big room small 7' ceiling, am i fu@*ed

[rynugz007]

im moving my studio to a finished basement. The room itself is around 15'x25' at least with another large room off to the side for tracking or whatever. Both rooms have very small ceilings around 7' tall. Am i going to have problems regardless of how i treat the room? Is there a fix?

[Dave Martin]

You can make that space work - I had my studio in a basement with around a 7 foot ceiling for 6 or 8 years...

[shortyprs]

I have a similar situation. The best answer is rigid fiberboard absorbption pretty much over the entire ceiling. Ethan Winer had designs posted around before the mini-trap boom. The end effect is closer to not having a ceiling at all. Get your early reflections off the floor. Its pretty good.


Oh yeah, I also aplogize a lot.

[TML]

Yeah...kill the ceiling as much as possible.....use the other rooms to put distant mics to make the drums more alive. Distance is depth. Their are no rules anymore. It doesn't matter. Get a great band to do great tunes in the rooms and your set. Just don't deaden all the walls or you'll have boxing sounding crap all over your mix.
Tim

[Tim L]

Originally posted by shortyprs
... The best answer is rigid fiberboard absorbption pretty much over the entire ceiling.

Or at least over specific work areas... mix area, drum area,... etc

[Ted Nightshade]

It's a bad situation but you can make the most of it. Be aware of the patterns of your microphones- figure 8 patterns have big nulls that can lose a lot of that ceiling-floor interaction, cardioid mics have a big ol' null in back, supercardioids have nulls at 120 degrees or so. Finding just the right spot and angle to put each mic will go a long way towards salvaging things.

[Bosco]

Yeah...kill the ceiling as much as possible.....use the other rooms to put distant mics to make the drums more alive. Distance is depth. Their are no rules anymore. It doesn't matter. Get a great band to do great tunes in the rooms and your set. Just don't deaden all the walls or you'll have boxing sounding crap all over your mix.

The wall deadening is something to watch out for.I found Realtraps for lowend absorbtion work wonders on the walls and corners for buildup,but do not deaden the room too much.I use the Microtraps above the source for ceiling issues.

The 7' ceiling is far from ideal but I work with it.Fletcher turned me on to an underhead mic placement for drums that turned out rather nice and I never would of thought of it.

If you get players that will adapt to the situation and watch your mic placement, you can make it happen.

[heylow]

Originally posted by Bosco

The 7' ceiling is far from ideal but I work with it.Fletcher turned me on to an underhead mic placement for drums that turned out rather nice and I never would of thought of it.

Sounds interesting....please share!



On topic, my room sounds to be about the same dimensions and I've found that, while it takes a little more "creativity" to get around the low ceiling, you CAN get around it. Do everything you can to keep the mics away from the ceiling....as someone suggested, use "out" intead of "up" when possible. With drums, we will often "spot treat" particularly over the hi hat to keep the reflection down and it helps. I've also found M160s to be great kit mics in my situation.


heylow