How to Record Big-Room Drum Sounds at Home
It’s a challenge to record “big” drum sounds in a home studio with typical 8-foot ceilings—but it’s not impossible. Whether you’re recording your progress, producing an album, or creating drum content for social media, these tips will help you progress from boxy, congested drum recordings to full, airy, dynamic drums that sound like they were recorded in a larger room.
Use a Multi-Tool to Tighten Up Your Kit
An easy way to optimize the sound of your drum kit is to keep your heads properly tuned and your hardware tightened and rattle-free.
For tuning, the Overtone Labs Tune-Bot Studio Drum Tuner has proven to be an excellent solution for bringing heads up to whatever pitch you want.
For overall kit maintenance, I like the Gibraltar SC-GPMT Drum Tech Pocket Multi Tool. It has all the tools you'll need including a drum key, flathead and Phillips screwdrivers, Allen keys, and a bottle opener.
Experiment with Kit Placement
If you have some room to move around, spend a few hours experimenting with your drum kit in different positions in the room. I'll concede that in most home studios, you put the drums where you can fit them—fair enough.
But moving the kit even six inches closer to a corner of a room can boost overall bass response. Keeping your overhead cymbals as low as possible helps move them away from the ceiling, reducing reflections that can cause comb filtering.
The point is to experiment with your drum kit placement, listen to the overall sound of your kit in the room, and keep your kit where it sounds best. Use some colored Gaffers Tape to mark your kit's position in the room for easily repeatable setup.
Control Overtones with Moongel
Once your kit is tuned up, the best way to control the decay of your drums is with RTOM Moongel.
Plop a piece of Moongel on your drum head, then move it around while hitting the drum to find the perfect amount of dampening. It won't leave residue on your heads, and it's the perfect way to control ringing snare drums and toms.
Use Low-Volume Cymbals
Cymbals project a lot of sonic energy into your room, much of which gets reflected back into your microphones and causes comb filtering that degrades your recorded drum tone. It's not nearly as much of a problem in a large studio with high ceilings.
For a home studio with an 8- or 10-foot ceiling, swapping to a set of low-volume cymbals like Zildjian L80 Low Volume Cymbals is your best solution. Unlike low-volume drum heads, low-volume cymbals sound like real cymbals—just quieter.
With low-volume cymbals, your drum recordings will sound cleaner, more defined, and more balanced without sacrificing the overall tone of your kit.
Zildjian L80 Low Volume 3-piece Cymbal Pack
Zildjian L80 Low Volume Cymbal Set
Zildjian L80 Low Volume Cymbal Set
Zildjian L80 Low Volume Ride Cymbal
Zildjian L80 Low Volume Crash/Ride Cymbal
Zildjian L80 Low Volume Crash Cymbal
Zildjian L80 Low Volume China Cymbal
Zildjian L80 Low Volume Splash Cymbal
Build Your Own Acoustic Panels
If you're serious about your home studio, you need to use some acoustic treatment to absorb excessive midrange frequencies and scatter high frequencies evenly throughout the room.
Treating your home studio is a deep topic that is well outside the scope of this article, but what we can tell you is that building your own acoustic panels costs pennies on the dollar compared to buying pre-built acoustic treatment.
The video below is a well-presented example of the most common and simple acoustic panels you can build. I have built similar panels for my home studio, and just a dozen panels have significantly reduced the boxy, congested sound associated with most home drum recordings.
Get a Dedicated Drum Microphone Set
You'll achieve more consistent drum recordings if you use the same mics in the same positions every time.
Like acoustic treatment, miking a drum set is a deep topic with countless methods that all capture big drum sounds (check out the video below if you need some ideas). But whichever miking configuration you choose, having a set of mics dedicated to your drums will help you fine-tune your process.
For a starter set that you'll continue to use for a lifetime, I'm a big fan of the Audix DP7 7-piece Drum Mic Set. The mics sound great on drums, guitar cabs, and even some acoustic instruments, and the selection of mics supports a variety of miking configurations.
