do i need wood under my drums?

[billiamwalker]

i have no true wood spots in my studio. my floor is half concrete and half carpet. my walls are all parallel with cheap wood and my cieling is drywall. (not sure if the parallel wall has anything to do with this.) But what i'm asking is...
would it be alot of help for my drum sounds to build some sort of small riser so that i can get wood under such things as my snare and toms?

what are they benefits? will i notice a big difference?

[Professor]

When I'm playing I like the sound of drums on a wood platform, especially one that's floating off the main floor. On the other hand, it can get a little tricky to play because the bass drum and the hihat will slide away from the player, and also you'll be adding in more early reflections to the kit.

-Jeremy

[billiamwalker]

When I'm playing I like the sound of drums on a wood platform, especially one that's floating off the main floor. On the other hand, it can get a little tricky to play because the bass drum and the hihat will slide away from the player, and also you'll be adding in more early reflections to the kit.

-Jeremy

well the thing i'm more focused on is this. if my room is mostly carpet then the snare and toms are going to be absorbed mostly by carpet. therefore, i'm losing some quality of my snare and toms and i'm having to deal with quiet toms and snares through the overheads.

would i be safest at add some stuff to keep the hi-hat and kick drum still and having wood under my drums, and then adding something on the ceiling to keep the sound from bouncing back off of the roof?

[JamesHE]

i have no true wood spots in my studio.

my walls are all parallel with cheap wood ?

what's cheap wood? what's true wood?
confusing.
if you want your room to sound more live, maybe just try it and see.

[tintern]

I'm also in a carpet over concrete scenario - I built about a 4" riser for the drums out of plywood and 2x4"s, then put carpet over that and yes, I do believe the drums sound better - more 'natural' to my ears.

[billiamwalker]

i have no true wood spots in my studio.

my walls are all parallel with cheap wood ?

what's cheap wood? what's true wood?
confusing.
if you want your room to sound more live, maybe just try it and see.

well by cheap wood on my walls, i mean so partical board the i threw up there and painted it like a job a year old could do.

and by true wood i jsut mean plywood and nothing else. no paint or seal.. just the raw wood.

[centurymantra]

I started a thread like this and got some good responses. I did some test recordings with a couple pieces of birch panelling that I put under the drums and it clearly opened up the sound. I might even build a drum riser, but will probably at least get some nice pieces of pine at home depot. These will look nice and work well for the purpose. Getting two or three pieces that fit together also makes it easy to move out when necessary. I will have the wood stop at the very front of the kick drum so that I can still extend the kick drum legs and use the spikes to support it.

BTW, a guy who designs studios here in town has suggested that a good cheap 'wood' for wall is plain ol' cheesy peg board. I guess a number of old school studios had walls constructed of this. I've actually considered building up a 4'-5' wall of this on one end of my tracking room. I concluded that one could make a pretty cool Helmholtz resonator of sorts by creating a wall of pegboard with mineral wool behind it, set out a few inches from the actual wall.

[I'm Painting Again]

peg board really works!

It has to do with the density of the stuff and the holes in it scatter the reflections a bit..

experimenting with different materials in your recording space is a great idea..get as creative as you can..