Drums in the corner(?)

[losthighway]

I was just thinking about this the other day. I see so many photos of people recording with the drums way back in the corner of a room, the cymbals only a foot or two away from the wall. I never do this. I always put the drums so the kick is pointed about a third of the way out from the wall behind it, so they can still resonate throughout the distance of the room, but so they are further away from the walls to reduce the reflections in the mics.

Obviously, tons of people who know what they are doing are putting their drummers back there for a reason.

Do you do this? Why?

[terryb]

I believe it's dependent on the room and the engineer's familiarity with the room.

[jgimbel]

I'd think it's mostly because drums fit relatively well in a corner - if you look from the top, the drummer sits like one point in a triangle (maybe more like home plate on a baseball diamond), that would fit perfectly in the corner. I think it's that, plus the fact that many people don't know about the bass build up in corners, or maybe think it's undoubtedly a good thing (it'll make the drums sound heavy!). I have a long rectangularish room and I don't have a lot of choice as far as setup. My drums are in one end of the room, but maybe 4 or 5 feet from the wall behind them, with about 3 or 4 feet on either side. I occasionally have issues with the hi hat being a little loud (I tend to like them super quiet though anyway), but there doesn't seem to be any other issue with the sound, surprisingly.

[AndyHutchinson]

The previous poster summed up my experiences. The last time I set up a drum kit in my own room was when I was living in a house in Philly, and we really didn't have much choice except to put them there. We set up some DIY bass traps and got a decent sound. Not great, but, ok.

[klangtone]

I'm often recording drums in the corner of my room.
Yes, they do fit there most conveniently, but also I found that they sounded good there. I did the whole, walk around the room with a floor tom thing to see where it sounded best... it was the corner.

I think what's behind it is definitely due to the bass build up, but also the reflections you get from the two near walls. Now, obviously, reflections can totally mess things up, but they can also be consonant too. Meaning, they can reinforce the sound by providing such a quick "echo" that you just hear the drum as being louder and bigger.

I also like to record stacatto percussion stuff in the small fourier of the house I rent. You can close all the doors to it, and it just becomes this little box of a wooden/drywall/glass room. And shit not only has a short verb, but also just sounds huge because you get all of this energy bouncing back at you immediately. One of my favorite recording "tricks".

Roy

[leigh]

I also like to record stacatto percussion stuff in the small fourier...

That took me a second - quite a sophisticated misspelling! A house has a "foyer", which can be (or not, by some Americans) pronounced the same as "fourier" of Fourier Transforms fame.

cheers,
Leigh

[terryb]

I've always pronounced Foyer as '4-yer'
and Fourier as '4-yay'

[dsw]

as long as we don't vestibule.

[klangtone]

My apologies... heh.
I majored in engineering not english.
And I guess it shows!

Roy

[MoreSpaceEcho]

but as far as typos go, that was a really really good one!

[Snarl 12/8]

For me it's a space thing, not a sound thing. There's just no other way to cram all my gear in my space. I had a kit in each corner. Now that I decided to ditch one of the kits, I'm thinking of putting my kit in the middle, still along one wall, but out of the corner. If it sounds good enough I might just deal with the fung shui killing of it all.

[cgarges]

I usually like drums in a corner. For me, it's just that much easier to get them to sound like drums on the recording. Keep in mind though that my perspective of what drums sound like comes from being behind the kit. The older I get, the more I realize how different people's perspectives are formed. That's not to say that I'll always put drums in a corner-- if I'm working somewhere I haven't worked before, I'll listen to the kit in different spots in the room first. But generally, I wind up with drums somewhere near the corner of the room.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC