Hey drummers, easy question for ya...

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tubedude

tubedude

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I'm trying to get a pretty accurate average size footprint of a drum kit. If you have 1 minute and a tape measure, could you tell me how much space your drums are taking up. Mainly how wide, but I want how deep also, including throne and elbow room. List your kit with the dimensions (single or double bass, hom mnay toms, etc) so I can get an idea of what size room will work for me.
Thanks!
Paul
 
My 5-piece is around 1200mm throne to bass drum, and around 1600mm wide. That's only with 2 cymbals though. If some low life hadn't stolen my rock ride, I'd be about 2m wide
 
Ummm, sorry... What is that in feet and inches? That doesnt even give me the faintest idea :)
 
Found a metric conversion calc online... so thats 3.93 ft deep and 5.25 feet wide, or really close to that? Seems really small, smaller than I was expecting the actual size to be. Any chance that anyones kit will get over 7 feet wide?
 
On an average 5 piece kit, I would usually consume about 12 sq. ft.
Thats including elbow room
 
Wide- just under 7 feet
Deep- about 6 feet

6 piece kit (sometimes more)
20" x 16" kick, 12", 14" mounted toms, 16", 18" floor toms, snare, hi-hat, 7 cymbal stands, percussion table, throne and stick box. I will very occassionally add a 10" and 13" mounted tom, and I have a custom made 20" floor tom. 6 pieces is normal for me and often in the recording studio I get by with less.
I need space at my back or I feel crowded.
 
similar but not quite ;-)

i'm in the process of building a drum riser for my room (they're currently sitting on carpet on concrete, blech) and i'm going with 8x8 square for a couple reasons.

first, my main kit seems about the same size as rimshot's, 7 piece pearl export, 20in kick, 14in snare, 10, 12, 13, 14 mounted and 2x 16 floor (one on under hihat on left). handful of cymbals stands (6-8 depending on day), couple mounted tom stands, cowbell rack, throne, etc. i will be adding a set of chimes and an 8in mounted soon enough, and the kit currently measures 6x7......so, room for expansion is reason #1.

secondly, i'm sure there will be times when a drummer with a monster double-kick kit comes in and the 8x8 will come in handy. of course, between my exports and my mid-60's ludwigs, i've got most of the timbral bases covered, but sure, whatever. :p

third, and the most motivating factor--plywood comes in 4x8 sheets, and using 2 of those straight as they come greatly increases the "laziness factor". :D besides, who really enjoys ripping 4x8 sheets down to 3x7 anyway? blech. 8x8 wins for "job simplicity".

i figure i'll make the supports out of 4x4's cut to 10 or12" high, prolly 10" at this point--room's only 8ft high, and strategically place them around the 4x8. i'll leave a 1" reveal around the perimeter so i can put some 8in or 12in planks around the facade and dress it up a little. definitely want to use a nice looking wood for that, and prolly the whole thing....maybe a maple ply or a mahogany ply if i can find it around here somewhere. not to hijack your thread, but if any of you've made drum risers in the past, got any "do's and don't's" you might care to share in addition to kicking out the real estate your kit sucks down?

cliff's notes: my kit, with stands, elbow room and all, will definitely take up 8x8.


cheers,
wade
 
Actually, I have a couple, and I think a new thread on this, maybe in the studio acoustics/building forum, could be helpful.
I was trying to think of a way to decouple the floor cheaply, and there it is.
Frame a 4x8 frame out of 2x4's on 16 inch centers... mount the plywood on top, fill the spaces underneith with thick fiberglass to kill any resonance, and then glue (not nail) a thick rubber stripping (actually that really wide thick weather stripping would probably be great) along the entire underside of the frame so that no part of the frame touches the original floor directly.
Decoupled.
Sweet.
Any more measurments?
 
Paul,
In trying to determine size for my studio, I measured 3 or four kits, anything from a standard 5 piece to a 6 piece fusion with 6 cymbals. It seems a 7 foot square(or circle actually) room (or floor space) is as small as I could get away with.
I have not built the drum room yet so I can't comment on how well it actually works.

Tom
 
I normally anticipat about 6' deep (throne to resonant head of kick) and about 6' - 7' wide.

This allows enough space for clearance of the cymbal booms and related mic'ing. More important it allows for room to get in and out from behind the kit.
 
I have a seven piece that takes up about 7' from the tip of my furthest cymbal leg to the rear brace of my throne and 8' from the outer edge of my hats to the outer edge of my right-side ride. I typically use an 8'X8' drum riser for shows. Also, I have about 2' between my back and the wall for elbow room.
 
This is my well insulated drum canopy. The inside dimensions are 7 ft by 7ft. Somewhere down the road I will to build the floating(decoupled) floor.

The measurements make it easy for the drummer to get to his set as well as out of. Still allowing for growth of extras.

Allthough, the room is not full enclosed it has swinging baffles. I am also going to build a gobo for the front.

Hope this helps!
 

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7 by 7 would be too small for some kits. Mine for instance, with the wide double braced cymbal stands on the sides of the kick stick out well past 7 feet. The riser I play on at church is 8x8, and there is no room to walk around the front without falling off, and I cant slide my throne back to far. But I am a big guy, and I use alot of drums, so I guess it depends on how many different drummers are going to be setting up on this riser. It is easy to do 8x8 obviously, because all you need is 2 sheets of plywood, anything bigger, and you will have to do some carpentry.
 
my drum riser is 6' X 6'... though I'd hate to play in a room this small.

be sure the Width, Depth and Height aren't the same. there are optimum ratios you can find by searching the WEB
 
Two of the very best sounding drum-rooms I've ever recorded in (with my particular drumset) were in two of the top local studios with 10'x10' smooth-walled drum rooms with sliding glass front doors. I was surprised that they didn't have ANY padding whatsoever on the walls or hanging from the ceiling like I'd seen in the other studios I visited but I later found out why. I don't remember how tall the rooms were exactly...anywhere between 8' to 10' I'd imagine. The rooms almost made me cry because my drums had never sounded so perfect before in any other studio that used pretty much the same digital equipment...and that was BEFORE any mixdown!

I've recorded in larger rooms, but the 'verb in them was too much (for my taste) and in the smaller rooms, my drums sounded noticeably choked. I bet you'd be able to fit 99.9% of any drummers you're wanting to record in a 10'x10' room....that is unless they insist on recording with a full double-bass, full rack cage "Judas Priest" kit....but then again, you'd have to get into caprentry since it deviates from the simpler "8x8 plan"....but hey anything worth doing is never easy, right?

My 5 piece kit's footprint is 6'x7' with a front and left side Gibraltar rack.
 
Measuring to the ends of the stands - 8' wide and 6' deep.

So in order to get out and around, the room would have to be at least 12' wide and 8' deep.

My kit is Single bass - snare - 4 mounted toms - floor tom - high hat - remote high hat - 14 crash - 12 splash - 16" crash - 18" ride/crash - 20" ride - 22" sizzle ride........

Rod
 
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