How do you deal with.....

[DWdrumr]

A small jam room?

What I mean is, I have a very small area where I can set up my kit. My issue I am having is, when I tune my drums, they sound huge and resonant and just absolutely amazing up stairs in my living room, but when I take them down to my basement, they get all choked up, and loose most of the beautiful tone and resonance I get upstairs. any ideas on what I can do to get some of that back? Thanks

[Kazaamski]

Jam out in the living room

[marko138]

I might be stating the obvious...but retune them??? Why not just tune them in the room you play them?

[drumsetsnide]

I might be stating the obvious...but retune them??? Why not just tune them in the room you play them?

+1. You should tune for the room.

[Russ]

What I like to do when recording is go for dead and dry when recording so i'll tune and dampen them first. Then i'll go and set all my levels for the mics independently, except for the overheads which I mix together as a pair. When i'm done recording the track I will add a little reverb to modify the room's sound a little and open it up/sound larger. This is by no means a solution for a less favorable room size, but I have been happy with what it does. I don't have a large room to record in, so I made the best of my situation with what I got. What else can I do really? I love a dry room.

[DWdrumr]

Thanks guys! I have tuned them to the room, just not 100% satisfied, however i repositioned the drums, basically turned them around, and bam, they opened right up. They were cramed, but turning them around, gave much more room for them to breath and resonate, not to mention, i had more room to set them up exactly how I like!! Problem solved, thanks guys. And Russ I do the same thing with recording!!

[Russ]

Thanks guys! I have tuned them to the room, just not 100% satisfied, however i repositioned the drums, basically turned them around, and bam, they opened right up. They were cramed, but turning them around, gave much more room for them to breath and resonate, not to mention, i had more room to set them up exactly how I like!! Problem solved, thanks guys. And Russ I do the same thing with recording!!

I love a smaller dried up room - it's actually a blessing to have one. Takes away a lot of the work required to get everything dialed in, from my point of view. And if you have a sustain rich kit with a lot of warm tones that you're trying to record, you'll definitely see what I mean. Big rooms are awesome, but I don't have that luxury. A lot cheaper to insulate a smaller room vs a larger one too(obviously). I played in a bigger one and didn't like it as much, but at least I got a feel for it. Too much reflection and echo, I much like my smaller one!

[VIbes]

There going to sound different in different rooms,clubs, etc. Just as long as they don't sound bad.

[kaosotis]

Thanks guys! I have tuned them to the room, just not 100% satisfied, however i repositioned the drums, basically turned them around, and bam, they opened right up. They were cramed, but turning them around, gave much more room for them to breath and resonate, not to mention, i had more room to set them up exactly how I like!! Problem solved, thanks guys. And Russ I do the same thing with recording!!

Did you have them facing the wall? That's the kiss of death. Every kit sounds horrible that way. Glad you worked it out.

[doctor dirt]

Your playing an acoustic instrument and the sounds change as the acoustics in the room changes. Get used to tweeking them everytime you move them, tuning drums correctly will help get them to sound good in most rooms. Theres a thread on the forum about tuning the "timbre" of a shell. Read that and you'll get a good idea how to get a good jump on the right way to tune drums. Doc

[drumsetsnide]

I love a smaller dried up room - it's actually a blessing to have one. Takes away a lot of the work required to get everything dialed in, from my point of view. And if you have a sustain rich kit with a lot of warm tones that you're trying to record, you'll definitely see what I mean. Big rooms are awesome, but I don't have that luxury. A lot cheaper to insulate a smaller room vs a larger one too(obviously). I played in a bigger one and didn't like it as much, but at least I got a feel for it. Too much reflection and echo, I much like my smaller one!

I agree Russ. Mine are in a 12x12 room and positioned back-center in the room. The room is dry and the drums sound fantastic. The sound doesn't bounce around and each drum has it's own "voice."

