Deadening The Cymbals In A high Ceilinged Room

M

moho

New member
My room is basically shaped like an A and it is a lot longer than it is wide. Roughly it would be about 30 feet x 10 feet. The drums are at one end facing down the room. From the floor to the ceiling along the sides of the room is only about 3 feet upwards until it starts moving towards a high A shaped apex. Would a cloud attached to the rafters (about 8 feet above the ground and 4 feet from the centre of the apex) above the kit do anything to stop the massive reverberation of the cymbals around the room. I have about 5 square metres of of rockwool to work with.

Any help much appreciated cheers!
 
I'd do a 2' wide, 8' long slag hung at the apex parallel with the floor and over the kit. Then, I'd make a bunch of FRAMED 6" wide x 4' long panels and put them on the angled parts of the ceiling spaced about 6-8" apart.

That will give you good coverage for your material, spread it out over more distance, and the framing will replicate a very rough diffusor to still give you somewhat of a spacious sound.

Bryan
 
I still want a big sound off the kit, the drums sound amazing its just that the cymbals are overpowering and harsh sounding in such a large space. So this will help that? So a large cloud at the apex and framed panels along the sides of the roof? Thanks!
 
I'd think the shape and size of your room would have lots of natural reverb, similar to a long hallway. The first thing I would try is moving the drums away from the end of the room. Try approximately one third of the distance (longest measurement) and see if this will help break up some of the reflections. The cloud idea can work wonders for taming drums, especialy cymbals. I was having lots of problems with cymbals (sounded harsh and sometimes clipped) before building and hanging a large cloud above the drums. I used eye hooks and mason's twine to hang mine, starting with the cloud near the celing then lowering it a little at a time until I found the height and angle which worked best. I was pleased to discover that the cloud not only greatly improved the sound of the drums and cymbals but it also cut down on some of the general boominess of my room.
 
moho said:
I still want a big sound off the kit, the drums sound amazing its just that the cymbals are overpowering and harsh sounding in such a large space. So this will help that? So a large cloud at the apex and framed panels along the sides of the roof? Thanks!
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Anything you do to kill the cymbals will also kill the room resonance of the drums. The best solution is to tell the drummer to hit the drums harder and the cymbals softer. A live room requires a good touch. I greatly prefer a really live sounding room, you just have to tame the drummer. Setup a mic or stereo pair at the other end of the room and compress the hell out of it, bring it up in the mix to adjust how huge you want the drums to sound.

I would only add the absorption if you want to tame any weird ringing frequencies or boomy bass. Or consider putting up some absorption in the immediate area of the kit so you can get a tight sound on the overheads but also have the live end of the room for ambient mics.
 
I'd vote for Bryan's plan, but probably widen the main cloud at the apex. For one thing, a corner like the one at the top of your ceiling will FOCUS sound - if it's a 90 degree corner, it'll return all mids/highs right back parallel to the source - at higher frequencies, phase additions/cancellations will be more likely due to the shorter wavelengths. This means quite a bit of comb filtering, which will alternately cancel and boost different frequencies across the spectrum. This (assuming you're using overhead mics) will be responsible for quite a bit of the harsh sound.

Another useful trick - set up cymbals as low/close to the kit as possible and raise the overheads. This will "acoustically mix" the kit better due to the "inverse square law" - the fact that mics pick up sound MUCH better at close distances. (This is more obvious when walls aren't there, but it's still very noticeable.)

In my experience, it's difficult enough to get a drummer to try the above - good luck trying to get him/her to play the skins louder without ALSO bashing the crap outa the cymbals... Steve
 
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