Building a Reverb Chamber for live drums - advice please!

StuartMac · 2nd March 2006

I have a small, nice sounding room for recording drums. It's about 16ft x 15ft with an 11 ft-high ceiling. The walls are pine-clad, and there are Auralex foam tiles on removable boards (these are removed for all drum recording).

It's great for drier, tighter drum sounds and for jazz stuff, but not so good for big, natural rock drum sounds.

The room next to it is about 10ft x 6ft, with an 11ft-high ceiling, and the walls are brick. At the moment there is a window between these two rooms (and about an 18-inch wall cavity) and a very heavy soundproofed door. If I removed the windows and replaced them with something like Auralex Space Couplers, could I get a decent reverb chamber in the smaller room? What would it involve?

Dor · 2nd March 2006

http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording...ate/plate3.php

allaccess · 2nd March 2006

something that's worked for me in the past with small rooms and adjacent lively rooms is to leave the door between them open a little bit and put a couple of mics in there. Move them around, crush them with compressors or transient designers, eq the piss out of them... experiment with different amounts of door opening, put a gobo in front of the door... whatever works!

One studio I was in last year had a bathroom in the live room that had 12 foot ceilings. Stuck an LDC way up in there with the door closed and had a great sound! closing the door kept the cymbals from exciting the room, and I got a great ambient kick and snare sound.

The big room at Cherokee out here in LA has a long tiled room off the main live room that's used exclusively for this kind of thing... Good luck!

Ryan Hewitt

2nd March 2006	#1
StuartMac Lives for gear Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Scotland Posts: 893 Thread Starter	Building a Reverb Chamber for live drums - advice please! I have a small, nice sounding room for recording drums. It's about 16ft x 15ft with an 11 ft-high ceiling. The walls are pine-clad, and there are Auralex foam tiles on removable boards (these are removed for all drum recording). It's great for drier, tighter drum sounds and for jazz stuff, but not so good for big, natural rock drum sounds. The room next to it is about 10ft x 6ft, with an 11ft-high ceiling, and the walls are brick. At the moment there is a window between these two rooms (and about an 18-inch wall cavity) and a very heavy soundproofed door. If I removed the windows and replaced them with something like Auralex Space Couplers, could I get a decent reverb chamber in the smaller room? What would it involve?

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2nd March 2006	#2
Dor Lives for gear Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 1,611	http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording...ate/plate3.php

2nd March 2006	#3
allaccess Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 530	something that's worked for me in the past with small rooms and adjacent lively rooms is to leave the door between them open a little bit and put a couple of mics in there. Move them around, crush them with compressors or transient designers, eq the piss out of them... experiment with different amounts of door opening, put a gobo in front of the door... whatever works! One studio I was in last year had a bathroom in the live room that had 12 foot ceilings. Stuck an LDC way up in there with the door closed and had a great sound! closing the door kept the cymbals from exciting the room, and I got a great ambient kick and snare sound. The big room at Cherokee out here in LA has a long tiled room off the main live room that's used exclusively for this kind of thing... Good luck! Ryan Hewitt