getting decent drum sounds in a small room

[b mcgibney]

My room is small : 12 by 16 with 7 foot ceilings. Three layers of 5/8 drywall then painted OSB (chipboard) for the walls. single 5/8 gyproc then acoustic tile for the ceiling. The floor is two layers of carpet onto chipboard on to concrete. The room is very full ie couch , desk , instruments, amps and speaker cab,even a A-100 /leslie. About half the wall surface is covered by very thick carpet (especially the corners) but I have some open wall space for a little reflectivity.

I have had very good results recording perc instruments ie djembe,timbales,talking drum but now a project has come up with a full kit. The kit in question is a studio yamaha kit, with an early 70's evans piccollo snare. The drummer uses a trad grip and is a medium to hard hitter. The sound I'm after is a modern day version of the original Motown sound Ie standing in the shadoews of Motown. Mics I have to work with are sm 87 58 57 akg c-1000 c-2000b and d330 and RS pzms. DIGI 001 with waves NPP. Board for other mics is mid 70's studio master 16-4-2;.

Thoug the room is small and badly dimensioned , the ad hoc acoustic treament seems to have worked well. I plan to put , as much as possible the kit in the centre of the room so as to avoid bass freq exageration by coupling in the corners.

Any advice as to how many tracks, mic placement etc would be appreciated. My biggest concern is the low celing and phasing probems with cymbals. Should I deaden the space above (with a quilt or something or would that be making more problems than it solves)

Any input appreciated

B

[BookSix]

Appearantly no one else wants to help, so heres my input...

12 x 16 is plenty big to get killer drum tracks! The carpet is not the best as it eats highs, but it will keep reflections down. I'm not real sure of the sound you want and you mic selection is small!! But here's my suggestion...anyone else, feel free to add on, or correct:

57 on snare, 58 on kick drum, c1000/2000 as overheads, pzms as room mics (in front kit, high up in corners, slightly angled in (but this may not work with pzm's..idk), 87 on ride or hats if needed.

Or go rent some mics! Like a D112 for kick, 414's for OH, senn 421's for toms, LD condensers for room mics...


Oh yeah, some 3 or 4 inch generic foam would be cheap (better than carpet) and help with ceiling reflections.

as for phasing issues, just check everything in mono, and rev pol and move stuff to get it sounding right...

Let me know what happens or if you have more questions...

[Paul Cavins]

If you dampen the ceiling above the kit, it might help at "height" to your ceiling. Dry to keep the ceiling reflections to a minimum.

[BookSix]

Also, throw a little room reverb on the room mics to give the kit a "larger room than they are actually in" sound. Put some of this on snare too...

[where02190]

Your room's plenty big enough, your mic selection and console could use some improving though.

IF you can, get yourself a decent kick and room mic. Personally I'd recommend a Shure Beta 52 and a Rode NTK, whcih can be used for many other things, vocals, guitars, reeds....also a good pair of condensers for overheads, or if you can swing it, a Shure VP-88 stereo mic. Work with minimal micing in the small room, overheads, room mic, kick, snare, and you can achieve a killer sound. Also, try moving the drums more toward one corner, I find it helps to tighten the low end, rather than getting alot of reflections coming back to the kit from all 4 walls.

Better mic pre's will help as well. The Studiomaster isn't a bad board, but has a rather high noise floor, and there is alot better bang for the buck out there, if you can afford.

Don't overtreat the space. My main room is stone wall on 3 sides, that is sparsly treated, some absorbing surfaces (about 20%) and some wood(about 15%), carpet across 40% of the floor, the remaining is concrete. The ceiling is exposed wood over the kit, and r-25 insulation on the rest. The space is very open (15x20x7.5), with attention paid to placement of acoustical material to break up any parrallel surface reflections. My clients love the sound I get from this room, typically with the micing setup I described earlier in this post.(you can check out several examples in MP3 format from our listen page...see link below)

Of course other factors are a good sounding, well tuned kit, and a player to match. IMHO, the smapper the space, the more important minimal micing can become. With so many potential reflections coming so quickly, if one can minimize the potential for unteraction, the results can be quite sonically pleasing.

Experiement. Move the kit around, try different mic combinations, and eventually you'll learn the best placements and micing techniques for this space.

[martinsbouchard]

Get two AKG C-414 and ElectroVoice RE-20.

Put the two C-414 in front of your drum kit, just like you would postition yourself to take a picture
(3-5 ft away, 4-6ft high "equidistance")

Put the RE-20 in the kick.

Add some mikes on the snare or the hihat if the drummer is a poor player
(ho, yes, tune that drum...)

See people smile...

[spookster]

Hey Where. I tried the link to your studio. But fro some reason, it didn't work. I'd really like to hear your drum sounds. Can you hook me up.

[where02190]

Hey Where. I tried the link to your studio. But fro some reason, it didn't work. I'd really like to hear your drum sounds. Can you hook me up.

No problem with it here...jsut click the link on my signature, and go to the listen page...

[spookster]

I finally got your link to work where. But I gotta know how you did those vocals on the Josh Cole stuff. Everything from the mic, pre-amp, to the room. His vocals sound incredible. I just gotta know. Thanks in advance as always.

[JFreak]

#1 thing is to get a good acoustic sound out of the kit. if it sounds good in the room, then it is good and your only problem is getting it recorded. never forget checking and tweaking that.

second thing i'd try different mics.

first try beyerdynamic opus65 for kick, for some reason i never use anything else anymore. and if you don't have two sm57:s, place 57 on top of snare and sm58 to bottom (screw the windshield off to get it closer, and remember to change phase).

c1000 is good enough for hihat, but i'd rent some better condensers for overhead. if overhead sound is screwed, you will not get a killer kit sound. if kit sounds good with only overhead tracks armed, you'll be happy.

i have no thumb rule for toms. sometimes i get best sound with audix d-series, sometimes sm57:s, sometimes anything goes. and tom mics are the least important mics in kit anyway, it'll be wiser to spend one's time getting overheads/kick/snare right. tom mics are probably only used for positioning them in the mix anyway. tom tracks are present like 5% of the time.

as for preamp section, don't get the signals too hot. drum kit is not a guitar amplifier