What makes a good drum room?

Diegoro

Member
A lot of people say your drums might sound very good or very bad depending on the kind of room you're in. I'm not sure what that means, what's in a good drum room? Or how can I make a space a better drum room
 
Well you don't want smooth surfaces like glass , plaster etc. for live playing I always liked the old halls with solid wood staging,curtains and such. Elevate your drums off the floor ,acoustic panels will help ,eliminate sharp corners.
 
Depends if its for practice or recording. If you want the best of both worlds a room with hard floors and walls that you can "Tune" to the sound you desire by adding curtains, accoustic pannels, carpet etc. Have them removable and you can make the room as live or as dead as you need for a particular sound.
 
Lamps.

Lots of floor lamps with funky old fashioned looking shades.
 
Yeah, like it was noted it really all depends on what you intend to do in that room?

Personally I like my practice room to have hard floors but dampening under the kit in the form of a rug or carpet, and if I am backed up against the wall some dampening material behind me about 5 feet high. Then depending on the height of the ceiling and wall material I put sound panels around the room in various places and try to find a balance between a live and studio feel. Not too dead where you loose all your resonance, and not to live where you have freqs bouncing around every where.
 
If you check out a drum room in a high end recording studio you might notice that the room is either very large or that it is irregularly shaped.

That is because early reflections off of near surfaces kill the room sound. A rectangular room with an 8 foot ceiling (like a bedroom) is just awful for that.

Room treatment is an entire subject but lets just say you have to kill the early reflections and get bass traps into the corners as a start.
 
When I built my drum room I copied a rehearsal room that I really liked the sound of. T-bar ceiling with acoustic tiles, tongue and groove pine instead of drywall, and very short - pile indoor/outdoor carpet with a very thin underlay. My drums sound great in there.
 
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