Holy Crap Big rooms own

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amishsixstringer
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Holy Crap Big rooms own

Post by amishsixstringer » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:55 am

Wow! I've been doing recordings for a few years (I'm only 21) in a fairly large basement (large for a basement, small for a "studio") with ok results. I made 12 bass traps and high frequency/mid absorbers with oc703 which helped the room out tremendously, but I'm back at school and a band that I could NOT pass up working with wanted me to do their record (There are 2 really nice studios in town, but the client didn't like the results from their studio as well as mine. Pretty good to hear actually). So, I muscled my way into a TV studio to do do drum tracking. The ceiling is 25' and the room is huge and kind of odd shaped with a large curtain that goes around the whole room from 10' high to the floor. I put the drums up on a 5" riser with fiberglass packed underneath it. The drums were quite awful, actually. It was an old TAMA rockstar or something. Once, tuned they were ok, but the kick was really hard to get right. Anyhow, after doing the basic tracking I brought my rig back to my place and started sorthing things out and WOAH! The drums even in mono had this HUGE sense of space, but had as much punch as I could ever ask for out of a PTLE rig. The band is absolutely excited about the sound and I think I may start charging more to record down here due to that room alone. Anyhow, I guess the whole point of this is BUILD A BIG ASS ROOM FOR DRUMS. Shit, I couldn't even imagine what a nice DW or OC would sound like in there. And....that's not even really a drum room. It's just a big room. With some additional treatment or more ideal dimensions it could be a great thing. F 8 foot ceilings. I don't think I'll track drums in my basement ever again.


Sorry, this probably seems like "DUH" to most people on here, but I never saw the light until Sunday.

Neil

drumsound
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Post by drumsound » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:34 am

Ceiling height is pretty important. My room has 14 foot crests and it makes a huge difference.

MoreSpaceEcho
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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:25 am

i recorded in a basement for years. the first time i recorded drums in the loft i live in now (13 foot ceilings) i was like 'woah there's TOO MUCH reverb'.

which i never thought i'd say.

big room+well tuned and played drums+room mics+compression=awesome.

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trodden
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Post by trodden » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:31 pm

*looks at 7.5 ft ceilings, hears 7.5 ft ceilings* :? :(

housepig
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Post by housepig » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:43 pm

one of my old bands used to rehearse in a warehouse owned by the bassist's dad - it was a two-story open warehouse, with a big loft where we set up gear.

so we had about a 20x25 space that was floating in about a 50x60 room, about 12 or 15 feet in the air, under 25 or 30 foot ceilings.

we made a few live recordings to cassette in that space, and everything sounded fantastic - very easy to get a good balance in that space.
- housepig
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Brett Siler
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Post by Brett Siler » Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:19 pm

I recorded drums ay this church about a year ago and the place was huge. Ceilings were about 30-40 feet tall, the length was about 200 feet! I got the drum sound of my dreams in that place. Mixing the drums was some much easier than when I record at my house. It sure beat recording in a small 8' by 20' room.

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