Recording drums to sound big in a small room for hard rock/metal projects

Small rooms can be well tuned, just like large rooms can be well tuned. The 70's gave small rooms a bad, or heavily stylized, rep for drums because the rooms rooms and drums were both heavily dampened. A small room with a more open kit can deliver a very good, and a modern drum sound. Its also easy enough to add a natural ambience by leaving tbe door open partially, and placing some room mics out in the adjacent space, (facing a hard wall a few inches away works quite well too). You can also re-amp the drums sending them to a speaker in a hall, bathroom, concrete basement, ect. Theres plenty of ways to engineer big ambient sounds from otherwise small areas. Its as much about how reflective a room is, as it is cubic footage. Many theaters are large but fairlt dead rooms.



I think your drums and room sound good. Well tuned, played, and tracked. My critique would be that the cymbals were hit a bit too hard, and/or are maybe a model geared towards live use where cut is much more important. I wouldn't say it was grossly overbearing, but could be taken down a notch or two.



When your adding compression to the snare and overheads to get that to sustain and punch thru a heavy rock and metal mix, those cymbals can be an interference, especially when adding top end to those channels too. The cymbals will definitely crop up more quickly so its always better to err on the side of ease with regard to hitting the cymbals.



Overall good work.

No prob, looking forward to hearing more from ya Tboz!