Redoing recording/drum room. Material? Wood floor? Carpet?

[tluke]

Thank you to everyone who commented on my Avalon preamp thread. I am now leaning toward Great River MP2NV.

I wanted to ask people about the kind of material one might use when redoing a recording/drum room.

I realize this is potentially a complex topic, with many potential sub threads and attendant issues...so please allow me to be specific.

The room is in the cellar, adjacent to my control room (separated by eight feet or so). It is about ten by twelve feet, and not entirely rectangular, as there is a narrow passageway leading out the back into a closet and doorway.

The room is, and this is immutable, surrounded on two sides by the cement foundation. I do not see the cement though, as there is (ugh), old style fake wood paneling lining the walls.

A false ceiling lines the top right now, with those old white corkish panels. When i take those down and have sheet rock put on the ceiling it'll be about seven and a half feet high.

The room is raised up an inch or two, probably by 2by4's laid on their side, and i know it has plywood nailed to them as a base. This means there's a space between the cement floor and the floor of the room, about an inch or two deep.

I do not have much of a budget... and i don't think i'll be able to spend much on acoustic treatment, etc. I do have people to help me do the stuff i intend to do, so labor cost isn't an issue.

In this room i'll be recording a drumset, possibly vocals though i do that now in my control room, marimba occassionally, a guitar amp occassionally.

One of my main complaints about the room right now is that it is too dead. I hate practicing drums in it; it's uninspirational. I like some room in my room. I would like some more room in this room, even just for practicing...and for recording as well.

I don't mind the sound of my control room, and that is drywall on the walls and ceiling, with a rug on the floor.



I intend to either take down that fake wood paneling or cover it over with the dry wall, and put up dry wall on the ceiling. What do you guys think?

And, my main question is about the floor. I am definitely tearing out the existing rug. I was considering the possibility of some inexpensive lumber, and having a wood floor...with planks. It would probably not be oak though...it'd be pine or whatever i could get. If that was too live, i could always put down some throw rugs. I like wood, the look and the vibe of it...

I'm wondering how you find wood floors for recording drums and the like.

Does it tend to be pretty live?

I can always put down rugs afterward, as i mentioned. Or, alternately, i can just put a rug over the plywood with no wood floor...after i tear out the existing one and clean the place. But, i wonder if a wood floor would help liven the room up, and make it more inspirational for me.

?

Thank you very much, in advance, for any comments.


tristan luke

[Dave Martin]

Drums on a wood floor are fine, though you'll most likely need a rug of some sort to keep them from sliding around as you play. You might look at doing a wall or two with Mineral wool or Corning 703 (Both should be available from your local industrial instulation company) and a couple of walls with plywood. I'm paneling my tracking room now with maple plywood - quite nice. I have the wood angled out from the walls to avoid parallel surfaces, and it's going to look quite nice. You could do the ceiling the same way, remove the cork and leave the drywall up, or some combination of the two. I suspect that the 'too dead' sound that you're complaining about may have more to do with low and mid-range frrequencies building up in the room; to a certain extent, that can be minimized by using two inches of mineral wook with a two in gap behind it.

I guess I should have taken pictures of the acoustic contruction at my place - or maybe I did - I could look for them if you want...

[tluke]

Well thank you, Dave.

Tell me please, how would maple plywood compare to the drywall in price? Is it available at most lumber places or home depot type stores?

Or, would it be possible to angle the sheet rock in a similar way? I think i could live with sheet rock walls and a wood floor.

Basically, i would angle 'every other' wall, in other words, one normal, and one angled, right?

Could this be done with sheet rock?

Yes, if you could give me an idea how i would instruct my cousin and builder guy to angle the sheet rock, that would be helpful. And pictures would be great, if you have them.

Thank you very much.


tristan luke

[Dave Martin]

Wood is a lot more expensive than drywall, though on one level, it's not that much. You said that your room dimensions approximately 10x12 feet; three sheets of 4x8 plywood would cover any single wall. And though the maple seems to be an occasional thing at Home Depot, birch and oak are always available (the 3/4" is around $40 per sheet). So for around $120 you could finish a wall. That's not that much for something that should look good for quite a few years...

The way that you angle your walls will depend on a lot of things, but a rule of thumb is that if you off set a wall by 1 inch for each foot of wall, then you won't get flutter echoes. So a 10 foot wall could be built out 10 inches, offset each piece of plywood (or for that matter, drywall) 4 inches.

