$500 DRUM ISOLATION BOOTH FOR WORSHIP BANDS 

I would just like to add that not all "senior citizens" complain that the music is too loud. I'm 68, play keys at my church, and I love music LOUD!! I really don't think it's an age thing. If anything, getting older usually means losing some hearing. Maybe the ones who complain need to turn their hearing aids down???

I drum at my church and we’re actually been looking for one I’ll show them thanks they are sooooo expensive thanks so much

Great video! I'm very sorry that I'm gonna use this information to make a drum booth for my black metal band

Mi niño de 5 años,es quien te sigue.le encanta la música. Dios te bendiga.

Yes!! this is a GREAT way to improve overall sound quality. I'm glad it worked out for you guys.

Hey Jake, thanx for all that you do. This was so helpful, please don't ever stop making videos. -Rick (SD CA)

Good stuff man! We are in an auditorium that can hold 500, but even then, with just a shield, it was too overbalanced. Getting an enclosure was the best thing for us. The other part of this as well is that playing the drums at a fuller volume just SOUNDS better. Really being able to lay into the snare and toms makes a huge tone difference, and a difference in the dynamics.

Hello, I am not the pastor but I am the pastor's wife and I was so happy to to have found your video. I am supporting the music team at my church with their sound and was anxious with the cost of some of these pre-made booths. Definitely going to use your video. Thank you for sharing.

Perfect, been looking for something similar to this. As always great content!

I'm going to steal this design. This was exactly what I needed. I'm going to complete your design by creating a back panel that disassembles into two pieces in order to create a full isolation booth. I have my drums in an un-finished basement so I'm desperate to create a drum booth that's under 900-1,000 dollars. You and another church that was having the same issue really came in to save the day my dudes!

Am gonna try this with my electronic drum in the garage. Thanks alot man

Thanks for posting. I love that you did before and after audio clips. Drum shields are a controversial topic at best and I appreciate your very pragmatic approach. Would love to hear the before and after audio samples back to back with minimal time between them. Our “acoustic memory” is very short lived, hearing the clips back to back would be great (but to be fair, I can do that myself when listening, just takes more work on my part). Also as another commenter suggested, actual dB SPL readings before / after would be nice as it removes the subjectivity. Thanks again for all the helpful videos you post.

I drum at my church and we have had so many complaints about “how loud the drums are” to which I reply, you can’t play the drums and NOT be passionate while doing it! So we decided to go with an E-kit specifically a Roland TD12s and i honestly love it! Lol

I started to love your Channel... God bless you guys...

Thanks.. Like your infos u guys giving out.. U all a great help.. God bless.

Thanks Jake, this is super helpful man!

Nice, we thinking about this for our basement practice but make it more convenient when we go out to play. 👍👍

Would love to see more info on portable church solutions for gear, volunteers, transportation, storage and such. Thanks for the great videos!

Great job we have the same challenge with our mix at church great tips and insight!

Good video, thanks for sharing it. God bless you! 😊👍🏼🔥

Awesome!!! Thank you brother

Right i would like to add my grandpa is a pastor and senior citizen he loves loud music

Love it.

Awesome video man!

Just finished our build. I made a few changes to suit our needs.....but for the most part it’s the same product. I added two lights to the lid and put them on a dimmer so the drummers can adjust the brightness is they need. I added bracing to keep the lid from warping or sagging. All of the materials with the exception of the threaded rivets were readily available. I chose to use simple three-quarter inch long bolts with nuts and washers instead of rivets for cost as well as availability. I choose to make the backstop 8 feet long by 3 feet tall used to pair of hinges to make 1 foot wings on each side that I can fold in at a 45° angle to make more of a trap for the corners. I was pleasantly surprised how sturdy the screen felt once I bolted the hinges together. As our set up is right now We came in under $700 for the budget. Compared to a prefab unit cost gems $3500 or more I think it’s a bargain.

Another problem to bring up here…due to enclosure drum room will enlarge the inside sound, this will cause permanent damage to drummer's ear. 1. Earplug - then cannot hear other instruments and vocal sounds from monitor 2. IEM - they will increase the volume till overcome the drum sounds created by them

ótimo video, Deus abençoe......God bless you

Bonus tip: We've had issues in the past getting the sound panels to stick to a painted surface, so squares were falling from the ceiling onto our drummer. The solution was painting Kilz onto the surface before applying the adhesive. We use construction adhesive (Liquid Nails usually) to stick the pads. Haven't had an issue since.

Pretty cool, I saw the Heartbeat studio crash! I think many worship leaders blow off how much of a difference Dark and thin “worship cymbals”. Such as the Heartbeats or Zildgian K. Make a huge difference. Honestly that is the best investment you can make in your worship drum budget . You can make inexpensive drums sound great with good heads and tunning but if you buy “ budget”. Cymbals you are going to be stuck with a very undesirable sound not to me mention very loud and distracting! Great job!

