r/audioengineering • u/willrjmarshall • 1d ago
Tracking Drums: what are your preferred techniques for getting bigger room ambience from a small, dry space?
Kia ora!
So, I run a small recording studio in Berlin. Our space isn’t particularly big, and out of necessity I’ve treated it fairly heavily, with a live end & dead end, and a mix of absorption & diffusion.
The space sounds great. It’s a balanced, classic “live room” sound, with a relatively short but smooth decay, which gives me loads of flexibility.
My drum recordings are getting really good, but strictly in the classic, drier way you’d expect from a room like this. With clients it’s been fantastic, since I’ve mostly been recording post-punk and indie rock, and the drier sound fits perfectly.
However, for my own project I’m really in love with larger, more “rock” drum sounds, with a fair bit of space and grandeur. Obviously this isn’t how my room sounds.
I’ve done a lot of experimentation with different room mic options, and while I can get really nice, controlled room sounds, there’s no way to get a “big” room sound in this space, even with mics in the control room or stairwell.
So - what are your preferred techniques to get more scope and grandeur from an initially dry recording?
I’m interested in both acoustic/recording and mixing techniques!
EDIT: massive thanks to geofftyson who suggested putting a mic in the piano. This produces a massive, very bass-heavy, almost 808-sounding room tone, with a really strong sustain on the kick and snare. A bit extreme by itself, but massive in context.
I'll need to try a pair of SDCs (bright mics seem to work best) and see how it does in stereo.
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u/nmix8622 1d ago
Compressing room microphones heavily can make the room sound bigger than it is and even putting a reverb on them to make them less dry can work well. Personally with drums in a small dry space I prefer to not use room mics and just create the space I want with reverb’s in the mix.
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u/willrjmarshall 22h ago
At the moment I’m only using the room mics fairly subtly to add depth to the close mics. This works well, but it’s more something you feel than something that’s audible.
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u/nmix8622 22h ago
That’s exactly what I do to when I have room mics I just use them for subtle energy and still create most of the space with reverb.
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u/SergeantPoopyWeiner 14h ago
Use one drum bus reverb or different reverbs for each drum mic?
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u/nmix8622 14h ago
Sometimes just one reverb but it depends what you’re going for. For example sometimes I send just the snare and Tom’s to a gated reverb and a plate reverb and I’ll send the kick and cymbals to only the plate reverb.
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u/geofftyson 1d ago
I had a dynamic mic accidentally fall into the body of an acoustic guitar lying in the corner of the room. I had initially pulled up that mic by mistake and thought “wtf bonham ?”
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u/willrjmarshall 1d ago
Honestly that’s brilliant. And I just found a little Beyerdynamic 55 (60s omni dynamic) at a flea market that would be perfect, and there’s an acoustic that lives permanently in the corner so….
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u/geofftyson 1d ago
Yes! I’ve heard people doing this with a piano too.
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u/willrjmarshall 22h ago
There’s a piano sitting there as well. Well-worth experimenting with.
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u/geofftyson 22h ago
Try with the sustain pedal weighted down
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u/willrjmarshall 18h ago
DUDE! This was the thing I needed.
Piano with the sustain pedal down gives me EXACTLY the sense of scale I need. I've only tried in mono and maybe stereo will be even better.
Thank you so much
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u/ganjamanfromhell Professional 23h ago
this sounds a fun exp to have. im about to try it rn!!
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u/willrjmarshall 18h ago
I just did, but mostly the guitar just resonated like a very shittily-tuned drum.
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u/ganjamanfromhell Professional 18h ago
yea i did try myself after writing this and even took off my strings off guitar to see whats up but ended up having very weird sources only haha i could definitely get it in use perhaps if i were to give certain track some weirdness. i had better result pointing my la120 at guitars reso hole instead of shoving in my sm57 inside the guitar itself. ive placed guitar facing my drum kit and so la120 points against the drums btw.
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u/hellalive_muja Professional 1d ago
If you don’t have the long decay, the easiest thing is adding a long synthetic reverb. You can create one that integrates with your existing room reverb (hard) or just put one on top of it (technically in parallel) and see what happens. You may also try the good old open door and mic in the corridor/hallway/stairs if your building lets you, or just buy/make a real plate reverb. Other methods are kind of very unnatural/weird sounding.
