Big room or little room?

[Stigmatic92]

I'm recording for my band this weekend and i was wondering which is better, to record drums in a smaller room, or bigger room. the smaller room being about 10x11 and the bigger room being about 13x26.

thanks

 

[Ford Van]

I'm recording for my band this weekend and i was wondering which is better, to record drums in a smaller room, or bigger room. the smaller room being about 10x11 and the bigger room being about 13x26.

thanks

Neither is truly big enough to stop annoying problems with micing drums, but the bigger room is going to the FAR cry better than a 10x11 box.

 

[XLR]

I'd usually choose a bigger room, given a choice. You didn't give the ceiling heights though. I'd take a 10x11' floorspace with a 12' peaked ceiling over 13x26 with 8' ht.

You should lock the duplicate thread.

 

[Ford Van]

I'd usually choose a bigger room, given a choice. You didn't give the ceiling heights though. I'd take a 10x11' floorspace with a 12' peaked ceiling over 13x26 with 8' ht.

You should lock the duplicate thread.

Werd. .....

 

[Stigmatic92]

The ceiling hight is ony about 8-9ft. i'm recording in a single-wide trailer. Also, would it make a difference to put blankets up on the walls and over the windows? Thanks for pointing that out about the duplicate, but how do i lock it, I'm new here.

thanks

I'd usually choose a bigger room, given a choice. You didn't give the ceiling heights though. I'd take a 10x11' floorspace with a 12' peaked ceiling over 13x26 with 8' ht.

You should lock the duplicate thread.

 

[oretez]

in the spaces you mention (trailers) blankets are not going to produce an significant improvements

basically you're going to want to mic it as you would live in a very 'bad' environment . . .

I'd also suggest you encourage the drummer to lean on the cymbals as little as possible.

 

[XLR]

...how do i lock it, I'm new here.

Thead Tools/Close Thread

Thick blankets will help reduce high frequency reflections but won't do anything about boomy lows and low mids.

 

[Todzilla]

Thick blankets will help reduce high frequency reflections but won't do anything about boomy lows and low mids.

XLR is right on.

I've had some success with moving blankets, multi-layer for maximum effect.

Still, only density help with lows and mid. OC703 in corners, with a couple layers and a void behind, are your cheapest good solution.

 

[Big Daddy]

I think you can go crazy trying to fix a room and never get there.

That's why gates are important and hide a lot of the ills of a room.

I learned that a long time ago when the engineer used something called a keypex, that was at CBS studios in Manhattan circa about 1977.

I did a lot of live sound and gated all the drum mics.

Even a cheapie like the Behringer will help. They can gate and compress the sound to what you need to make a good recording. Also parametric EQ to get rid of those real problem frequencies that nothing can help with.

Tuning the kit is the most important thing obviously.

You can spend days trying to fix a room, try just tuning them the way the drummer is happy and use the gates.

One factor you have to think about is the players comfort. If you make it too hot in there he'll be under stress and that's not the right way to get a good performance. Also the use of a fan is a no no since it will cause problems with the mics. Noise and it can actually cause a Doppler effect. I played in one club with a ceiling fan over the band and it caused the drums to sound like they were going through a flanger......small area and fan = phase problems.

Too much muffling material can kill tone. You need maybe at least one small reflective surface or part of one.

 

[The Axis]

Neither is truly big enough to stop annoying problems with micing drums, but the bigger room is going to the FAR cry better than a 10x11 box.

True !
Bigger is almost aways better.

But don't give up. Sometimes magic happens. You might just capture that "authentic garage-band energy" and it will be great.

 

[tkingen]

Try to minimize the sound of the room as much as possible. These might help -

1. Close mic with cardoids
2. Keep the door open so the sound waves have an escape route rather than boucing around a small room like super balls.

 

[The Axis]

2. Keep the door open so the sound waves have an escape route rather than boucing around a small room like super balls.

Google: "Helmholtz resonator"

This link is also interesting:
http://members.nuvox.net/~zt.robgrow/helmhltz/helmhltz.html

 

[Robert D]

I think you can go crazy trying to fix a room and never get there.
That's why gates are important and hide a lot of the ills of a room.
I learned that a long time ago when the engineer used something called a keypex, that was at CBS studios in Manhattan circa about 1977.
I did a lot of live sound and gated all the drum mics.
Even a cheapie like the Behringer will help. They can gate and compress the sound to what you need to make a good recording. Also parametric EQ to get rid of those real problem frequencies that nothing can help with.

I still have some of those Keepex and Gain Brains, great stuff in it's day. But I think most of us have stopped gating drums these days, certainly before recording them. Save the gates for mixdown if needed, where you can use as many instances of a SW gate as you like vs needing a bunch of hardware gates and then being stuck with the settings you used while tracking. In this case, gates aren't going to solve the room problem anyway.
As far as treating the room, it's true that measures like moving blankets won't solve everything, but they certainly can help with flutter echos and will be well worth experimenting with. There's no one right way to track drums, and varying degrees of room liveness are employed. Allow yourself a lot of time to experiment with room damping, to troubleshoot, to find and illiminate rattles and other annoyances, to move mics, etc.

 

[Todzilla]

I still have some of those Keepex and Gain Brains, great stuff in it's day. But I think most of us have stopped gating drums these days, certainly before recording them. Save the gates for mixdown if needed, where you can use as many instances of a SW gate as you like vs needing a bunch of hardware gates and then being stuck with the settings you used while tracking. In this case, gates aren't going to solve the room problem anyway.
As far as treating the room, it's true that measures like moving blankets won't solve everything, but they certainly can help with flutter echos and will be well worth experimenting with. There's no one right way to track drums, and varying degrees of room liveness are employed. Allow yourself a lot of time to experiment with room damping, to troubleshoot, to find and illiminate rattles and other annoyances, to move mics, etc.

Plus, DAW based gates now have "lookahead," which makes them infintely more flexible and accurate than their old analog counterparts.