Drums in basement bedroom, sounds very harsh

qwimjim

Junior Member
My acoustic drums have always been in a huge rehearsal space, 1000sqft, 15 foot ceilings. Now I bought a house and they're in a 120sqft bedroom in the basement with 7 1/2' ceilings. They sound really harsh, lots of reflections, etc.. The floor is laminate flooring, but I put those kiddy style foam connect mats all over the floor. Just wondering what else I can do to make the room sound more pleasing? I have no intentions of recording, I just want it to sound better when I'm playing. Don't care about soundproofing so much either. Thanks!
 
Hang thick blankets (or layered thinner blankets) on the walls. Or tack up some of the pink insulation on the walls. Same on the ceiling. It'll work. Might be ugly, but the blankets wouldn't have to be, depending on the blankets.
 
The floor is the least of your worries. Acoustically speaking, you actually want a hard, live floor because that is one of the cues that our brains subconsciously want to reference because it is familiar to us. Carpets went out with the 70's. 90% of pro studios will have a hardwood, linoleum, concrete, tile, or laminate floor because hard, uncovered floors are what you want acoustically.

The ceiling is where you want absorption, especially right over the kit, because that's where a ton of first reflections come from. If you can get your ceiling 100% absorbent then acoustically it is the same as having an infinitely high ceiling, which is a good thing. That is a lot of work and a lot of money though, so unless you want to put in a drop ceiling in your room with proper polyester acoustic ceiling tiles, with at least four inches of rockwool on top of the tiles over the entire ceiling and a four inch air gap between the rockwool and the existing drywall ceiling....you should probably just build a ceiling cloud over your kit. That consists of a frame (1×4's work well for this) and fill the frame with at least four inches of rockwool and cover the face with fabric. The thicker the better. 6 inches would be better than 4, but 4 will work ok and is about as thin as you want to go. Once again, you'll want a 4 inch air gap between the top of the cloud and the existing ceiling, so hanging the cloud from eye bolts or hooks screwed into the ceiling is the way to go. You'll probably want your cloud to be at least 6'×6', so for stability, you might consider making 2' wide sections and placing them next to each other. Hanging some space couplers directly under the cloud will increase the cloud's effectiveness as well.

Drums, more so than any other instrument, depend on the acoustics of a room for a good overall sound, and they sound absolutely terrible in a small, dead, overly absorptive room. With that in mind, your going to want a bit of absorption on your walls in places to cut down reflections and flutter echo, but with that said, you don't want too much or you'll suck all the life out of your drums.

A popular design for drum rooms uses absorptive panels on the back wall behind the kit and maybe one or two panels on the side walls on both sides of the kit. The standard design for these panels is a 2'×4' wooden frame with at least 2" (once again, the thicker the better...) of rockwool or Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass (rockwool is cheaper, but you get a more pro looking panel with 703) and a fabric cover. An airgap between the panel and the wall is good for this too (like the ceiling cloud) so some people put pegs on the back side of the panel to stand them off the wall a couple of inches. The new thing is to place a skyline diffuser in the center of the back wall, right behind the kit, so that end of the room isn't too dead and it helps put back some air and life into the mids and highs from the drummer's perspective. They are a pain in the ass to build, but if you're serious about this and want to put the time in, then I can hook you up with plans for how to build one.

If your room sounds really boomy in the low-end then floor-to-ceiling corner bass traps are in order. Bass traps go in the corners of rooms because that's where bass frequencies build up most in a room. There are many different types of bass traps, but the superchunk trap is the simplest to make, and by all accounts is as effective as any for most situations. These are made by stacking triangular sections of rockwool, placing them in a frame, and covering the frame in fabric. The fabric used for all these panels and traps should be very gas permeable. That means when you are at the fabric store picking out your fabric, make sure you can breathe through the fabric very easily. Just hold it up to your mouth and try to breathe through it. If you can't then your traps will end up reflecting a lot of higher frequencies instead of absorbing them. Also, more so than the other traps- when it comes to bass traps, the thicker the better. Low frequencies have the most energy and require a lot of mass to be absorbed. To be effective, make sure the face of your corner trap (the hypotenuse of the triangle that spans the gap between the two walls) is no less than 18 inches, 24 would be better...If you couldn't be bothered building anything but you have bass issues in your room then you can simply stack bags of pink fiberglass in the corners of your room and that will work pretty well too. You don't even need to open them. Just buy them at home depot or wherever and throw them in the corners. If your room isn't boomy though, then don't even worry about the corner traps. If the room isn't bassy to begin with and you put the corner bass traps in anyway, then your bass drum will likely sound very flat in the room.