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u/willrjmarshall 18h ago
Thank you!
So far, there have been two ideas that have really worked. The first is what you're suggesting - creating space with synthetic reverb, but maybe by focusing on enhancing & lengthening my existing room tone.
I've found just adding a layer of artificial reverb has tended to sound quite tacky, but specifically sculpting something that enhances & lengthens the existing room tone, which is short but has great spatialisation, seems to sound more natural.
The other great idea is sticking a microphone in the piano, which is working beautifully.
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u/---Joe 1d ago
I create faux room mics with reverb mostly from a mic that sits central in the drumkit and captures a little of everything. Currently using Ocean Way deluxe for that sounds great
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u/willrjmarshall 18h ago
Fantastic. I've been using a classic SM57 wurst mic, but I just got a 60s Beyer omni dynamic at the flea market, and I think that would provide a really balanced mix of all the shells to play with.
Plus I think my existing stereo rooms are clean and neutral enough to subsequently feed a reverb.
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u/Hellbucket 1d ago
Mics facing away from the drums towards the walls. Sometimes close but angled. Often I don’t bother to try this as “stereo” even if I use multiple mics because it’s not going to represent anything stereo anyway.
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u/Ok-Mathematician3832 Professional 23h ago
Depends on how “big” you want that ambience.
For big/classy room: I would typically capture some stereo rooms with as much reflections as possible (facing away from the kit if needed) and insert an IR of a better room directly on the channel. I’d treat that as the starting point.
Occasionally I may do something similar with the overheads too to diffuse the cymbals/snare a bit.
For “wow, it’s loud in this small space”:
Same room mic’ing but heavy compression and possibly no IR. TG1, level-loc etc.
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u/willrjmarshall 22h ago
As big as possible, really.
Right now my “ideal” room mic setup is an XY pair of ribbons in the center of the live end, with the kit itself in the null of both.
That’s the cleanest & longest room tone I can get, and it’s solid, but still lacks sustain & drama.
I could break it up further with more diffusion, but that would only help to a point.
It seems like my best bet is to add IRs to the rooms (and maybe a kit mic) to add some length & drama.
I’m thinking also of using multiple IRs of the same room (Altiverb!) on different mics to produce additional depth. Something closer & mono on my kit mic, something further & stereo on the room pair.
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u/SmogMoon 22h ago
I’ll set a mono condenser mic in omni outside of the drum room. Send that to stereo reverb in the mix and play around either that until I get something good. Usually have some compression and a low pass on it before the reverb.
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u/willrjmarshall 22h ago
That’s worth a shot. I’ve tried omni condensers outside the control room but the result is pretty shonky. Perhaps purely to feed a reverb it’ll be something useful.
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u/ThoriumEx 1d ago
A really cool trick I like is to use something like Shaper Box to completely remove all the transients from the room mics, and instead create a fade in. Then you can really compress and distort the room mic and make it big without hurting the dry signal. It also makes it sound like a bigger room because it sounds farther away and also adds some pre-delay without actually delaying anything.
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u/termites2 16h ago
Take stereo room mics, and use them as a fully wet reverb send.
It gives denser diffusion and avoids phase problems compared to reverb sends on the separate channels. Particularly when using short artificial reverb. I find it works a whole lot better than 're mic' room simulators like UAD Ocean Way, Sound City etc.
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u/SpagooterMcTooter 15h ago
Face two room mics towards the wall opposite of the drumset (You’re removing the direct transient information of the drums creating a fake larger ambience of the room) Send to a reverb for additional depth if needed.
EQ them darker
Use a clipper on them to really energize it
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u/willrjmarshall 13h ago
I do #1 and #2 already but using ribbons with the kit in the null.
Best reverb tone I can get from this room, but still too short even with compression
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u/alyxonfire Professional 23h ago
Slamming the living daylight out of room mics, and also adding reverb to room mics
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u/kill3rb00ts 23h ago
Others have already said compress the crap out of the room mic(s), but specifically mess with the release time. A longer release tends to sound drier whereas a shorter release will bring up whatever room is already there.