Important points here are ; Its essential if you are on SMALL stage. Big stage is not necessary. The point of the shield is to prevent sound from other instruments to bleed into the drum mics directly. Its not isolating the drums ...physically is impossible to do on stage but not in studio. If you can reduce the amount of direct sound to the mics the gates and compressors for the drums will work much better. Now the first problem the FOH will found is phase issues due to the fact all mics are now inside a "cube" basically. The other problem also is dead ambience from the drums due to the foam. Unless the place have a natural ambience decay or the FOH is routing the drums to a room reverb effect. Trial and error is the key here.

Awesome video Jake! I'd also like to see what Mics you use and the setup you use to get it to the soundboard if you ever get a chance! Thanks man!

Thanks for this video, really helpful!!! Have you got a mic for all the different elements of the drumset or just a couple to record a mix?

Good stuff, Jake. I can imagine that this will spark others' creativity to come up with custom solutions for their scenarios as well. Great to have a carpenter to partner with! I do have a question about what you are hoping to accomplish with the acoustic foam. It looks like 1". If the sole result is cymbal reduction on the highest of frequencies, you should be getting some help there. Likely the foam on the top is helping reduce the increased splashback of cymbals to the drummer; but if he's on in-ears, it may not matter to him. It looked like you also have 1" foam on the bottom. You mentioned reducing sound bleed. 1" foam just won't do that. If you want to reduce kick, toms, or snare where fundamentals are down to 40Hz-200Hz that 1" foam won't do anything. You really want fiberglass or mineral wool, 4-8" thick to do any real dampening down low. Or for thin material for true reduction of sound transfer (i.e. sound proofing), use Mass-Loaded Vinyl. Another simple solution for worship teams who have vocalists singing as close to the drums as you are: swap out your cardioid pattern mic with a hyper cardioid mic -- and you'll get far less mic bleed -- for just the cost of the mic(s).

My church just used this video as a guide for building our own enclosure. The shield was provided and so our project cost under $200.

I learn so much from you! I'd love to see how to set up the microphones for the drumset with as few mics as possible 😳

I literally just had this happen, but thankfully not as bad into the vocal mics, though there's definitely a bit there. The amount we had bleeding from some drums into others was alarming though.

I personally still felt that the original audio with the lesser drum shield had plenty of separation between the “drum bleed” and your vocal. It’s not always about how much bleed, it’s about the difference in the main source of your audio and the noise floor, which in this case is the acoustic sound of the drums on stage. I personally feel like in a mix with the close mics mixed in it wouldn’t have been that bad.

hey Jake, awesome and informative video...im looking onto creating some videos for my church to send on youtube and so on but what im struggling with the most is finding a place to make awesome intros like the one from this video...may i ask what you used and how i can get my hands on the software? have an awesome day!

Hey! Loved the video and all you post! Can you make a video on leading worship with an iPad? I’ve got the new iPad Pro but I’d like some guidance on the gear and apps I need to lead worship with it. I use Loop Community’s Prime for tracks! Thanks!

Hi, guys. Great video. I have experience to isolate drums in my church. This solution is not "isolation". it is just good lite mobile system. Plexiglass shields just reduses sound attack from drumset. if you need to make total isolation, look for another way. I think about way how to produce windows with 2 or 3 layers of glass.

I've been playing drums for 55 years, in all different kinds of situations. I've only seen drum shields as a crutch for drummers who can't control their sound or "hit". drummers need to learn to play for the music. if it needs to loud and aggressive play that way, if it needs to be soft and gentle play that way. How are your dynamics? are you listening while you're playing? professionals use drum shields because they mic their drums and more so don't want other instruments bleeding into those mics. I played in a church setting for 12 years and had control of my sound. I use 5b drumsticks and played on single headed concert drums (think Phil collins)because that is all they had (insert sad face here) and my drumming was never an issue. practice doing a fill around your drums as soft as you can. when you master that control you'll have it figured out. TIP: actually play your ride cymbal with the tip of your stick instead the shank, I've seen countless drummers wailing on their cymbals with the shank. control!

things that didn't age well about this video: "Plywood: Free or a couple bucks" 😂😂😂

When can you do a video on your truss/video screen/projector set up, including technical things like how many lumens the projector needs to be and such? Thanks.

I'm here for the comments... some of these guys are living in a dream world! Haha some are so rude!

