but the reverse can work as well (carpet is not always a deal killer in rooms folks)

Understandable that you can't just start ripping everything out of the room in order to make it sound better.

So let's see if we can't deal with the issues you have without a major makeover of the space......

Egg Crates are pretty much useless - so don't even bother to consider them (aside from the fact that they are fire hazards - burn real fast if anything screwy ever happened).

Let's begin by taking a look at the mics you're using - as well as the cymbals.......

As was mentioned here - the wrong mics can cause problems in and of themselves - and some cymbals just don't work well for recording (although there are some fixes that can be applied to cymbals depending on what the real problem is)

Rod
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Thanks for your comment, Rod! The blankets did make the room more dead, and I thought they helped reducing the sound leaked outside as well, especially after I put a particle board in the egress window and covered it with two layers of blankets.
Drumkit is a 4-piece. As for the mics on the drums: AKG D112 on the kick, ATM23HE(audio technica) on the snare, A pair of AT 4031 as overhead: Loh over the HH, Roh over the ride cymbal, both pointing towards each other, kind of, parallel to the floor. Maybe I can post a clip of the drum sound later.


One thing I forgot to mention was that one side of the room was all closet space. I treated the surface with the blankets (they are not attached to the door but the wall space above and just drape over the doors). Since there were drums bags and boxes in the closet, we leave the door slightly open for easy access...Don't know what that does to the sound.
 
Drums need reflective surfaces - but naturally, the reflective surface have to be the right kind of material (concrete block as an example normally is not a great material). Too much treatment (or the wrong treatment) can suck al the life out of the room sound.

Someone suggested a sheet of plywood under the drums ......... which could be a very good suggestion. Depending on how the drums are positioned in the room (and how the mics are positioned) - some plywood leaned against a wall or too make help (although if you already have drywall and wood doors - you may already have reflective surfaces.

I'm not a fan of egg crates - but moving blankets, etc. used selectively to alternate reflective and less reflective surfaces could help your sound.
 
What I am not hearing here is a lot of room issues......... with the exception (perhaps) of the cymbal crashes...........

I would try making a cloud over the drum kit - and would probably stuff a pillow into the bass drum - way to much going on there - My kit has a damped kick head - and I use an 8"x 8"x 24" length of soft foam to damp the inside face of the outer head....... turns that booming sound I ma hearing into a nice phat thump......

Still waiting to hear what those cymbals are..........

I would definitely add moon gels to the snare - experiment with both the top and bottom heads..... play around with different positions and different sizes (you can cut them) - I use a full gel about 1 1/4" away from the rim on my 13 x 5 - and about a 1/2 gel on the bottom head almost centered on the snares and maybe 2" from the rim....

Just play around with it until the sound is right for you and your drummer........

The toms didn't sound bad to me -
 
No - not with egg crates...... lol

Do a search in here for "ceiling cloud" - you'll find details as well as explanations - the stop reflections from the hard surface of a ceiling from making it back do into the area below the cloud
 
dontouch said:
I didn't go out of my way to destroy anything. The carpet came with the house. I can't even begin to contemplate replacing it with wood floor. The sound absorption blankets are there to be considerate for the neighbors. When you say broadband absorption, do you mean leaving gaps of bare walls between absorption materials? I can do that by simply taking down some blankets. But what can I do with the carpet? Is there anyway I can get this room to sound good?
Click to expand...

Totally. It's easy to put some HF sparkle back into the room. Lay some plastic or cardboard strips under your snare and generally around your kit. Take down the eggcrates and blankets and look at covering some portion of your walls with broadband absorbers made from rigid fiberglass or rock/mineral wool in the 3.5-8 pcf range. Carpet and blankets and stuff only take out the very high frequencies and do nothing to the bass and mids, which are the problem frequencies common to all small rooms.

Just lurk here for a few and read about room treatment in general. It's not too expensive to DIY.

Having a reflective floor and ceiling absorbers helps mimic what your ears expect to hear, having the ground below and the sky above. The opposite sounds weird and creepy.

Also, try not to put the kit in the center of the room, but keep it away from corners and walls if possible.
 
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