DIY Drum Shield w/ StudioFoam

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scottmd06

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I have designed a DIY drum shield in which I will use five 2' by 5' panels, connected with door hinges and covered on one side with egg-crate foam to dampen the sound. My drummer and I are planning to build this in hopes of eliminating room noise and recording a tighter sound. Does this sound like a good idea to any of you, or is it best to have the big room sound??? Thanks!
 
It sounds like a horrible idea to me....and egg crate is possibly the worst thing you can use for anything that has to do with acoustics.
 
The space we have to work with is a storage trailer 15x10 feet and with tile floor and sheetrock walls. The walls are of course parallel but one wall has a very large door that opens, allowing some sound leakage, but I don't know if this is something that will be desirable. I'm wanting a very dry and isolated drum sound so it will be easier to utilize digital plug-ins to achieve my reverberated snare. I thought that surrounding the drums with a dampened shield would help us achieve that goal. Any ideas on a budget??
 
Are your worried about sound getting in from the outside...or the drum sound getting out?

A rectangular box with hard walls/floors/ceiling isn't optimal, and that foam will only shave off a bit of the highs...not much else.
You might as well hang the foam on the walls/ceiling, and forget about the "shield"...but it will still do very little for drums.

Try really close-miking, and see how it sounds. *shrug*

Heck, if you are not in a noisy area and if there are no neighbors to complain...move the drums to the end of the box, open the doors wide and record there....letting the sound "out" instead of being boxed in.
You should get a drier sound that way.
 
miroslav said:
Are your worried about sound getting in from the outside...or the drum sound getting out?
.
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The issue is getting a bad room sound off the track.

Ive done the same thing...but with a tent made with a PVC scedule 40 frame...and with a moving blanket over it.
 
Yeah my issue isn't sound getting in or out I'm just tired of recording in bad rooms.. All of the reflective overtones and such. I was hoping some dampening around the drums would help.. We're going to be close micing, so given this room, with the big door that's able to be open, where should we place the drums and where should we aim them towards? We have a couch and love seat in there, so should we place those in opposite corners to try changing the room shape, or even possibly placing them around the drum set? Some more ideas will be very insightful.. Thanks for all the help guys.
 
Gobos (go betweens) are great for helping to isolate instruments while recording. The egg crate foam is the weak link in that idea IMO.

I built a set of gobos using 24' hollow door panels and covered them with an Auralex type of foam. They work great.
 
I think you guys are missing the point. This isn't too eliminate bleed through from guitars or vocals on the other side. This is simply to get rid of the natural sound of this very bad room and any unnecessary reverberation but without having to spend all the money for auralex or high end room treatment products. I want a low cost DIY solution to cutting as much reverberation from this room as possible. Thanks!
 
10 x 15 ain't all that big .... I'd treat the whole room.
Mattresses , cushions, thick blankets, bodies ... whatever.

Get the drums sounding good in the room before you even think about recording them.
 
scottmd06 said:
I think you guys are missing the point. This isn't too eliminate bleed through from guitars or vocals on the other side. This is simply to get rid of the natural sound of this very bad room and any unnecessary reverberation but without having to spend all the money for auralex or high end room treatment products. I want a low cost DIY solution to cutting as much reverberation from this room as possible. Thanks!
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No, not missing the point. If you want a room to sound good, you treat a room properly.
 
RAMI said:
No, not missing the point. If you want a room to sound good, you treat a room properly.
Click to expand...

Hey Rami, I have a small drum room and use blankets and pillos whill I'm tracking my drums to absorb sounds bouncing around and it sounds ok but do you think it would make a big difference if I used real treatment panels? My room size is 10 feet long x 9 feet width x 8 feet high. Just wanted your opinion.
 
I say build a cloud and open the door!

A cloud will let you put your overheads higher without getting high end reflected back and messing up the cymbal sound, and if you can manage a four inch absorber with a four inch air gap, you'll cut out a lot of lower mids that will take all the tone and 'warmth' out of the drums and get a much, MUCH tighter, focused, pure sound overall.

