Questions about room treatment for tracking HEAVY drums

[sage691]

The kit is a real solid sounding birch Tama, and the heads are new and tuned well. We are fortunate to have a pretty killer recording space with an upstairs and downstairs. The building is a giant rectanglular shape, about 130 feet long X 16 feet wide and the walls are constructed of very heavy old bricks that are more like stones (MUCH heavier) than modern bricks. There is a 1" thick layer of very old, but well preserved plaster that covers all the bricks to make a very smooth surface. These walls are 14 inches thick, solid brick! The place was built in 1895, and survived hurricane Katrina here in New Orleans without a scratch.

I'm interested in this particular upstairs room to be the tracking room for drums. Right now it is 58 feet long X 15 feet wide, and the ceiling is 13 feet 3 inches tall. Both the floor and ceiling is awesome old tongue-and-groove wood, 1" thick and very dense. The room really amplifies sound sources, making them sound bigger and louder.

My question is: should I reduce the overall length of the room to get rid of the reflections ? And if so, to what length based on the width and ceiling height ? We are looking for a heavy drum sound with just enough natural reverb to sound BIG and LOUD, but not flabby and washy. A nice tight, yet big sounding attack on the overheads and/or omni room mic.

I know that Real Traps are probably necessary as well to tighten up the low end, but I figured I needed to get my room dimensions right first before thinking about that phase. So far the best sounding room for tracking in this building meaures 22 feet long X 15 feet wide, with 13 ft. ceiling. The reverb is big and bright, and not too echo-ey like the larger room.


But this room is about to become my control room, so I was thinking I would construct a wall to reduce the length of the larger room down to 22 feet, thereby cloning it.

I'm just wandering what would be the IDEAL room dimensions and construction materials for getting that heavy, staccato attack live drum sound that DOESN'T sound boxy. It seems from all my research that the combination of stone and wood in room acoustics is a big factor. My drummer really wails and does some rather complex (yet groovin) stuff on the toms and kick. His performance is dynamically consistent and solid, so I'm lucky to have him around right now and really want to capture this *hit while it's hot.

I hope that the 15ft. width is not too narrow, as this is one thing I cannot alter.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Happy 4th to all!

[pingu]

Might have more luck asking here.


http://www.musicplayer.com/cgi-bin/u...=0;DaysPrune=0

[stevep]

Try the John sayers site ..




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[Ethan Winer]

> should I reduce the overall length of the room to get rid of the reflections ? <

Just so you don't miss it, I answered you here in my forum:

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultim.../t/001938.html

--Ethan