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Hi Everyone,

I currently live in a townhouse with my girlfriend and I have converted the extra bedroom into my "studio." I have done a pretty decent job of treating the acoustics with a combination of Low Bass, Mid/High Bass, and mid/High Frequency absorbers. Obviously I am not able to destroy the walls too much (since we are renting) so everything is screwed, nailed, tacked etc, rather than sealed (this is the best it's going to be until we get a house.

Here's my question:

I have a real drum set that has no other place to be stored in, other than this room. Since I live in Denver, I don't want to put it into a storage unit or the garage due to drastic temperature fluctuations that occur. I do not plan on playing the drum set while sharing one of my walls with a neighbor so I have it stacked in the corner right now.

I have noticed that when I put my ear close the stacked drums, they almost act as mini echo chambers. I know a decent amount of stuff about sound frequency transmission, however, I am unsure about how much this could actually affect the peak/nulls and overall sound from my studio monitors. As far as their current location goes, when I sit at my mixing desk the drums are stacked on their sides (in a tower) in the rear left corner of the room (over my left should on the rear wall). They are about 8 to 9 feet behind me and I assumed that have them on their sides rather than set up, would act as a much better diffuser than if they were set up and the face of the kick drum was pointing at the monitors. Other than the dampening pad in the kick drum (which is currently a rolled up - 2 (1/2)" thick 'egg crate' mattress pad), I do not have any other dampening objects in the Toms.

I was planning on putting some dampening objects in them to decrease reverb and echoic effects and I wanted some more knowledgeable opinions on this. I have done some reading about 'tube' bass traps, and I was thinking that maybe I could use these as temporary bass traps (all with different frequency muting capabilities due to their different shell thicknesses) if I lined them with a combination of rock wool and high density foam. I did not know how effective this will be however since I will be unable to adhere the rock wool to the inside surfaces of the toms. I also didn't know if keeping the heads on both sides of each drum would be effective with this treatment or if opening them up might help at all... I don't know

Any and all opinions would be awesome at this point and I look forward to hearing from you guys.

just throw some towels over the drums.

also welcome to the forum. you may want to check out the production forum when asking production type questions.
http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewforum.php?f=8

Sounds good.

I know that I could throw some towels over them to simply stop the echo problem. I was thinking about making a more efficient use for them though by possibly helping absorb some of the lower frequencies (for the neighbors sake).

Type--R wrote:Sounds good.

I know that I could throw some towels over them to simply stop the echo problem. I was thinking about making a more efficient use for them though by possibly helping absorb some of the lower frequencies (for the neighbors sake).

The towels should do, monitors are nowhere near as noisy as a real drum kit. If you use solid-state amps, you should get an over-powered one so the volume can be kept lower for clarity.

remove the heads and keep them stored inside one another. although keeping the heads on can help to stop the drums losing their roundness. if the temperature and humidity are ok, that shouldn't be too much of an issue tho.

Type--R wrote:Sounds good.

I know that I could throw some towels over them to simply stop the echo problem. I was thinking about making a more efficient use for them though by possibly helping absorb some of the lower frequencies (for the neighbors sake).

Not that I can think of. Basically speaking, the structure of the drum is designed to amplify/resonate and not capture/diminish sounds; I see where you might think, "well, there's sound energy going into this thing which means that it's basically being diffused, right?" Yes and no. It is being absorbed somewhat by the drums, but then in turn probably is more likely to resonate at the drum's resonant frequencies, which are in turn more likely to be in the range of human hearing.

NOW

That being said, sticking mics inside drums and resampling the room sounds might actually be kinda cool as a form of reverb something.

timmyyabas wrote:remove the heads and keep them stored inside one another. although keeping the heads on can help to stop the drums losing their roundness. if the temperature and humidity are ok, that shouldn't be too much of an issue tho.

i would always recommend storing drums with the heads on. heads are cheap. shells aren't.

alphacat wrote:

Type--R wrote:Sounds good.

...

NOW

That being said, sticking mics inside drums and resampling the room sounds might actually be kinda cool as a form of reverb something.

Or attach piezos to the heads inside, that'd a be good way to capture the resonance of the structure (like a building shaking). I'd advise pointing the monitors at the heads though, if you were to do this.

Amantus wrote:

timmyyabas wrote:remove the heads and keep them stored inside one another. although keeping the heads on can help to stop the drums losing their roundness. if the temperature and humidity are ok, that shouldn't be too much of an issue tho.

i would always recommend storing drums with the heads on. heads are cheap. shells aren't.

true, i don't do this for this reason, but might at some point if space is an issue.

sticking some mesh heads on will stop the air inside resonating tho (i did this for a while).

also handy for practicing quietly, as long the as the bottom head is still on and you use the mesh head as a batter, then you still get some sound, but no where near the normal volume. the rebound you get from the head is totally different but, which is why i'm back to annoying the shit out of people with the normal heads back on.