A drum booth on most occasions will only require between 40% and 65% coverage of the four walls and the ceiling. Because of the wide range of frequencies involved when it comes to recording or practicing a drum session effective acoustic treatment is a must. Acoustic treatment that can absorb the full range of frequencies is also a requirement. So this involves the effective use of bass traps in all the available corners both the vertical and the ceiling height horizontal corners. The recommended bass traps to use in a drum booth are the Quadrant Bass Traps however if budget is an issue then the Original Bass Traps would be suitable. In a standard height room of around 8ft we would recommend that you install a bass trap corner kit per available tri-corner and an extra 3ft bass trap below that. You will also need one bass trap for every 4ft on every ceiling horizontal corner. If you are building your own drum booth then square rooms are not recommend as these shapes rooms can be very difficult acoustically as the dimensions of the room will mean you will have very severe room modes and standing waves. If at all possible try to avoid parallel walls. While we understand that this is not always possible if you do have the means to do this we would highly recommend it.
So once the bass trapping is taken care of with effective placement of the bass traps the next areas to cover are the four walls and the ceiling. As we have said earlier you will need between 40% and 65% coverage and the acoustic tiles need to be at least 2” thick to be effective in your booth. So the best acoustic tiles to use for a drum booth are the Tegular Acoustic Tiles, the S.E.A.M. Acoustic Tiles or the Wave Acoustic Tiles. If budget is an issue then we would not recommend you use any thinner a tile than the Wedge PRO or the F.A.T. PRO Acoustic Tiles. When installing the acoustic foam you need to create small clusters of acoustic tiles. These clusters of tiles can be arranged in any way you wish however you need to keep the room as balanced as possible so if you install 3 clusters of tiles on one wall you need if at all possible to install 3 clusters of tiles on the opposing wall. If a temporary installation is required then you can mount the acoustic tiles onto a sheet of 6mm MDF. This panel can then be hung on the wall like a picture using picture hooks. This means that when you come to move or change the use of the room you don’t have trouble removing the tiles from the wall. It is just a case of un-hooking the panels. You can then use these acoustic panels again if you wish.
Hopefully this has helped you in determining the amount of acoustic treatment you require for your room and also what products are best for your room. Obviously every room is different but these articles do help to see what needs to go where and how much of it.
