Space required for drum booth

[Camilo Orozco]

Hello,
I'm going to make some changes in my studio and want some feed back about the minimum/maximum/best space needed for a drum booth. Please drop what you think about best height, how to make it not-so-death sounding etc...

[Camilo Orozco]

Any body?? [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[gh10606]

I think typically you wouldn't want to make a drum "booth" per se. What you really need is a drum ROOM. I'd say the ceiling should be no less than 10 feet high (preferably angled from 12-14 feet); and the room dimensions should be no smaller than (maybe) 15 x 15 (preferably not a square room). These are real ballpark figures.

I haven't built my dream studio yet, but I would like to think my drum room would be a good bit bigger than the above figures. I just thought I'd throw 'em out there for others to comment on.

As for materials, I'd say a combination of wood and stone.

Later,

Glenn

[gh10606]

Gosh, Camilo -- I guess you and I are the only ones interested in discussing drum rooms. I'll bump it back to the top and see what happens this time!

Glenn

[centerstage]

gh10606-
I think you can get good drum sounds in any room as long as you're not trying to capture a certain ambience. If you needed a real hall sound on the drums even the best verb on the market may not work depending on how picky you are. If you've got a small space 15 by 15 or less get rid of flutter echos and use anything to get the bass under control. If there are rooms adjacent to your room mic them and compress those and mix them in with the room. Yeah it's great to have a a non-parrallel room with brick and wood thats floated on rubber but there are so many variables. I like smaller rectangular rooms. There tighter and I can add the verb later. Height can be an issue. The mics mix themselves with more space. Then again you can close mic the cymbals with hyper or cardoid mics that will work. Listen to the Strokes record. ANYTHING can get on the radio if the song is catchy and the singer sells it.
Tim

[Natural Sound]

We've done it with about 100 sq ft of space.
The walls are double framed. The ceiling is about 12 ft and is the bass trap. There are no parallel walls. The room is medium dead.

A room of this size should not be ambient as it will sound pretty much like a shower stall. And it will sound that way forever.

If you want to capture any real useable ambience you need a really large space. I would say at least 500 sq ft.

So if it's going to be a small space, make it deadish, practice with all types of micing techniques and use outboard verb.

[gh10606]

I agree that it doesn't have to be ambient (although that's a very nice plus). My main point about was about the height of the ceiling and, to a lesser extent, the other dimensions of the room. In my experience, a room that's too small and/or too dead can cause drums to sound "choked" and "wimpy." There needs to be enough cubic footage for the longer wavelengths (low freqs) to complete their cycles.

Happy Holidays!

Glenn

[yuppie]

it depends from which drum sound you want. If you are going to mic a jazz-style drum you need a large and balanced room as you would mic it with two ambience mic away from the kit;
for pop and tight drums you can reach a good sound also with a small room but it could be preferable not to use ambience mics, mic the kit very close to any piece (cymbals too) and add some acustic baffles all around the drums if you don't like your room response, then add you favourite verbs and first reflections on mixdown.

matteo