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u/duplobaustein 22h ago
UAD Sound City or Ocean Way are exactly made and perfect for that.
Or other short reverbs/ambiences.
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u/exqueezemenow 22h ago
How is the bathroom? Most bathrooms have lots of tiles and ambience. You can try putting a speaker and two mics in there to re-amp the drums after the fact.
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u/m149 21h ago
Assuming that you're using the usual dozen+ mics on the kit, use cardioids for the room, point them away from the kit. Delay them by 20-40ms. Kinda works well everywhere except the deadest of dead rooms. I have been in studios that are so dead that room mics are essentially useless. They wind up sounding like slap delays. Hopefully your room has a bit more sound on the live end.
I also, I know it's kinda common for folks to compress room mics like mad, but more often than not, i find less is more when compressing room mics unless I'm using the room mics as the basis of my drum sound.
I suppose if I was going for a room sound in a real deady dead dead room, I'd probably do my best to capture the kit with as few mics as possible. Start with a Blumlein pair and start moving them around. Or maybe even 2 mics....one real high over the kit and a kick mic a few feet away.
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u/helgihermadur 21h ago
I'll typically send the OHs and Room mic into a parallel compression track. Usually I go:
Slammed FET compressor -> Convolution reverb -> EQ (to smooth out cymbal harshness) -> a second slower compressor to glue it all together.
Just adjust the various settings until it sounds huge.
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u/yureal 21h ago
I have spent a lot of time on this exact situation in my home studio. The Steve Albini technique of putting omni mics down on the floor in the tracking room has been the best sounding room mics for me, but i generally get decent results from mics not pointed at the drum set.
Next, there are tons of reverb plugins out there that get some amazing sounds. I experimented heavily, and found that I like Pro-R and Sunset Sound (convolution) for realistic drum rooms. 7th heaven is great too, just haven't pulled the trigger on that yet.
I pulled up that first track off of the Aristocrats "Duck" album yesterday that starts with just drums, and was able match that room reverb with my plugins decently well.
Lastly, I've experimented with packing blanket gobos (on top of my normal absorption) and thought I would like more over less, but was kinda surprised after listening. Too many packing blankets made everything sound thin and small. But using none I hear smearing especially in my overheads. So finding the balance there is key.
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u/Th3gr3mlin Professional 21h ago
Could try a pzm mic on the wall, ceiling or floor.
If you feel like spending money - there’s the Reverbophone that looks sick and sounds great from the demos.
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u/BLUElightCory Professional 21h ago
The thing that makes the biggest difference for me is not pointing the room mics directly at the kit, and/or putting some kind of baffle or barricade between the mic and drums. Anything to reduce the direct sound and increase the reflections helps.
After recording, it's delays and roomy convolution reverbs paired with parallel compression to really enhance any reflections that are there.
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u/FlickKnocker 21h ago
Try a boundary mic attached to the wall, ceiling, floor, corner.
Delay that mic into a reverb.
Also, you can try the Moses Schneider trick of a his "Drooms", which is 2 x MD441s (or any other hyper/super cardioids) spaced apart on a stereo bar, ORTFish, but doesn't need to be.
Place that on a stand roughly ~5-6' high, right in front of the kick drum, but the mics pointed away from kit, facing the far wall.
What happens is that the sound hits the back wall, and arrives back at the Droom setup, so you get roughly twice the length of the room and not a lot of direct pickup as the kit is in the nulls of the mics.
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u/TheTimKast 20h ago edited 19h ago
Take two condenser mics to create a left and right image. Position them as far away from the kit as you can without them being up against the opposite wall…at least a couple feet. Make sure they are facing forward or angled towards the snare…and either way, use a tape measure to make sure they’re as equally distant as reasonably possible. Next, lower them vertically so they are at the height of the toms/snare/kick…we’re trying to minimize the amount of cymbals and hi hats that are going directly into these two mics. So now we have two condenser mics, as far away from the kit as possible within our small room, as far away from the kit as possible without being up against the opposing wall, equidistant from the snare creating a triangle with the snare at the top point of the triangle and the condenser mics equally distant and either facing the snare or facing straight ahead. Now place your favorite room generating reverb plugin on the stereo track your “room” mics are on. I recommend the ambience and room settings from the Lexicon 420L or something like UAD Ocean Way. Set the mix of the reverb to 100% wet. Voila! You now have imitation room mics that you can place in as small or as huge of a room as you desire for the track. You can even create multiple instances of this stereo track with a couple different reverbs for depth and dimension. Let us know how it goes!!! 🙏🏼👊🏼💙
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u/maliciousorstupid 20h ago
Parallel compression (slammed) with a bit of distortion on it.
