recording drums in a small room...

[PurpleGuitars]

Het there,

I'm not expecting any miracles, but do you guys have any tips on recording a good drumkit with a great drummer in a small room?
I think the room has to be kind of dead so I don't get any weird reflections?
the ceiling is kind of low... :(
Should there be carpet on the floor or something else? Any tips would be appreciated!!

Thanks!

[Nosound]

I record my drums in my spare bedroom with carpet on the floor but I don't use any type of bass traps sound treatment, just the room,a set of tuned drums,mic snake, mic stands, and the drummer with a set a cans. I get a decent drum sound,nothing that would be useable for commercial use but I'm just do it for a hobby. My dad used to be a engineer back in the 60's in Germany he told me that most 2 important thing about drum recording was a well tuned drum kit including the right cymbals and a well talented drummer the rest of the shit is triva if you don't have those 2. Of course my Dad used Reel to Reel back in those days.I know Zep. hung mics down from the stairs and set the kit in the stairway for some of there drum recordings.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Nosound

I record my drums in my spare bedroom with carpet on the floor but I don't use any type of bass traps sound treatment, just the room,a set of tuned drums,mic snake, mic stands, and the drummer with a set a cans. I get a decent drum sound,nothing that would be useable for commercial use but I'm just do it for a hobby. My dad used to be a engineer back in the 60's in Germany he told me that most 2 important thing about drum recording was a well tuned drum kit including the right cymbals and a well talented drummer the rest of the shit is triva if you don't have those 2. Of course my Dad used Reel to Reel back in those days.I know Zep. hung mics down from the stairs and set the kit in the stairway for some of there drum recordings.

Your dad is a smart guy! But the thing that he had also, I am sure, is a room that was tuned also.

We did a drum room at one time with 8 foot ceilings and just coverd the whole thing with 2" rigid fiberglass panels, spaced 2" off the ceiling.. Then we followed up with bass trapping in corners and more 2" panels for reflections/flutter from side walls.. I have heard a lot of recordings in small well treated drum rooms that sound VERY pro..

Glenn

[matt thomas]

yeah that small I'd make it dead as possible, carpet won't do the trick.


Use rigid fibreglass (aka rockwool, high density fiberglass), 5 cm worth 5cm off the wall will help heaps, or just 10cm thick on the walls to make it easier (but more expensive), get a decent reverb on afterwards like altiverb or something.

I see you're in holland. Try buying this stuff at a building supplies place, when they try and sell you foam don't listen to them. If the don't sell the high density stuff (not the candyfloss stuff) go to an insulation specialist. The stuff you want is most commonly used for insulating furnaces and has temperature ratings. It is "rigid" and a sheet will hold its shape when you pick it up by one end. Most sales people will think you're crazy when you say you want it for acoustics.

narco

[matt thomas]

actually, how small are we talking? Could you just record them in another room, the lounge for instance? kitchen can be nice for drums.

narco

[Wayne]

I have this sort of seat of the pants theory about recording in small rooms Vs larger. And that has to do with the abundance of short reflections. Basically I figure you want to attenuate stuff that's in that less-than 20ms or so range as per Haas, it becomes part of the original image. (This would be all of us with those eight and ten foot wall distances.
On the other hand I don't believe I want to record in a completely dead space that sucks everything dry. My solution for drums is an open 'V' of 4'x7' gobos, panels hung over the kit, and about 50% coverage in the room, all broadband. This keeps the clean tight direct sound as primary and to what ever extent you let the room in, that will be it's imprint on things.
So far, so good.

Wayne

[washingtonirving]

Hey guys,
Just thought I'd weigh in here as I've just taken on a small studio. The live room is 15'x10' with a 7' ceiling. I spent the whole of yesterday with another engineer (I play drums too) in there experimenting with mic techniques/combinations just so that we know that we can nail it as more clients start coming in.
Here's what worked (really well I might add) for us. The main trick seemed to be to use tight sounding close mics and try to put them at angles where cymbals etc were off-axis. I do mainly pop/rock/alternative by the way.
So..
B52 on the kick. Started with a D112. Didn't work for us and I'm not really into the multiple kick drum mic thing personally. Which I could afford a 47fet!
57 on the snare top. Started with a Beyer 201 which was ok but the 57 sat in the mix better.
Beyer 201 on the snare bottom. Worked really well. Very isolated sound. Pointed right at the snare wires in the middle.
Calrec CM654C on the hats.
421s on the rack and floor.
I usually use Coles on the overheads but with a 7' ceiling it just didn't work so we did the following. A 414 about 8-9" directly above each of the two crashes on the opposite side of the drummer (me!) and then another Calrec CM654C on the ride. We also tried Neumann KM184s on the crashes but they sounded too harsh.
Then we put two Coles in front of the kit pretty much against the back wall (about 8' in front of the front of the kick drum) but with foam baffles on the wall directly behind them so we were hearing the delay between the close mics and the coles a little more than just 'room'. For rooms we also tried Royer R122s and SE Geminis but the Coles worked the best. We put this through a Smart C1 comp and gave the little teeny squish. We then put a Royer R122 in the corridor with the door ajar, This sounds GREAT. We also tried a 414 which sounded slightly harsh with the acoustics of the hallway. This hall mic went through a Distressor and was slammed pretty hard.
Now for the wild card! I wanted to put a single mic above the kit and then really thrash it with a Distressor just to blend in and see how well it worked. We started off with an old ball and biscuit which sounded really cool but a little but too lo-fi for general drum recording. We then tried a Neumann TLM103 which was really nice but a bit too hi-fi! Then, in a fit of madness we decided to try an SM7B. Sounded GREAT. Really great.
With just the close mics it sounded (surprisingly) really dead. Then with a tiny bit of room and a tiny bit of corridor the whole sound came to life nicely.
Anyway, that's it from me. Good luck!

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

Originally Posted by Nosound

I record my drums in my spare bedroom with carpet on the floor but I don't use any type of bass traps sound treatment, just the room,a set of tuned drums,mic snake, mic stands, and the drummer with a set a cans. I get a decent drum sound,nothing that would be useable for commercial use but I'm just do it for a hobby. My dad used to be a engineer back in the 60's in Germany he told me that most 2 important thing about drum recording was a well tuned drum kit including the right cymbals and a well talented drummer the rest of the shit is triva if you don't have those 2. Of course my Dad used Reel to Reel back in those days.I know Zep. hung mics down from the stairs and set the kit in the stairway for some of there drum recordings.

Yeah, and that Zep thing was in a castle-sized stone manor house. A little different from the average 2,000 square foot home with 8 ft ceilings and plasterboard walls.

[thezebralad]

If you want to eliminate room sound, then I would use the 'Recorderman' technique for your drum overheads (Search on here or Google it.) I recently recorded drums in my 22ft x 11ft x 8 ft living room with carpets and almost bare walls and using 2 T.Bone EM700 SDC mics I managed to get a nice 'focused' drum sound and minimal room interference. I tried using a spaced pair but it didn't work for me in that room. With Recorderman you only need an kick mic and snare mic in addition to the two overheads and you can make a decent attempt.

[npatro22]

A good technique that I learned in my first home studio was hanging a parachute over the drum set. It wont liven up the room but it will be a quick cheap fix to make sure you won't get bad reflections. Plus a dry room is better than bad sounding live room.

[cc1sound]

+1 on Recorderman