This picture doesn't show it that well, but look on the extreme left side of the photo - you can see the way that each piece of wood is offset; That's what I'm talking about.

[tluke]

Good God man! That is a lot of wonderful gear. You must be happy.

Okay, thanks Dave... but please let me trouble you a little more.

When i have my guy angle the dry wall or plywood... i still don't understand how i tell him to do this.

If it's not flush with the wall, then it's got to be resting against something, right?

And wouldn't it gradually get further from the wall, as it went up or down (depending on which you started from, floor or ceiling)?

Also, i'm assuming i do this on two of four walls, right?

thanks again so much, and thank you for the picture. Your studio looks excellent.

[OzNimbus]

Dude, you want to go here:

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php

A forum dedicated to studio design.

-0z-

[chrisso]

All the best drum sounds I've ever had have been recorded in wood rooms, usually with a wood floor.
You need to be able to add carpets to liven or deaden the room to taste.

[nd33]

Hi
I just thought I'd put in a related query here, hope you don't mind Tristan.

My recording room has a wood floor, it's not a huge room but it's decent - approx 10f x 8.5f x 7high and I've started installing foam to the ceiling and a couple of the walls so I now have around 70% ceiling covered and 15% of walls covered.

Just listening in the room I can hear flutter echoes in the high frequencys when I clap or make a percussive noises.
Are flutter echoes problematic in all frequencies or just in certain ranges?
If it's full range then I guess I would really need to do angled panels like suggested but if it's just higher frequencies then I can do the job with the 2 and 3 inch foam I have.

I don't want to kill the room completely but feel like I need to get rid of more flutter echo. What sort of coverage is recommended?

I was thinking of covering pretty much the whole ceiling (because the floor is wood) and 50% of walls which will eliminate any 2 parallel walls being bare.

Any suggestions?
BTW The room sounds pretty good apart from the flutters.

Thanks!

Nate

[Steve Smith]

nice pix dave.. you guys may want to also check out John Sayers Forum ... very helpful folks!

[tluke]

No i don't mind if you hop on, Nate, but Dave... give me an idea if you can how the wall gets angled...if you have a moment. Thank you again,


tristan

[Dave Martin]

Originally posted by tluke
No i don't mind if you hop on, Nate, but Dave... give me an idea if you can how the wall gets angled...if you have a moment. Thank you again,


tristan

If you're putting the building material vertically (in other words, 4 feet wide and as tall as the room, Simply attach a 1x6 to the wall. Put one side of the 4x8 sheet on the 1x6 (which is actually 5 1/2 inches wide) and the other side against the existing wall. That will give you an angle of more than one inch per foot You'll probably need to put another brace somewhere in the middle of the piece; that piece will be betweeb 2 and three inches thick.

Does that make sense?

[Bob Olhsson]

Wood is great under drums. Just make sure the drummer can spike into it. If you want carpet, throw down a rug!

[Dave Martin]

Originally posted by Bob Olhsson
Wood is great under drums. Just make sure the drummer can spike into it. If you want carpet, throw down a rug!

That's what I've got - Oak floors and a rug under the drums. Sounds nice.

[bpark@prorec.co]

Like you, I have a short ceiling in my drumn booth. So I chose to put up the dual layer of sheet rock, and I made a soft floor. I have soundasote, 1/2" of rubber, then a dense rubber carpet pad, and finally a heavy carpet.

I did this to eliminate the bouce betwene the floor and ceiling.

I bass trapped one wall, and Sonexed the others. Not the best solution, but I was using what I had at hand.

I get a very solid drum sound.

There is no doubt that a wooden room sounds wonderful. But there has to be enough size to the room, too. Otherwise, it is just all short reflectrions that are as powerful as the original signal.. not usually a good thing.

Bill

[tluke]

Originally posted by Dave Martin
If you're putting the building material vertically (in other words, 4 feet wide and as tall as the room, Simply attach a 1x6 to the wall. Put one side of the 4x8 sheet on the 1x6 (which is actually 5 1/2 inches wide) and the other side against the existing wall. That will give you an angle of more than one inch per foot You'll probably need to put another brace somewhere in the middle of the piece; that piece will be betweeb 2 and three inches thick.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, i think i get that Dave. Thank you.

I can achieve the angle from side to side then? That's okay? So it touches the wall on the left side let's say, and angles out several inches when it gets to the right side? WOuld that be okay?

