Drum Room Design

[DigitalDon]

What is the minimum size (dimensions) for an isolated drum room? This would be in a 30' x 30' building which has not been built yet. I assume a small room with a lot of physical activity (duh - drumming) would also require some pretty good ventilation. Massive sweat puddles on drums is not a good thing.

DD

[Tim Brown]

Personally, I wouldn't build a "Drum room".
I would build smaller rooms (in the corners) that could be used to place Speaker Cabinets , Vocalists, horn players, etc.
Then just have the drums in the main room.

Of course, I'm also taking into consideration that my Drumkit takes up about 10' X 10' (Okay - So I admit I'm playing a KISS sized drumkit now!) of floorspace itself.

The Drums need some "room to breathe" if you intend to use
overheads, and you need to keep in mind that you also need to be able to move all the way around the kit for mic'ing purposes.



Tim

[fimpen]

I agree with Tim. Instead of building a drum room I would build the main room so it has one live end (hard surfaces, much reflection) and one dead end (heavily damped) and make the room as big as possible. Then, with the drum kit in the dead end of the room I would be able to put ambience mics in the live end. This makes the drums sound more natural. Good luck.


/fim

[DigitalDon]

Ok so I use the main room for drums and build smaller rooms for everyone else. I know this is a dumb question but how does each member communicate with the others?

DD

[Beezoboy]

Windows!! Put windows facing the center of the big room. Bands don't need to speak to each other while recording. They'll all be wearing headphones anyway.

I personally would experiment with drums in an iso room and with drums in a the main room and see which I like best. With a 30 x 30 space you should be able to swing having a couple ISO rooms. Maybe have a dead one and a less dead one.

The way I see it is, you'll need to have at least one vocal booth and at least one isolation room. That leaves you with a control room and a main room. Have you started designing your studio yet?? You might want to start as it would be nice to know what you are going to do with this 30x30 space as it is being constructed.

Beezoboy

[John Sayers]

I'd build a separate Iso drum booth if I had your area to work with. The live end dead end rooms sortta work but end up being neither live nor dead plus there is no instrument isolation. Don't bguild the drum room tooooo big. when was the last time you put 4sec reverb on a kit??

cheers
john

[DigitalDon]

Thanks for the input guys. The windows will definitely be in so the band members can see each other. I was just wondering if anyone uses an intercom kind of thing. Of course we're not talking about a big building either.

The way I figure it I would have an iso room for drums, an iso booth for vocals, a control room then the main room (largest) for the guitar, bass and whatever. Guitar cab would be mic'd and the bass would be direct in. This should keep everyone from bleeding into everyone else. The way I have it layed out the vocal booth and drum booth can see each other through the windows as they share an outside wall. The windows are separated by about 7 feet. Sounds like a waste of space but I want the drums away from the vocal booth. The drummer looks to his left to see the vocalist. The drummer looks straight ahead (large window or sliding doors) to see the rest of the band. I'm concerned the kick drum might rattle the sliding glass doors since it faces directly into it.

I will have an outside entrance into the control room and also the main room (locked of course). Sitting at the board I'll face directly at the guys in the main room (through window) and have a view of the drummer also. I'll look to my right to see the vocalist. Oh yeah, there's also a bathroom. I live in the country but I don't want dead grass behind the building.

I would upload my drawing but I haven't figured out how to do it yet. I use Total 3D Home (Broderbund) and haven't been able to save in anything but their type of file. Suggestions or decent freeware anyone?

Sorry to get so long winded but a picture would have been worth more than these words.

DD

[waves]

I would upload my drawing but I haven't figured out how to do it yet. I use Total 3D Home (Broderbund) and haven't been able to save in anything but their type of file. Suggestions or decent freeware anyone?

DD

How about a screenshots?

[RAMI]

How about a screenshots?

Considering the last post in this thread was 8 years ago, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for those screen shots.

[waves]

Considering the last post in this thread was 8 years ago, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for those screen shots.

Good solution as well as interesting information don't need yesterday's freshness to be useful. After so long, those designs would be even more valuable, as they've been well tested over the time period. I'd be happy if they'd appear here, so we all know a bit more about it.