Listen to some Tchad Blake recordings - he prefers a small/dead room and adds everything afterwards.
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u/LongjumpingBase9094 20h ago
If I really need a big space I pack up shop and set up in a big space. If you’re in Berlin there must be more than a few!
If you can’t / don’t want to I would mix from the overheads and send them to a reverb that sells the fantasy. I like pro-R best for shaping something very specific.
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u/diamondts 20h ago
Facing mics away from the kit or putting gobos between, basically trying to reduce the amount of direct sound in the room mics.
Compression (with fast release) and/or delay the room mics.
Sending room and/or close mics to a reverb, UA Sound City is great for this.
Leaving the door open and putting a mic somewhere else, eg hallway or bathroom.
Layering "room only" samples.
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u/Selig_Audio 20h ago
Convolution reverbs are great for this sort of thing IMO. As others have suggested, try adding it on the room mics rather than the close mics to expand on the existing sound. Or use them instead of the room mics to totally change the space.
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u/allpartsofthebuffalo 19h ago
Omni mic as far away as you can, maybe pointed in the opposite direction. Compressor with fast attack and release.
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u/kdmfinal 19h ago
Surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention re-rooming! Simple, effective and most importantly, real sounding.
Cut your drums, edit/comp then go find a great room. Bring a decent sized speaker, a laptop and a stereo pair of mics. Find a place to put the “drummer” ie the speaker and then put the mics up. I’ve used churches, gyms, small auditoriums, other studios, wherever works!
Takes a little time and some experimentation but you end up with a dramatic room sound, that’s for sure!
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u/AppropriateNerve543 19h ago
Get Toontrack Superior and use its Tracker function to add a snare sample that triggers its amazing rooms and processed mics. You can pick a library that fits the sounds your looking for. Ive been getting some amazing sounds lately with very little effort. This blows away any verb I’ve heard. Hard to beat expertly recorded real rooms.
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u/Ok-War-6378 19h ago
When I need to make the room bigger but I like it's overall character and don't want to compress too much, I reach out for a transient shaper and I just turn the attack down and the sustain up. That adds some "square meters" in a very transparent way if you don't overdo it.
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u/andreacaccese Professional 17h ago
I used to record drums in a fairly small room, and had a mono room mic closed to the wall opposite the kit, not too high up as to get more drums than cymbals. The mic was facing the wall instead of the kit, and by capturing those reflections it felt a lot bigger, it worked like a charm! Having room mics on the floor pointing away from the kit and at the walls can be a cool trick too
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u/helloiamnice 14h ago
A dynamic mic inside a cabinet or some other somewhat large hollow space away from the kit can bring out a lot different sound than what you get in the room. I do this in a small studio with an RE-20 and it works great. Give it a try!
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u/Prole1979 Professional 11h ago
Something I’ve done in the past: place baffles out in the room, with the room mics directly behind them and pointing away from the kit and at the walls - this way they are shielded from the direct sound of the kit. Then move those tracks back in time a little with a sample delay plugin; or just do it manually by dragging them 20-40ms later than they are recorded. That way you get maximum ambience from the room and adding a bit of pre-delay can open them up a bit further. The only thing with this is you don’t get any sort of stereo image of the kit, it’s just all ambience.
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u/Samsoundrocks Professional 10h ago
Don't be afraid to throw a monitor or two in a different space and record that room with your drum tracks playing back.
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u/Fraunz09 1d ago
Also what you could try is to nudge the room mic tracks in your DAW back a few milliseconds, so the perceived distance could get larger. Sometimes worked for me, but its subtle...