Open the door, leave the opposing wall untreated, treat the other walls, and aim the kit out the door and you'll have a nice place to track drums in.
 
dodgeaspen said:
Hey Rami, I have a small drum room and use blankets and pillos whill I'm tracking my drums to absorb sounds bouncing around and it sounds ok but do you think it would make a big difference if I used real treatment panels? My room size is 10 feet long x 9 feet width x 8 feet high. Just wanted your opinion.
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I wanted to chime in here too;

When it comes down to it, there are a billion ways you can build treatment DIY that will work just as well or better than commercial products. You can buy bags of insulation and stack it up in your corners for bass trapping; you can use dense foam like they use in furniture that you can easily buy at a fabric store instead of auralex foam, you can buy rockwool/rigid fiberglass and build absorbers, you can use bookshelves as diffusors. The thing is that even with all the commercial treatment in the world, you need to know what you're doing; I know a guy who had his entire two car garage covered in 2" auralex and it sounded AWFUL in there because the fundamental frequency range was still reverberating like a mofo. You're trying to flatten the rooms reverb time at various frequencies, not kill all the reflections. Start by getting rid of artifacts, and then take care of bass, and then maybe you can selectively color certain walls/reflections with different density materials, but don't just throw soft stuff around and hope for a better sound. Oftentimes people end up creating new problems and they don't realize it until they've had a few weeks to let it all gestate.
 
mrhotapples said:
I wanted to chime in here too;

When it comes down to it, there are a billion ways you can build treatment DIY that will work just as well or better than commercial products. You can buy bags of insulation and stack it up in your corners for bass trapping; you can use dense foam like they use in furniture that you can easily buy at a fabric store instead of auralex foam, you can buy rockwool/rigid fiberglass and build absorbers, you can use bookshelves as diffusors. The thing is that even with all the commercial treatment in the world, you need to know what you're doing; I know a guy who had his entire two car garage covered in 2" auralex and it sounded AWFUL in there because the fundamental frequency range was still reverberating like a mofo. You're trying to flatten the rooms reverb time at various frequencies, not kill all the reflections. Start by getting rid of artifacts, and then take care of bass, and then maybe you can selectively color certain walls/reflections with different density materials, but don't just throw soft stuff around and hope for a better sound. Oftentimes people end up creating new problems and they don't realize it until they've had a few weeks to let it all gestate.
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Beautiful. :cool:

That's what I meant about "treating a room properly". You can't just throw blankets and egg crates everywhere and hope that it works.
 
RAMI said:
Beautiful. :cool:

That's what I meant about "treating a room properly". You can't just throw blankets and egg crates everywhere and hope that it works.
Click to expand...

The problem is the egg crates. Egg crates are useless. Now real eggs on the other hand, are awesome.


Throw real eggs around the room and you'll get the sound you need.
 
I believe that the best way to maximize diffusion from eggs is to smash them IN the crates and nail them to the walls, but it only works in humid environments.
 
I think you should eat as many boiled eggs as possible and vomit them back up onto the walls.
 
It would probably take at least a hundred regurgitated hard boiled eggs per wall, but I think the maximum number of hard boiled eggs you can eat in one sitting is only 50, and that's if you're Paul Newman. It'd be worth the effort though. Half-digested hard boiled eggs are anechoic when they dry.

Anyway, I can't wait to see if we've been of any help to the OP. Here's hoping he comes back!
 
crankz1 said:
10 x 15 ain't all that big .... Get the drums sounding good in the room before you even think about recording them.
Click to expand...

That's great advice.

Usually the drums sound better playing "the long way", i.e. facing down the 15' length. But try the drums in the different ways they can go.

For padding, blankets are good (kinda dead tho), and so maybe find some wood that sounds nice. The more nice sounding stuff you can bring in there the better. Drywall doesn't sound too nice. I like the sound of straw stuff, like those woven beach mats you get for a couple of bucks. Just tap everything you want to use and listen. If it doesn't sound good, don't use it.

I'd shy away from making things totally dead, 'cause that's not really musical and lean towards stuff that isn't dead but has a good sound.

There's not too many rooms you can't get some sort of useable sound in.
 
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