That is a good starting point for acoustical treatments. If you want to tweak the sound of your room further then do some research on slats, QRD diffusers, and poly diffusers. Diffusion deals with reflections and flutter echo by scattering sound instead of absorbing it, so they don't remove energy from a room, which is a good thing when it comes to drums. The more life you can keep in the room without annoying echoes, the better your drums will likely sound in the room. Covering the entire front wall with QRD diffusers is quite popular nowadays. They are expensive to buy and quite involved to DIY, but just PM me if you think you might want to try to build some and I can send you some plans.

Slats are also very good and are worth researching as a cheaper, simpler substitute for diffusers. They scatter sound as well, and you can EQ the room a bit by varying the width of the gaps between slats. Narrow gaps attenuate bass and augments mids and highs. Wide gaps attenuate highs and augments lows (a good thing where cymbals and bass drums are concerned in smaller rooms). Using BOTH slats and diffusers is best. Slats for scattering and EQ, diffusers for life and air.

Also consider making your various different panels and treatments on stands so you can move them around the room and experiment with what type of treatment you like in different locations. I plan on mounting all my treatments on French cleats (a type of rail mounting system for walls) so I am not stuck with a specific room treatment and can change things around as I please.
 
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Some thoughts on what works for me. Set up on an area rug, concur with blankets - or hang a more decorative quilt or two for better aesthetics. Keep room door(s) open.
 
I put those producers blankets which are basically the old style heavy quilted moving blankets on 2 of my walls and it killed all of the harshness.. huge difference.
 
Did it make a big difference or just a little?

I know when I used to practice snare drum in empty hard-walled dorm rooms at music camp, that throwing 4-5 twin mattresses up against the walls REALLY helped cut down the volume. I imagine a couple layers of thick blankets (or insulation) would work about the same.
 
Cheaper options - thick rug, bigger than the kit. Some drapes or curtains over some walls. Something soft in the corners, maybe a lounge chair or even a beanbag chair or two. A bookcase full of books will diffuse sound and make it less harsh.
 
Well 8lbs moving blankets with grommets are $15 each, so for $60 I could cover the two main walls. Can't see anything else being cheaper than that? No room for furniture, also have keyboard, two amps and vdrums in there too :)
 
I have the same kind of basement. I bought moving blankets (aka "acoustic blankets"). Put grommets in them, hung them in pairs on all sides of the kit and that was a huge improvement. I also put a few area rugs (the cheap ones from Home Depot) around the concrete floor.

It'll never be like a "nice room" but it makes practice more enjoyable.
 
Well 8lbs moving blankets with grommets are $15 each, so for $60 I could cover the two main walls. Can't see anything else being cheaper than that? No room for furniture, also have keyboard, two amps and vdrums in there too :)

The link insulation might be a little cheaper but not much. The question is, which will be more reusable, given your likely future over the next few years?
 
Absorption and bass traps will help, but the majority of the problem you are hearing is the difference in room sizes. Nothing much gonna fix that.
 
Did it make a big difference or just a little?

Tile floor, 9' ceilings - the area rug helped and yes, it was noticeable and bearable. I eventually cleared room in my mancave, larger room with a few pieces of furniture, taller ceiling, but the absorption did help noticeably in the smaller room.
 
i'm in canada so things are a little more expensive here but i found some 9lb 72x80 moving blankets with grommets locally for $20 each. my room is 12x10. so 4 of them would cover the two 12' walls, i would hang them 2-3" off the wall, i don't have a ton of space to spare. the 10' walls i can't hang blankets on, one has the door and closet door, the other has a window. the drums are up against the window wall, back to the window.

another option is buying acoustic foam and putting it right on the wall, not sure how effective it would be compared to blankets? but would take up less room since it goes right on the wall. someone local is selling for $3.50 sqft:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDUwWDYwMA==/z/kkgAAOSwux5YXaA8/$_27.JPG

but i would have no idea how much to buy and how much to put on the walls? it would certainly look better than moving blankets so if it cost a little bit more overall i wouldn't mind. and i could put some on the ceiling? watching this video really got me looking at foam :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp56A6TcL1E

there's also someone selling bass traps on craigslist, $100 for four 12x12x24 bass traps. so i could put one in each corner? which seems like it would be a good idea regardless of what treatment i use for the walls?

thoughts?

again i have no intention of ever recording or mixing in this room, it's strictly a jam room, practice space, but right now the drums sound harsh and unpleasant in my little drywall box. i want them to sound good :)
 
i'm in canada so things are a little more expensive here but i found some 9lb 72x80 moving blankets with grommets locally for $20 each. my room is 12x10. so 4 of them would cover the two 12' walls, i would hang them 2-3" off the wall, i don't have a ton of space to spare. the 10' walls i can't hang blankets on, one has the door and closet door, the other has a window. the drums are up against the window wall, back to the window.

