I recently cleared out my home studio (more like spare bedroom with crappy equipment in it) with the intent of finding the location my drums sounded the best. I'm sure most people have done this at one point. The dimensions of the room are roughly 11' by 14'. What I did was brought in my kick drum and my throne and started with my ideal location, with my mixer and computer directly behind me so I could just spin on my throne and be at either one. Doing so put my kick roughly in the center of the room facing the opposite corner. I hit it a few times. It really sounded like crap! It was lifeless and lacked all resonance. I tried turning it keeping the center of the drum on an axis and squaring it up with the opposing walls. This did a little but not much to the sound. I moved it foreword about 2' and the sound got worse but the feel of the drum got tighter. I then moved it about 18" back from the original position. Here was the good stuff. It was actually unbelievable, with each inch I moved back the better it got better. I was now backed up too close to my computer and mixer, but I was on to something. I abandoned the single seat idea and tried the same principles to an empty corner. I set the throne as close to both walls as I could possibly handle and again the sound was amazing. The kick is aimed into the opposite corner of the room. The entire kit is now set up diagonally in one corner with my floor tom inches from the right wall. It has opened up my toms in the same manner as the kick. My snare sounds good as well but I don't think I can make this particular snare sound bad, so I didn’t worry about it. The amount of air in front of the kit has everything to do with how it sounds and feels. And there is the trade off; my kick feels like a marshmallow, which kills all pedal response. But this I can get used to. All said and done my kit, as a whole sounds better live and recorded. I post this in the hopes it will help others, and also to possibly to compare notes with others. My room is very small, and I have a single layer of "sound board" up. I can't say the same will work in a larger room with different wall materials. Maybe someone else can.

from sacramento and with a halla quote in your .sig.

any involvement with them?

ben adrian
oakland, ca

good observations - i've always tried to think of placement in the room like you think of speaker placement. just like how you get a big bass emphasis when you put your speakers up against the wall - and then that flattens out if you pull them off a bit. also with drums (bass drum esp.) the wavelength of a bass drum's fundamental is what, something like 12-15 ft long? at any rate in small confines, if you don;t physically have the space for the wavelengths to cycle before hitting reflections, things "sound funny".

but the best part of your story is remembering that the first thing you try is often times not the best, and you can make things sound a lot better (or worse) if you just mess around with things until you get something you like.

ya...my room's about 13 by 13...it didn't occur to me until I read your post...but I have my kit set up in the exact same way in a diagonal....and though my kit is very poor and held together with tape and sounds bad...it sounds the best it ever has in this spot...especially in relation to the amps when we play together...how small's your space?

No involvement with Hella, unless you count the many shows I have been to. I'm just glad such a cool band is showing people there is more to Sacramento than metal bands.