The worst possible room for recording drums

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zildjohn01

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I have a home studio, but it's confined to one room in my basement. It's about 40ft by 20ft, the floor is cement, the walls are blocks/bricks/paneling at different spots. I'm stuck right in a corner, in about an 8'x10' space for me, my PC, and all my equipment. The ceiling is maybe 6 or 7 feet up, with huge metal resonant furnace vents running right above the corner I'm confined in. The particular corner I'm in happens to be one wall of blocks, and one wall split with bricks on the top and cement on the bottom. Very reflective...

I've got 4 inputs, so I pretty much settled on a 2-overhead/kick/snare setup. Maybe I should get better overhead mics before I worry about the room though. I have:
- an Audio-Technica ATM25 on kick
- a an SM57 on snare
- and don't laugh, two Nady SP5's for overheads

Any way to improve my situation? Will the SP-5's kill me before the room does?

Note: My drums are angled 45 degrees to the wall, but I don't know what else I can do...
 
Nothing you can really do if it sounds bad in the room its gonna sound bad on the recording.
 
I'm happy with the way they sound now (live, from behind the set), I just want to optimize the recording. Would they probably sound better in the middle of the room rather than the corner? Would covering the vents with a tarp or something help with the overheads or does that just help get a warmer sound? Should I cover up the walls with bedsheets or something like that?

Thanks for the help.
 
i'm in a rough room too.

but, wow, 8x10??? thats TINY..

i couldnt even fit my whole kit, cymbals + stands, and mics + stands in that area...

any old/extra carpet left over from the last time you had new carpet put it?? i find that all those little weird shaped strips help a little. even the foam is better than nothing.

bedsheets could help. a thick blanket would be better. i like to use an old twin mattress as a *gobo*. ;)
 
your drumkit takes up 8 square feet? what kind of monster are you to have arms that long?
 
try putting the overheads behind the drummer using the infamous "3 mic technique" here on the boards, plus the 57 on the snare. I did this for a drummer I recorded in the corner of his basement, all concrete and exposed plumbing. While the sound wasn't awesome, it was definitely usable and better than when I tried XY and everything just sounded "mushy" for lack of a better term. I added a little low end EQ to the overheads and it made things sound much better than dry.
 
treymonfauntre said:
your drumkit takes up 8 square feet? what kind of monster are you to have arms that long?
Click to expand...

7 piece kit, add cymbals, add mic stands, all the toms are close mic'ed.

i can barely reach everything..
 
no, my set isn't that huge, my whole studio is that small... and yeah it's a cramp. the only carpet i had (except a tiny strip) is under my set to keep it from sliding around. i may just cover the walls closest to the set and see if that helps. and would covering the vents right above the set help that much?

my ride cymbal is a piece of junk, soft attack with a ton of ring, so the 3-mic technique has that big drawback until i get a better ride. I may stick a SM57 on the overhead and see if the SP5's are the problem (or one of the problems).
 
the sp5s shouldnt give you a problem
you could probably place them to sound pretty good

it wouldve really killed you if you were using omnidirectionals :D
 
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