Overhead mics for drumset

[ChadGrieser1979]

 

I am building myself a drum shield/sound room in my basement.  Current stats of it are 98" wide by 98" deep, and around 5' tall.  The walls are 1/4" thick clear acrylic panels, 3 per wall and framed by wood.  They are movable, so I am able to vary the width or depth of them.  I want to fabricate a lid for the drum shield/sound room, but I don't know how high the walls should be in relation to my cymbals for the ability to be able to mic the set for recording. 

I currently have a lid temporarily on it, just some 1" thick pink foamboard that just sits on it, but before moving on, want to have it set to a good height.  I am also going to do some other treatments in the drum section for sound absorption bass trapping.

 

I've done sound work for live shows, but its been a while, and not sure how high I need the mics above the cymbals to get good recordings of them.  I plan on micing each drum (6 piece set)  with a ride, 3 crashes and a splash, was thinking 2 OH mics for cymbals, and a dedicated mic for hi-hats.  

 

Basement is a finished basement with carpet flooring, and insulated ceiling that's covered in wood.  I just want to make the drums not bleed so much to the upstairs when playing so I don't disturb the wife and baby boy when I'm playing or recording with my group. 

 

If any more info is required, feel free to ask for it, and THANKS in advance

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm afraid you're probably just going to have to experiment and see what you like the sound of.

If I'm understanding your post correctly, you're working within a DIY drum booth that's roughly eight feet wide by eight feet deep. For starters, I'd try to get those two measurements to be unequal. They're going to reinforce at the same frequencies, which isn't ideal from an acoustical standpoint. If one dimension is eight feet, and the other can be nine and a half feet, or seven feet, that would be better. As far as the height, the higher you can go, the better IMO. Again, try to avoid eight feet, or a duplication of either of the other two dimensions (width / length) - acoustically, a cube of equal dimensions is about as bad as it gets - but other than that, it's going to depend on the way the cymbals are "flown" on your particular kit. If you're going to be working with a variety of drummers, the height issue becomes even more important, since you'll never know what might come through the door. Some drummers have their cymbals up pretty high, and ideally, you'll want at least a couple / few feet between the cymbals and the microphones.

Putting the microphones right up against the "lid" is probably not ideal either - unless you're using PZM / boundary mikes. If the interior of the lid is highly absorptive, you might get away with it, but normally, you'd want some space between the microphones and the room boundary / "ceiling."

[Todzilla]

How high are the ceilings?

[Phil O'Keefe]

Very good question.

 

[ChadGrieser1979]

 

ceiling height in the basement is 7 feet 3 inches.  both walls of my diy drum iso booth are 7 and a half feet long, and currently it is set up as 7 and a half feet wide, and 6 feet deep.  i am just planning to have my own set in there, with myself the one who plays,  currently my cymbals are sitting about a foot below the current lid height which is at 62 inches.  I don't have any sound absorption in there yet, as i am not sure how high i should put the lid. 

 

Should i set it up with the moveable walls not parallel to the room walls as well, or would that open a different can of worms?

sorry for the delay in responding, been a busy week.

[Phil O'Keefe]

If you can go "all the way up", that might be the best idea from an isolation standpoint. As far as mic positioning, you have a very low ceiling. If your current positioning is working for you, then you should stick with that, and put the lid of the drum booth as close up towards the ceiling as you can. In other words, the ceiling is already low - try not to make the ceiling of your drum booth any lower than you have to.