My Film Studio
When I decided to venture into posting social media content, I quickly realized that my recording studio wasn't well-suited for this. So I decided to build and create a film studio on our property that would be geared toward filming not only educational content, but entertaining content as well.
The first thing that I needed to do was to isolate the kit from the floor just as I had done in my recording studio. You never want the kit sitting directly on the floor. A rug on the floor is just okay, but what I like to call a floating drum riser is best. As in my recording studio, I accomplished this by purchasing three tri-fold gym workout mats made of very dense 1.5" foam and placed them underneath 3/4" birch plywood. I then covered the wood with a good quality 3/8" thick area rug. Once again, the isolation was perfect.
Now for the drum kit. Same scenario as my recording studio drum kit if you've already read that. If you haven't read that yet, check it out. However, in a nutshell, I purchased the same PDP kit that is in my studio and then refinished this one in the design seen here.
I modified the bearing edges to my particular specifications that I prefer and then outfitted this kit with Remo Ambassador heads. Again I turned the PDP snare into a tom, because I purchased another Pearl 6.5 x 14 Modern Utility snare. As for the cymbals, stands, throne, sticks, pedals, miscellaneous hardware and percussion items, they are the same items as in my recording studio except that I added a 12" splash and a 14" Meinl Trash Stack.
Now for the recording gear, I use a combination of close mics and overhead mics as follows:
Audio-Technica
AT2020
2 Audio-Technica AT2020 condenser mics placed 5.7 ft. overhead at 10 o'clock & 2 o'clock.
3 Overhead Room Mics
2 Shure KSM32 Large-diaphragm Condensers 10" from the ceiling in the room corners behind the kit
1 Neumann U 87 Large-diaphragm Condenser 14" from the ceiling centered over the kit
Shure Beta 52A kick drum mic placed partially inside the port hole at 12 o'clock.
Shure
Beta 52A
In addition to the kick and overhead mics I am using Alctron mics on the snare, toms, hi-hats & ride cymbal.
Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd Gen USB Audio Interface
Snare & Rack (Alctron SD2)
Floor Tom (Alctron KD6)
Hi-Hats & Ride (Alctron DM03)
My DAW is Reaper. And as in my recording studio, I can either mix and edit at my computer workstations, or on my 55" TV/monitor via an Arteck wireless keyboard with touchpad. I also use the wireless keyboard to operate everything from behind the kit when I am recording.
Arteck 2.4G Wireless Keyboard w/Touchpad
I use the same cameras that I use in my recording studio when I film. The lighting in my film studio is as follows:
Neewer 40cm Softbox
Aside from the regular room lighting, I have four 16" x 16" Neewer softbox lights that are equipped with some super-bright LED bulbs that really make the drum kit pop in the video recordings.
The Neewer softboxes are outfitted with DooVii 500W Equivalent, 6000K, Daylight LED Corn Bulbs. These are without a doubt the brightest and coolest bulbs I have ever used. They literally generate no noticeable heat.
DooVii 500W Equivalent Corn Bulbs
Neewer NL480
LED Flat Panel
Two 10" x 10" Neewer Bi-Color Dimmable Flat Panel Lights for specialized lighting scenarios.
