Room advice

J

jpipdw

Member
I have a very dead sounding room down here - its a finished basement, with drop ceilings and carpet. Was like this when I bought the house.

Any advice to open up the room? Right now the drums are in the corner, I've found even if I move them out of the corner and into the middle of the room, it doesn't sound much better.

Has anyone had a similar setup? I'm thinking about temporarily removing the ceiling tiles? Would that help?

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You could remove the carpet if you wanted it to sound more 'live' but the other thing I notice is that you're sitting in very enclosed space which might make things sound a little boxed in... if you can bear facing the wall, do a 180 with your kit, maybe put a mirror on the wall so that you get more light and it will be good to watch yourself and your technique too.
 
I have the same situation at home in my finished drum room. The best part is when I take one of my kits out for a gig,they sound amazing, more open and resonant.
 
As someone already mentioned, the best option would be to remove the carpet and replace it with tile or hardwood flooring.

In general, I have found that small rooms with low ceilings are not going to sound very lively. My home studio is setup much like yours. It has wall to wall carpet, painted drywall walls and a low drywall ceiling. There is very little natural reverb. It's also where I mix, so that's a good thing.

Fortunately, my living room is a big open space and has hardwood floors and a cathedral ceiling. When I want to record something more spacious sounding I setup one of my kits in this room and run a snake to my studio.
 
Moving to a bigger space with higher ceilings would be a great option. But as far as making your room sound more lively, you could go to home depot and get some wood sheets. Put one under the kit, and put the rest leaning against the walls. This would definitely add some life to that room.

-Kyle
 
The Scorpio said:
Moving to a bigger space with higher ceilings would be a great option. But as far as making your room sound more lively, you could go to home depot and get some wood sheets. Put one under the kit, and put the rest leaning against the walls. This would definitely add some life to that room.

-Kyle
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I agree with a hard surface under the drum kit. However, since he already has very reflective drywall surfaces, I don't think adding wood to the walls will help. Removing sound absorbing or deadening material (drapes, furniture, etc) could help as well, but in a room with your dimensions I don't think you'll get the result you're looking for.
 
tommapex said:
I agree with a hard surface under the drum kit, but he already has very reflective drywall surfaces. I don't think adding wood to the walls will help.
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Oh ok I must have misunderstood. I thought the room was dead as it was and it needed to be more open sounding.

But at the end of the day that room is gonna be the enemy lol. If the low ceiling was gone, and the carpet flooring was wood instead, it would help a lot, but I don't know if it would help enough.
 
Of course there's another way to make your room sound more open: Make the room as dead sounding as possible (with egg crates, lots of furniture etc.), record your drums, and then add a really nice convolution reverb in post to the overheads and room mics. It kinda seems like cheating lol, but it would work=D
 
Thanks fellas....I did a 180 with the kit and now it's facing the wall. I'll see how it sounds tomorrow!
 
jpipdw said:
Thanks fellas....I did a 180 with the kit and now it's facing the wall. I'll see how it sounds tomorrow!
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You may be the exception to the rule, and I hope you are, but the mast majority of drum kits usually sound best playing into the room and not into a wall. But like I always say sometimes, it's good to experiment.

Dennis
 
Do you think removing the ceiling tile temporarily would be a good test to see what kind of reverb develops?

I have some pretty nice reverb plug ins - Lexicon, Waves, IR-L, etc. They work great but nothing beats real reverb.

I was thinking about installing a monitor on the unfinished side of the basement, and then setting up a room mic in front of the speaker with the drum mix output on the opposite side of the room to capture that "Reverb"
 
jpipdw said:
Do you think removing the ceiling tile temporarily would be a good test to see what kind of reverb develops?

I have some pretty nice reverb plug ins - Lexicon, Waves, IR-L, etc. They work great but nothing beats real reverb.

I was thinking about installing a monitor on the unfinished side of the basement, and then setting up a room mic in front of the speaker with the drum mix output on the opposite side of the room to capture that "Reverb"
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You could certainly try it and see what happens!!! Dennis would have a better idea about knowing if removing the tiles would help.

I agree with you that nothing beats real reverb, but to me it seems that there's just not that much air to move in that room. The verb has no time to really develop, reflect, or decay. Do you have access to a more acoustically pleasing room?
 
I do - the living room. I have cathedral ceilings on the 1st floor of the house.

I may just pull a Dave Grohl and record in my garage!

The wife probably wouldn't like my drum set in the living room either, although I did just mount a TV on the wall in our bedroom so she can watch The Bachelor up there
 
jpipdw said:
I do - the living room. I have cathedral ceilings on the 1st floor of the house.

I may just pull a Dave Grohl and record in my garage!

The wife probably wouldn't like my drum set in the living room either, although I did just mount a TV on the wall in our bedroom so she can watch The Bachelor up there
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Oh that's perfect then!!!

The Foo's recorded drums for "Wasting Light" in Grohl's garage, right? That was a pretty neat sound!

That's a bummer about the wifey and the no drums in the living room policy!! Maybe you could just set them up and record while she is out?
 
Ha! She's cool she wouldn't mind at all really....maybe I will do that later tonight after I test out the drum re-arrangement

yes on Wasting Light in the garage...that whole album was recorded to tape
 
I was waiting to hear how this worked out for you.

I took my own advice and turned my own drums into the corner today.

My kit sounds ALOT better!

On the downside things sound a little more 'enclosed' but I've got more tone and definition coming from all of my drums, alot more bass from my bass drum and it has put a stop to all the distracting and off putting echo's in the room. I can hear every note that I'm playing, and that's pretty important with things like fast/broken double bass patterns.

I also put one of those clothed partition boards right in the corner but it didn't do as much as I thought it would, just further deadened the bass drum sound, not really an improvement to my ears.

I'm not sure how this will sound for the guitarist standing on the other side of the room, I'll have to wait and see what he says. I'm gonna go get a mirror or two just in case someone tries to creep up behind me when I'm playing drums.

:)
 
All's I can say is WOW!!!! Those drums sound incredible my friend!!!! Really really great sound, I am beyond impressed, sir! You didn't sound sloppy to me. Great drumming too!!!! I'm subscribed so I can hear more of those incredible drums and playing.

-Kyle
 
Wow thanks Kyle! I started a project with a friend of mine - stay tuned for many more videos! They will all be originals with multiple video sources. Hint: you don't have to physically be in the same place to make an album together!
 
Wow, that was sick man, I really enjoyed watching and your drums sound great too. What is your kit, and what sizes? And what an awesome song? They remind me of FNM, I'll be checking them out.
 
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