How small for a drum booth?

[bing81]

In an ideal world, and if ceiling height is not a problem (4m in my case), how small an area could work OK as a drum booth.

OK, not going to get that 'drums in a big room' sound, but to get something workable/useable, what floor area or dimensions?

2m x 3m for example ... too small?

Thanks in advance.

B

[Ethan Winer]

You can make a booth as small as you want as long as it's totally dead down to bass frequencies. That requires about a foot thick insulation on all sides and the ceiling.

--Ethan

[bing81]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

You can make a booth as small as you want as long as it's totally dead down to bass frequencies. That requires about a foot thick insulation on all sides and the ceiling.--Ethan

OK, understood. But if I DIDN'T want to kill it with foot thick insulation, what would be the minimal size I could look at?

B

[surflounge]

Big enough for the drummer to sleep in.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by bing81

OK, understood. But if I DIDN'T want to kill it with foot thick insulation, what would be the minimal size I could look at?

There's no one answer. As the room gets smaller and smaller, the sound quality gets worse and worse. Only you can say when it sounds too awful to be useful.

BTW, covering all the surfaces with foot thick insulation doesn't have to make the room totally dead. You could cover portions with reflective cardboard or thin plastic to add back some reflectivity at mid and high frequencies, while still keeping the low end tight and clear.

--Ethan

[gullfo]

you could make the room 2.2m wide, 3.1m long, and 4m high and get decent ratios. that would be physically tight but with such a tall ceiling - i'd make a checkerboard of 60cm x 60cm 50mm and 100mm deep porous absorbers on the walls up to 3m, then i'd make the top area a nice 0.7m-1m deep bass trap (angled long way) - using 30cm of 48kg/m3 rigid insulation on a frame @ 1m down from the ceiling, and another 15cm on the ceiling above that. it would have a lot of absorption to kill off high frequency reflections from above (avoid getting into overhead mics).

ratio   size   m   sqrt(2)   even   ok   
h   1.00   7.22   2.20   0.29   FALSE   TRUE h-w
w   1.41   10.17   3.10   0.00   FALSE   TRUE   l-h      
l   1.82   13.12   4.00   0.09   FALSE   TRUE   l-w (h)       

ax 1st   ~note   ax 2nd   ~note   ax 3rd   ~note   ax 4th
h   78.00   D#2/Eb2   156.00   D#3/Eb3   234.00   A#3/Bb3   312.01
w   55.36   A1   110.71   A2   166.07   E3   221.42
l   42.90   E1   85.80   E2   128.70   B2   171.60       
  
      
vol   surf   edge   area   T(ms)   r(ms)   Dc
ft   963   603   122   133   5.67   329.13   4.32       
m   27.28   56.04   37.20   12.40   
      
rt60   eyring   millington   Fc   Fs   Fc2   davis       
1.03   0.89   0.79   264.39   388.34   408.15   468.01       
        
ratios   diatonic   phidev   modes   df   
h-w   1.41   +IV   0.15   172   0.96   
w-d   1.29   °IV   0.23   
h-l   1.82   vii   0.14