a very specific question about room reflections

[captions87]

My band and I are set to record a slew of songs in the coming weeks. We're recording in our guitarist's garage, because that's the only spot we have. The sound isn't terrible live, but I'm guessing some aspects of it will not sound so pretty when recorded. As far as the drum tracks are concerned, specifically the kick and the overheads:

1.) We all like how the kick sounds in the room, so I'd like to experiment with a condenser about 5-6" from the middle of the kick to get that roomy tone along with the mic inside the drum. But I want to minimalize bleed from cymbals and other drums. I'm considering going with the tunnel approach but will that end up killing some of the room tone that we're trying to preserve? And...

2.) With the overheads, we're dealing with a low ceiling, with some LDCs. Would it be a good idea to try and dampen the ceiling? Or is that not as important as the reflections coming off of the walls?

We have two homemade panels that are 4' in height and about 8' in length, and we plan to make two more, along with adding some packing blankets.

 

[Greg_L]

1) gate it

2) a cloud would be nice

 

[captions87]

my head must be in the clouds, because i don't know what you mean by "a cloud." but then again, i'm horrible at detecting forum sarcasm.

 

[rfahey86]

Get an area rug for the floor. all that concrete makes a whole tone of reflections.

 

[Greg_L]

my head must be in the clouds, because i don't know what you mean by "a cloud." but then again, i'm horrible at detecting forum sarcasm.

It's not sarcasm. A cloud is a diffuser or absorber attached to a ceiling.

 

[Mo Facta]

And is the room really so great sounding that you'd want it in your recording?

Just because it's a room doesn't mean it sounds good.

Jus' sayin'.

Cheers

 

[clivus]

could you first track the kick drum by itself and then track the rest of the kit. unconventional, i guess, but could be done.

 

[captions87]

It's not sarcasm. A cloud is a diffuser or absorber attached to a ceiling.

my bad.

And is the room really so great sounding that you'd want it in your recording?

Just because it's a room doesn't mean it sounds good.

Jus' sayin'.

Cheers

yes, the room does sound surprisingly good, at least to our ears. but we're not trying to get it in the recording necessarily because we like the sound of it, that just makes it easier to accept, but the room is just a plain garage, with no treatment whatsoever, save for a few boxes of old knick knacks and clothes against one wall. we ended up going with two panels in front of the drums at an angle, with a space in between them just a little bit wider than the kick drum. add to that a packing blanket that we hung on a clothes rack behind the drummer. we dampened the snare with some moongels and a thin cloth used to wipe computer screens, and got a really nice fat sounding tone that didn't ring out too much. got proper levels, and with the help of a room mic, we were able to get a pretty damn good drum sound considering the circumstances.