drum mics you know the shit?

[littledog]

Originally posted by PKO My ultimate would be a facility 2-3 times the size of mine with a nice wooden floor drum room and every sq ft tuned for sound.Maybe someday.

You want to be careful with those wooden floors right under the drums - reflections of mid and high frequencies can combine with the direct sound to produce some hellacious comb filtering.

Personally, I'd prefer a carpet. The drums don't slide around as much either!

[witesol]

Originally posted by PKO .Basically I started doing this recording thing for fun out of my house.When over the past few year's by word of mouth I was getting jobs constantly so I decided to build me a bigger "recording facility" on my property.I still do have a day job i've been at for 13 years but with my studio on the weekends and at nights i've over doubled my yearly income.Alot of band's that come to me have horror stories and mixes to go along with them of their experiences in top pro studios here in town that charged them over 3 times what I charge and gave them horrible result's.

 

 

you're doing all the right stuff, taking care of people's needs at a fair price. I've been there. It's actually really cool to get paid to learn as well. Sounds like you want to keep growing and further your situation. Cool.

 

Although wood is seemingly more organic, and simply feels good in a room on the walls or floors, it has no additional acoustical benefits/properties over any other hard smooth surface like drywall, concrete, brick until you start making it bumpy or use it to make absorbers of some capacity. Typically, or maybe traditionally, you'd want a hard floor and soft ceiling. Reason being most instruments would be sitting on, or near the floor and the delays coming back from such small distances are extremely short, combining with the original source and not heard as a distinct delay or causing any comb filtering. This is generally thought to enhance the sound but does depend on the distance of mic to floor. The other issue is carpet will only be an absorber of extreme high frequencies and do nothing for lower highs on down.

Which brings us back to what Phil( one of the great guys, + talent in the area BTW)alluded to; some acoustic treatments, namely bass trapping. I know you mentioned things are working well for you. Some acoustic treatments will only make things work better, like getting some new mics actually. It's one of the only "instruments" that w il be used on every single project, nearly every track: your room.

[Phil O'Keefe]

The cool thing about bass traps is that you can make them fairly inexpensively, and even experiment with placing them into say, the corners of your tracking room, without having to be stuck with them if you don't like the sound. Heck, you can even put them up and take them down as desired / needed with a bit of forethought, thus allowing you to modify the sound of your room at will.

My buddy Ethan Winer has some excellent DIY bass trap plans up on his forum over at www.musicplayer.com - for those who would rather have even more effective traps, or who don't want to mess with the (really easy) DIY builds, he also makes some great commercial bass traps called RealTraps.

If anyone wants to check out Ethan's forum, this is the best place to start. Lots of useful information there.

[witesol]

yes, the Minitraps are very nice, look real slick too. I have 4 in my control room and built 8 other 2x4' traps using ridged mineral fiber bats. A lot of work but I wanted a built-in feel. I also really like the Auralex ProPanels too. They're ridged fiberglass beveled edge 2x2' panels covered in fabric. I like the Auralex Sonoflats too..I suppose because I've gotten tired of wedge foam and anytime you sculpt the foam you lessen it's performance. The simple method: a heavy, drawable curtain spaced out from the wall 4" or so, made from velour spanning a wall. that does the trick and is fully adjustable.