Recording Drums in My Bedroom

[hypertron]

I'm trying to track a drum set in my bedroom, should I hang sheets around my set or what? My room's tiny and oddly shaped and I'm not close micing each drum, just snare, kick, and overheads. Any tips would be nice.

[Jeff White]

Can you post the room dimensions (l x w x h)? Maybe some photos?

The Audible band link in my signature is my friends' band on Bandcamp. Give it a listen. They tracked all of the drums for their record in a 12' x 10' x 8' (high) bedroom in a Philly row home. Old plaster and wood floors. No treatment, but a rug under the kit, a few bookshelves, the desk with the computer and the rack with the APIs, that kind of stuff.

I would think that using some close mics with some tight patterns would work well for the snare and toms over kick/snare/overheads. However, experiment with placement for the overheads. If the room's reflections are causing weird phase issues, then hanging up some packing blankets to deaden things will help.

You are choosing between a room with possible bad acoustics vs a dead room and everything in between. So you are going to have to experiment a lot and play around with placement of the kit, mics, etc.

Good luck! Let us know what you find out.

[T-rex]

Try the overheads out in front of the drums or behind instead of the traditional overhead position. This is if the celieng is short. You can also put some foam or blankets above the drums and see if the overheads sound better. The reflections off of the ceiling can be really problematic in rooms with overheads and shrot reflective celings.

Finally, add one more mic if you can; put it outside the door, or down the hall or in an adjacent room. I track in a small room and the mic I use about 20 feet down the hallway is an amazing natural reverb that makes the drums sound fuller and like they were recorded in a much bigger much nicer room. You can add reverb later, but actually recording the ambiance while you are tracking is so much better in my opinion.

Have fun experimenting!

[Jitters]

I would think that it depends on whether or not you like the sound of the drums in the room. If you do then go with it, if you don?t then try to get rid of the sound of the room. Hanging the sheets like you mentioned would be a good start.