[kennabis]

drums tend to sound better in a corner of smaller rooms, in my experience.

it has something to do with low frequency waves, and, as they are the longest of the waves, you want the longest distance you can get without reflection. having the kick aim at something absorbent is a good idea too.

smaller rooms suffer from flutter echo and room nodes that can cause significant EQ problems for your overhead tracks. for example, standing waves might cause a 20–30dB difference in frequency response from one overhead mic to the next.

and bass waves tend to be stronger in the corners, which may be a good or bad thing?!?

here's a link to measure your room nodes, it's good to know the limitations of your room, cause you're gonna hear it in your recordings.

http://www.marktaw.com/recording/Aco...WaveCalcu.html

rock on

[slinky]

the last show we did was in a weird rectangular room with the stage off the side wall. I retuned mine there and it helped. Sounded good on the camera.

[DrumRookie]

drums tend to sound better in a corner of smaller rooms, in my experience.

it has something to do with low frequency waves, and, as they are the longest of the waves, you want the longest distance you can get without reflection. having the kick aim at something absorbent is a good idea too.

smaller rooms suffer from flutter echo and room nodes that can cause significant EQ problems for your overhead tracks. for example, standing waves might cause a 20–30dB difference in frequency response from one overhead mic to the next.

and bass waves tend to be stronger in the corners, which may be a good or bad thing?!?

here's a link to measure your room nodes, it's good to know the limitations of your room, cause you're gonna hear it in your recordings.

http://www.marktaw.com/recording/Aco...WaveCalcu.html

rock on

I'm a regular at a recording forum now, and I've been looking at threads on micing drums and such.
You DO NOT want bass frequencies in a room. They crop up mostly in small, rectangular rooms and bass frequencies account for 99% of the rooms acoustic problems.
I was going to get some small acoustic tiles to put on the wall, but I found out that it's something that mostly absorbs the mid and high frequency levels, which is usually only a small portion of the issues you have with a room that size. Flutter echos can exist in small rooms though, so a couple tiles may help somewhat with that, but your biggest problem will be the bass frequencies.
I would invest in making some gobos (or bass traps) and putting them in the wall corners and around the kit to absorb the nasty bass frequencies that accumulate.
Standing waves are something you do not want, bass traps will help get rid of those as well.

I have heard of some interesting recording techniques used by shoving the bass drum flat up against the wall and putting a mic a certain way and doing something else with it. I would have to find it again.

It will also help if you tune with the room like the others said, but I think you may want to get some type of acoustic treatment in there first. Put play around and see what you find.

Also, if you go in the corner of a non-treated room and you speak into it, you will find your voice sounding more bass-y. The reason being that bass frequencies accumulate in the corners a lot.
I don't know if your doing recording or just playing in the room, but this should help both situations.
Good luck!

[Russ]

I'm a regular at a recording forum now, and I've been looking at threads on micing drums and such.
You DO NOT want bass frequencies in a room. They crop up mostly in small, rectangular rooms and bass frequencies account for 99% of the rooms acoustic problems.
I was going to get some small acoustic tiles to put on the wall, but I found out that it's something that mostly absorbs the mid and high frequency levels, which is usually only a small portion of the issues you have with a room that size. Flutter echos can exist in small rooms though, so a couple tiles may help somewhat with that, but your biggest problem will be the bass frequencies.
I would invest in making some gobos (or bass traps) and putting them in the wall corners and around the kit to absorb the nasty bass frequencies that accumulate.
Standing waves are something you do not want, bass traps will help get rid of those as well.

I have heard of some interesting recording techniques used by shoving the bass drum flat up against the wall and putting a mic a certain way and doing something else with it. I would have to find it again.

It will also help if you tune with the room like the others said, but I think you may want to get some type of acoustic treatment in there first. Put play around and see what you find.

Also, if you go in the corner of a non-treated room and you speak into it, you will find your voice sounding more bass-y. The reason being that bass frequencies accumulate in the corners a lot.
I don't know if your doing recording or just playing in the room, but this should help both situations.
Good luck!

I agree with you on the low frequency thing, can get annoying. I went kind of the ghetto route, using fullsize bedpillows at an angle in the corners standing vertically. Seems to be effective.

[thepilgrimsdream]

look up how to build bass traps with owens corning.