BUt in that case, the drywall would have to be the whole length of that particular wall, correct? Is that the way to do it?

And finally, i should do this on 2 of the 4 walls, right? So no walls have a parralel opposite facing them. Thanks again Dave,


tristan

[Dave Martin]

Originally posted by tluke
Yeah, i think i get that Dave. Thank you.

I can achieve the angle from side to side then? That's okay? So it touches the wall on the left side let's say, and angles out several inches when it gets to the right side? WOuld that be okay?

BUt in that case, the drywall would have to be the whole length of that particular wall, correct? Is that the way to do it?

And finally, i should do this on 2 of the 4 walls, right? So no walls have a parralel opposite facing them. Thanks again Dave,


tristan

Sure, it's OK to have the angle from side to site. It's also OK to have the angle from top to bottom, if that's the way you think it will look best. If I understand you correctly, yeah, the drywall will run the entire length of the wall, but each 4 foot section can be on its own support brace, so it will kind of look like a zig-zag. Got that matter, you can make eich piece 2 feet orf three feet wide if you want it; it just means that there will be a sharper angle to each board.

Think it through, and you'll see that if you do that on one wall, there won't be any parallels with the opposite walls; not whether or not you should do, for example, the north wall and the west wall as opposed to the north wall and south wall, the first may be better. What I did in my control room is to mirror the north and south walls with angled wood, and made the east and west (Actually the front and back walls) absorptive. effectively, anything that hits the side walls is reflected back toward the bass traps in the back of the room.

I'm doing a bit more carpentry today, and I'll try to post a better picture of how I've angled the walls. And if you'd like, I can post some pictures of how I built the absorptive panels/bass traps which I also use.

[Steve Smith]

Originally posted by Dave Martin
That's what I've got - Oak floors and a rug under the drums. Sounds nice.

Another cool trick is to use a 6x8 ( or wahtever size you need) commerical entryway rug ( the kind with short carpet and thick rubber backing) upside down, you can spike the kit in and it is still rather reflective. 9 times out of ten I pick the rubber side to the carpet side, seems to help the snare on the top end in a ( sometimes ) subtle sort of way.

[Jules]

"I'm doing a bit more carpentry today, and I'll try to post a better picture of how I've angled the walls. And if you'd like, I can post some pictures of how I built the absorptive panels/bass traps which I also use."

YES PLEASE!

I am getting my 'drum corner' together at the moment. It's more than workable but I want more out of it. I am thinking to make a cockpit effect or ''awning' above the drummer to reduce ceiling reflections getting back into my cymbals mic's.. Or..... (just thought of this...) I may try the 'flag hanging' technique I have seen in a large barn style studio once.. and run a series of wires accross the corner of the room to hang fabric / towels off when drums are in..

Hey! I am knocking myself out with ideas here!

BRING ON THE BACK YARD LAUNDRY HANGING DEVICES!



I wanna get into this thread.... a lot.

[Dave Martin]

OK, here's more or less the way that I'm treating absorptive walls.

I start by building a frame where (ideally) each holds a single sheet of either Corning 703 or mineral wool (I've started using mineral wool because it's denser and because it's cheaper).

The frame in this picture was made with1"x4" lumber (which is actually 3/4"x3 1/2"). As it happens, the holes are not 2'X4' because this picture was taken of an area of an iso booth wich is over a doorway. But if you look closely at the picture, there are a couple of small pieces of wood nailed inside the frame; those are spacers. YOu see, the 703 that I use is 2 inches thick, and the frame depth is 3 1/2 inches. The 1 1/2" pieces of wood keep the 703 from falling inside, and the air space behind the 703 increases low end absorption. According to Everest (or someone), the airspace is better than solid fiberglass. You can see in the picture that a couple of pieces of 703 have been cut to fit.

After the framed wall is filled with 703, fabric is stretched over the whole wall and stapled. Then trim pieces are added to hide the staples. The end result is like my first picture. Does that make sense?

[nathanvacha]

I just have to say, dave, that your boockcase in the drum room is perhaps the best sound control idea i have ever seen. Books would be really dense, and like you said, act as a diffusor, and it looks nice on top of that. I knew what you were going for when i saw the first picture, even before i read the description. Hat's off to you for that one. And i finance myself right now with my coffeeshop job, and always wanted that in a recording space too. Also, i'm appreciating those absorbative wall tips too (even though i think i misspelled that. it's too early.