Get a Dedicated Preamp for Those Mics
If you have an audio interface with an ADAT optical input, take advantage of it and add an 8-channel preamp as a dedicated front end for your drum recordings.
I think the SSL PureDrive Octo 8-channel preamp is one of the best drum preamps you'll find. It sounds amazing and features stepped controls that make it easy to recall the best gain settings for your mics. Each channel offers a 3-mode drive control to fine-tune attack and punch. Connect it to your audio interface's ADAT input, and you have a studio-quality front end for your drum mics.
For an 8-channel drum mic preamp on a budget, check out the Focusrite Scarlett OctoPre. Among the more affordable 8-channel preamps with ADAT, the Scarlett OctoPre has earned top reviews as an expansion for your audio interface that sounds nice and is a good value.
Time Align for the Best Mix
Once you've recorded your drums, your first editing step should be to time-align the recorded files.
Why? Your drum mics are all different distances from each drum and cymbal, causing sounds to reach each mic at slightly different times. Combining them together in a mix like this will cause comb filtering, nulls, and peaks.
For a clear, detailed, lifelike drum mix, you need to nudge some files to bring them into time alignment. Here's how you do it:
- Pan your overhead mics hard left and right and solo them. These are going to be your "baseline" tracks, and will not be nudged in time.
- Solo your snare mic along with the overheads, and select the snare mic file in your DAW's timeline. Use your DAW's "nudge" feature to move the file in 1ms increments.
- You can estimate how far you'll need to nudge the file by the distance between the snare mic and the overhead mics. Sound moves at roughly 1 foot per millisecond. If your snare mic is four feet from the overhead mics, nudge the file 4ms to start.
- Listen to the snare and overheads together as you're nudging the file, and listen closely to hear the snare "lock in" to the mix. It should sound like the snare suddenly solidifies in the center of your mix.
- De-solo the snare drum, and solo the next drum mic you want to align. Follow the same steps above, using the distance between the drum mic and the overhead mics to estimate, and listening to find the sweet spot.
- If you're not using stereo overhead mics, you can still time align your drum mics following the above steps. Simply choose one mic to use as your baseline (like your ride cymbal), and then time align the other mics to it.
- You can zoom in on your waveforms to see how closely you've aligned the files, but always use your ears to determine the best alignment.
- If you need finer adjustment than milliseconds, your DAW may allow you to nudge by samples. Milliseconds will get you close quickly, then changing to samples for fine adjustment lets you really dial it in.
- Make notes about how much you've nudged each mic. If you keep your mics in the same positions, you can use this as a template for future recordings to quickly time-align new drum recordings.
Your Home Drum Recordings Can Sound Huge
These tips will help you level up your home drum recordings in a big way.
Recording drums is a huge topic that you could spend years studying, so we've focused on the foundation: start by tightening up and tuning your kit. Use a drum tuner to sound your best. Use low-volume cymbals to control high-frequency energy in the room. Find the best-sounding place in your room for your kit, and build (or buy) some acoustic treatment to absorb reflections for clearer sound.
Get a drum mic set and dedicate an 8-channel preamp for drum duty. Keep your mics in position and your preamp settings locked in for consistent, repeatable recordings. And once you've recorded, always time-align your drum files first for a lifelike, 3-dimensional mix.
Want to streamline your home studio sessions?
→ Check out our Must-Have Home Studio Accessories guide.
- Introduction
- Use a Multi-Tool to Tighten Up Your Kit
- Experiment with Kit Placement
- Control Overtones with Moongel
- Use Low-Volume Cymbals
- Build Your Own Acoustic Panels
- Get a Dedicated Drum Microphone Set
- Get a Dedicated Preamp for Those Mics
- Time Align for the Best Mix
- Your Home Drum Recordings Can Sound Huge