another option is buying acoustic foam and putting it right on the wall, not sure how effective it would be compared to blankets? but would take up less room since it goes right on the wall. someone local is selling for $3.50 sqft:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDUwWDYwMA==/z/kkgAAOSwux5YXaA8/$_27.JPG

but i would have no idea how much to buy and how much to put on the walls? it would certainly look better than moving blankets so if it cost a little bit more overall i wouldn't mind. and i could put some on the ceiling? watching this video really got me looking at foam :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp56A6TcL1E

there's also someone selling bass traps on craigslist, $100 for four 12x12x24 bass traps. so i could put one in each corner? which seems like it would be a good idea regardless of what treatment i use for the walls?

thoughts?

again i have no intention of ever recording or mixing in this room, it's strictly a jam room, practice space, but right now the drums sound harsh and unpleasant in my little drywall box. i want them to sound good :)

I would stay away from foam. It doesn't have enough mass to be very effective. If the bass traps are the LENRD type, foam traps, then they aren't worth the money either. Bags of pink fiberglass insulation would be cheaper and way more effective. They have enough mass and thickness to actually absorb lows down to around 80-100 Hz and the plastic bag on the surface will reflect some highs back in the room, plus it'll act a bit like a poly diffuser as the curved surface will scatter the mids and highs it reflects around the room a bit. You don't want your room completely dead, so a bit of mids and highs is a good thing so long as they don't create flutter echo. A short, subtle, half a second long high/mid reverb being present in the room when you clap your hands is what you're after.

I would say that blankets on two of your walls should be enough, just too bad you can't cover a long wall and a short wall- usually you want parallel walls across from each other to be the opposite of one another,ie: one wall absorptive, and the wall across from it reflective/live/diffusive. Having the two long walls covered with blankets should be fine though, if you just want to deaden the room a bit. You could always put up curtain rods on the wall with the window so you could pull back the blanket on that wall when you're not playing or when you want to open the window. That would give you the live end/dead end option, or you could cover 3 walls with blankets if you decide you want more absorption in the room.

Don't forget your ceiling....
 
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I would stay away from foam. It doesn't have enough mass to be very effective. If the bass traps are the LENRD type, foam traps, then they aren't worth the money either. Bags of pink fiberglass insulation would be cheaper and way more effective.

I would say that blankets on two of your walls should be enough, just too bad you can't cover a long wall and a short wall- usually you want parallel walls across from each other to be the opposite of one another,ie: one wall absorptive, and the wall across from it reflecyive/live/diffusive. Having the two long walls covered with blankets should be fine though, if you just want to deaden the room a bit. Don't forget you ceiling.

did you watch the video in my post? that guy used just foam and it made an incredible difference.

i'm essentially trying to deaden the room and not have the room look like crap.. so i'd like to avoid piles of pink insulation in the corners :) i don't mind spending a little more for a clean look

in theory i could cover the back wall with the window with a blanket but there's a baseboard heater under the window, so if ever a grommet failed and the blanket dropped a foot, it would end up on the heater and that could be disastrous
 
Oh yes, foam will work if you put enough of it up, I was just refering to the fact that rockwool/Owens Corning 703/etc is much more effective. Still, if the foam is cheap and you like the look of it, then go for it. Did you notice how much he had on the ceiling? You'll probably want to completely cover your ceiling if you can. For the walls a 50/50 coverage works well in a checkerboard pattern, with opposing walls having a reverse pattern, ie: if a row of tiles on one wall starts out with tile, space, tile, space, then the wall across from it would go space, tile, space, tile.

Anyway, the advantage of making the panels is you don't need nearly as much coverage as you do with foam, but hey, if you like the look of the foam, then why not? Here are some links explaining what I was getting at:

https://youtu.be/pABvTWSxOes
https://youtu.be/FI17E8TQqWw
 
My band used to rehearse in a room in our house. Couldn't tell you the dimensions, but a longish, narrowish sort of room. It had a carpeted floor, and leaned up against one of the walls was a double bed mattress. The room sounded acoustically "right".

That room became another "useful" room in the house, and during the metamorphosis, everything was taken out of it and I installed a laminate floor.

As expected, when I moved the drum kit back in, the sound was unbearably harsh. Finally, here comes the point... All it took to make the room bearable again was the against one of the shorter walls. That one simple measure absolutely transformed the sound of the room. My recommendation would be to make small, simple, inexpensive changes to the room and see how you go.
 
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