Is My Drum Room Any Good??

[mousedadrummer]

Ive been recording drums in my bedroom it is 5.5m long by 2.3 meters wide with about 2 meter ceilings. The room is carpeted with my drums the corner of one half of the room. my bed, tv, drawers, bookcase etc are at the other end so there is quite a bit of room round the actual drums.

Is there any way of improving the room? Ive been told the drums should not be in the corner so i will move them when i record, anything else????? What about the carpet??


Thanks

 

[Weasel9992]

That's pretty small, and with all the furniture and whatnot it'll never be *perfect* exactly, but it's workable. If you're recording them (and I assume that you are or you wouldn't care what the room sounds like), you're mostly going to be worried about early reflections back into the mic and comb filtering...that and low end control. While it'd be nice to have some ambience in the room, it'd really need to be larger for it to be "good" ambience...right now I'm afraid that taking the carpet up would just increase the interference problems.

Here's what I'd do. You've already said you'll move the drums out into the room when you record...that'll help. If you really want to make some inroads get some broad band treatment up to reduce reflections...some corner trapping will get the low end under control. Something on the ceiling (2" panels would be fine) above your head will keep reflections out of the OH's. All of this can be DIY or pre-made.

Hope this helps!

Frank

 

[Roguetitan]

the size of the room is not nearly as important as mic placement when recording
and you dont want a room so big that the sound bounces around on the walls

your room probably provides enough funiture that it will act as Bass traps and diffuse the sound.you dont want an echoey room for recording.


Recording in a studio is expensive, and recording at home is--well, not as expensive. It can also provide a level of freedom unattainable at traditional studios, and many bands and do-it-yourself producers have taken to building home rigs for recordings.

Here are some tips for making your home-recorded drums sound natural, full, and well-balanced.

Three or Four Microphones

For arena-rock style drums, it may be possible to record with as few as three microphones. You'll need two condenser mics with a cardioid pattern to use as overheads and a large diaphragm condenser for the bass drum.

Position the overhead mics, well, overhead, at about 3 feet from the cymbals, pointed in towards the set. You'll probably have to experiment quite a bit to get the sound that you want; if you've got a loud drummer that hits lots of cymbals, you'll want to mic farther away, and you may want to point the microphones away from the cymbals. If you can isolate the set, have someone move the microphones around while you listen on headphones and the drummer plays. If you can't, have the drummer play at full volume for a second while you record, then make the necessary adjustments.

If you have a fourth microphone (preferably a Shure SM57 or similar cardiod dynamic with a tight sound), use it on the snare drum, at an angle towards the center of the snare an inch or two above the drum. Be careful to keep the microphones out of the drummer's face. You don't want him holding back and playing more conservatively than he normally would.

Five Or More Microphones

If you've got more microphones to use, mic the toms, too, in the same manner as the snare drum. You might even mic individual cymbals, but as a general rule, the fewer microphones you use, the better off you're going to be. With more microphones, you'll have to deal with phase cancellation, which can be a real pain, and of course the more options you have for mixing, the more difficult it can be to choose one.

You'll probably want to put your microphone either right outside of the bass drum or directly in it by a couple of inches, depending on its frequency response. A few towels inside the bass drum will make it sound more natural.

If you've got a dedicated bass drum microphone that was designed for bass drums, read the manual, but you'll probably want the microphone to be inside the drum.

A Few Notes on Mixing

Mixing drums can be tricky, and I won't get into the finer aspects of it here. As a general tip, though, you'll want to envision the drums on a stage and apply panning to each channel relative to how the set would sound live--i.e. each overhead mic 25% to 45% to the right or left (respectively), toms on one side, and the snare and kick in the middle. EQ the toms and bass drum so they're not overlapping, and accent the lows in the bass drum. Apply some compression to the snare (the heavier the song, the more compression you'll need) and you may choose to throw in a small amount of reverb.

The most important thing to remember when recording drums at home is that experimentation is key; try out as many different techniques as you can, and take notes on what works and what doesn't. The age of the project studio is certainly here; don't think that you need thousands of dollars to build a decent rig.