Drum recording advice needed

[Deathmetal616]

Hey everyone!
So I will be doing my first real drum tracking in about a month.
My options are recording the drummer at my home (loudness is no problem)
or recording him at the band's rehearsal room.

I don't know which room will be better.
Here are the 'room abilities':

my room: standard living room, about 20m², some furniture in there.
It has an ankled ceiling, so one site of the room is not parallel to the other.
That is a good thing right? But is it a problem to record the drums on the 3rd floor of a house?

rehearsal room: square room, about 12m², amps and also some furniture.

I will be putting the drums in both rooms on a chipboard and underneath a blanket. Is that a good idea? Bass wise, I thought...
Obviously my living room will be the better option, but is it okay to record up high in the house? Amp recording is no issue, so I guess it's also none with drums? Just want to be sure about this.

First time recording, so I am a noob, any helpful links about acoustics?
Will be reading the 'acoustic drums' guide of this forum right now...

Thanks in advance!
Cheers.

 

[WavolutionLab]

Your room will be better IMO
Don't install drums in the center of the room

 

[Deathmetal616]

Okay, thanks so far.
Anyone else giving a tip?

 

[Lodge]

I agree, sounds like your room will be better. I just went through a similar experience, would definitely recommend some replacement/blending if you're not sure how the room is going to work out. If you have a nice condenser mic I would suggest using it as a room mic and position it all over until it's getting a somewhat nice and full sound on its own. That way, once you get your replacements done you can add in a healthy amount of that room mic and restore more of the natural feeling to it. I actually got decent results like this recording a kit in someone's kitchen, which isn't ideal at all lol.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I'm about to track drums in our practice space soon. I have a bad feeling about the room sound.....there's a heating oil tank like 2 feet from the drums (threw some dampening over this), one wall is concrete (more dampening.....shitty old eggcrate foam, not actual treatment) and the rest drywall. Carpet floor and no padding/insulation on the ceiling, just wood. ot to mention, after moving practice spaces/losing a bassist, we're short mic cables and one of our SM57's is broken, and are stuck with 8 inputs of Profire 2626.....so sample replacement is basically a must. Just having a weird time getting Slate Trigger to recognize kick hits and replace them at correct volume and retrigger levels.....seems like automation is the only way to go, or manual edit, or just program kicks.....gah!!!

 

[mephetic_exhumation]

Sorry for the super late bump but I didn't want to start a new thread only for this

Don't install drums in the center of the room

I'm wondering what's the reasonning behind this? Let's say you don't have a nicely treated room wouldn't it help if drums are in the center? Because you'd get a bit less reflections from the shitty walls in your mics?

Or there's something else that I'm missing?

 

[Shinozoku]

The centerpoint of the room is the halfway point. So this is one of the places that sound waves will be the strongest when reflecting back off the walls. These are standing waves, and they are bad. Set the kit around 1/3 of the way from a wall instead. Fewer nasty reflections.

 

[tenebre]

Depending on what you want.. your room is fine.. but your gear will not get a great sound. Can you record with triggers for sound replacement?

 

[Jahbulon]

Depending on what you want.. your room is fine.. but your gear will not get a great sound. Can you record with triggers for sound replacement?

He didn't even say what gear he has. I hope that wasn't directed to Bryan_kilco cause ive heard many awesome songs recorded with budget mics through a profire 2626. Grow up this isn't gearsnobz