Which room to track drums for a pop record?

[bobwarren]

I'm recording a project and have an incredible drummer from England flying out to the east coast from CA to contribute to the recording. I have a huge unfurnished house at my disposal to record in. There are two rooms to choose from: a large living room with vaulted 14' ceilings approx. 25'x30' with oak wood floors and another 12' pitched ceiling 18'x18' with carpet. Both rooms sound real good but the larger room has open walkways to other hard wood rooms creating a lively reverb. The smaller room is upstairs and isolated. My question is if I track drums in the large room, will the reverb be too much to mix even if I track the drums with tight mic placement? Thanks in advance.

[NathanEldred]

This is just based on my experience, but I like larger rooms with absorptive gobos around the drums with an ultra high ceiling, or absorption on the ceiling. My tracking room is medium (14 ceilings, 40 ft long, and 13 wide), and with no absorption in the room it's highly reverberant, to the point of being unusable. When we first tuned the room, we made it sound good 'to the ear' with bass traps, and high freq absorption, but we quickly found that for modern productions with lots of tracks we had to make the drums drier and tighter in the room with additional absorption (that isn't on the wall permanently). For more spacious retro type productions (like blues, classic rock) it's fine without additional absorption. I'd put the drums in your big room as is (less early reflections), record some basic rhythm tracks along with the drums (with some quality scratch vocals) and see how things sit. If it's too open and loose, start with some packing blankets behind the drummers head and add additional deadening to taste.

[dantheman65]

It's one of those things you'll just have to try. Nathan suggested what I was going to; try some basic scratch tracks with drums and see how it fits.

[slaves666]

what he ^^^^^^^^^^ said.

[Kelly644]

I just did pretty much the same thing with a project involving 4 bands.

I'd go with the large room.

Do what we did: Build in the room to compensate. Try a false wall in the hall way. If you're lazy just move a couch into the room & other things to dampen down the verb. Also, try a rug under th kit.

We had the oppesite problem: A room with very high ceilings (20+ft) but lots of carpet and close walls. I had them lay wood out in front of the kit (To get more verb going) and dampen down the walls flanking the it (Especially a tile fireplace behind the kit). They also built false walls for an Iso room (for GTRs) and a control room (Complete with monitor switching, talkback, video system, cable runs, iso door, beer, etc ).

What they turned the house into for a very short amount of time was impressive. Too bad they had to do the tracking themselves because I was stuck in the Emergency Room durring the planned dates!

*update*: Others posted as I was writing this out so sorry for the repetative suggestions.

[bobwarren]

Thanks guys! I think I can use your suggestions to work in the large room. It would sure beat lugging my racks and the drums up the stairs. I'll try to post some audio clips and some pics when I'm done. I can't do a whole lot(as far as hammering and nails) because the house is brand new and for sale @ $696,000! I don't want to have to buy it cause I damaged it; got too much 500 form goodies to get!!

[blackwatch5805]

use the big live room. be ready to throw up blankets or panels if you can't "tame the room". close mic'd dynami mics should be able to keep you pretty tight... and just use the room mics accordingly. it's easier to kill a room than to make it sound bigger than it actually is.

[vernier]

YouTube - Queen (One Vision Studio Sessions/ Making Of in 1985)

[gsqd]

I'd have to say try 'em both. There's no way to tell without doing it. I'd try the high ceiling first and if you hit instant magic leave it there and don't confuse the issue any further. I would imagine though that both rooms will give you usable flavors and you and the drummer will have to asses which will "mix" best in this particular project.

If the rooms are totally naked you may want to avoid putting the kit in the center of the room. Also try to ensure you have lots of movable screens/gobos at hand to "shape" your sound along with lots of choices for room and OH mics.

By the way, who's the drummer? I don't know any top flight Brit drummers out this way.

<GM>

[Jules]

Do a some basic advance preparation before the day of the session. Set up and record a snare and kick drum in all the rooms available to you. Just simple close micing should do you.

After you recorded some drum patterns (similar to the songs, not jazzy noodling by a bored 'sound checking only' drummer or some total different styles)
Try some compression... This should bring up the room sound and give you an idea of a) the quality of the room sound and b) how much of it gets into the close mic's...

Make your room choice based on these tests and you will be ahead of the game...

Good luck!

[Glenn Kuras]

another 12' pitched ceiling 18'x18' with carpet

Yea that room is squ and really is going to give a strange room tone. It might be perfect for a song or 2 (as a effect) but over all I don't think you are going to like that one anyway. So staying downstairs would be my vote.

Glenn

[drBill]

Originally Posted by bobwarren

I'm recording a project and have an incredible drummer from England flying out to the east coast from CA to contribute to the recording. I have a huge unfurnished house at my disposal to record in. There are two rooms to choose from: a large living room with vaulted 14' ceilings approx. 25'x30' with oak wood floors and another 12' pitched ceiling 18'x18' with carpet. Both rooms sound real good but the larger room has open walkways to other hard wood rooms creating a lively reverb. The smaller room is upstairs and isolated. My question is if I track drums in the large room, will the reverb be too much to mix even if I track the drums with tight mic placement? Thanks in advance.

This is impossible to give an answer for over the internet without hearing and being in the room. And without prior recording experience in the actual space.

That said, if I didn't have time to experiment with both rooms and different mic combinations, I'd set up in the big room. Tight mic the drums, have the OH mics fairly low, and then experiment with the room mics at different distances. Fairly close in and the "room verb" will be manageable. Further out and you may get an unbelieveable sound - or maybe crap - depending on the song and the sound you're after - neither of which I can comment on. Experimentation - YOUR experimentation - is what needs to happen to create your sound.

Hopefully you'll have the time to do it. You might want to get another drummer out before the actual sessions to experiment. That's what I'd prefer to do to get an idea about which envrionment would work best. Good luck and have some fun!!!

bp