Hey Jake, Just wanted to give a tip as well. If your drummer doesn't want to have the shield because it blocks hearing you guys and monitors aren't fun I tried some things. I started to lower the notes on my toms with full blue sticky pads for dampening the noise and also used HD Dry Snare Batter head to lower the tones that go through mikes with a low to mid tuning setup for it and very tight underneath so that it rolls nice. Also the hi hats he is using are loud and project there are other ones that are quitter and don't wash out the band like the sweet k series hi hats. 16 is best 15" is pretty decent. Or k series custom master sound hi hats. And the k sweet crashes and rides are a great add on to get good music and a clean sound. God Bless

I will point out that a sealed drum cage will need some ventilation. A small exhaust fan will work. When you make vent penetrations you loose sound damp acoustics. You can create a sound damping vent hole similar to a muffler- just make a baffle or turns in the vent channel.

Thanks for sharing!!!! Actually I am using electronic drum but still have the “hitting plastic sound” which disturbing the close neighbors. I would like to follow your instructions to buy in amazon. Do u think it’s good to reduce the noise? Thank you very much again😊

Its usually never a volume issue, but a balance issue. When I'm not drumming, I ask people two things- Where were you sitting? This way I can check it out during a rehearsal to see if its a hot spot... And then I ask "what was too loud"... This way I can figure out if it was more a balance issue each week.

Love the DIY build! FYI, those foam panels are useless below 2kHz. You would be better off with 2-3 inch Rockboard 80, which is effective down to 125Hz. I have made 40+ panels out of Rockboard and it is fantastic stuff. Rockboard or Owens Corning 703 are the most common sound absorption products. If you look at pre-made panels, that's exactly what they are using. You can get Rockboard from an industrial insulation supplier for a bit more than you paid for the foam panels. When I bought them a few years ago, I got 10 2'x4'x2" panels for $70. Add some fabric and you have something that is many times more effective than foam. #THEMOREYOUKNOW

Hi , this is a great help. Just wanted to know what size drill bits you got ?

lighter sticks and more controlled playing works too .

Hey Jake love the setup! I was pretty sold on getting an electric kit until I watched this vid. QUESTION, do you mic the drum kit now that it's enclosed? What mics do you use????

This is our problem in our church when drum bleeds, overpowered in our monitor. Thank you for this idea. But i dont know how much is the shipping free when we buy plexi glass from amazon to ph

watching in 2021! we have the 5’6 height panels. do you think we could still put a top over it?

I would also recommend that you put a noise gate on your mics so they don’t get the drums and other low level stuff.

Hey, great video, but what thickness plywood did you use

I would love to see an "after" recording that measures the bleed into the mics.

I go to Bethel church. And I love there cage😀

I play for my church and we remodeled the stage and we added the room

I want to learn it more. “How could I improve it?”

do you have the specific Length and width of the lid you made; as well as exactly how many acoustic foam panels you ended up using for the lid, shield and back panel combined?

I am an Atheist drummer but I like this video.

I noticed there are foam panel on the plexiglass. Did you also use spray adhesive to adhere those?

Our church has an extremely live room. We have been thinking of going cage instead of electric drums because of issues we had with the electric. Would this work for a room like ours or does it allow too much noise thru?

Haha I see the Breakfest photo in the background.

Is it can install in home? My home is townhome i want it to practicing.

Or how what size threaded rivets you fit or even how thick the Plexiglass to the cage is

Hi Sir. How about the material used on the side of the plexiglass? What is it?

What is better in a new church buy an electric drum or buy an acoustic drum with a shield?

hows the plastic hinges doing so far ? Id love a reply back because you are the only person I seen with this specific solution and I was interested into doing this same method, but over the time passed, I just wanted to know what are the results after time passed. Is it still the same? Do the rivets still in place ? Let me know !!!

How thick is your drum cage glass??

How thick is the panel? Can i use acrylic? Thank you

Clearsonic is still the best option to optimize your sound. Do not be fooled, it is not putting a common screen, it is putting the right one. We must give the Lord excellence and you know it.

May I didn’t hear it but how thick should the fiber glass be

15 year FOH tech here. What do you think about baffles such as SHY Baffles instead of a full shield? Also as for reflections and phasing between mics due to those reflections? IMO a open drum set sounds 1000% better than a caged one.

clearsonic is the best option to obtain the quality you are looking for

Thoughts on shy baffles??

Just as a heads up, this is 'unlisted'. I only found it from the link in the email you sent out. Wasn't sure if that was intentional!

I have this same problem at my church now. we have a 5 foot drum shield, and that helps, but I don't think it's enough. in our live stream, I can't even hear the drums. unforchenitly, my Church's budget is 0.

What would be a cheap solution for just wanting go hear the worship team live on stage behind the drum booth?

How does the drummer get fresh air?

That's weird. My Punk/Metal band practices/plays very loudly. I multi track record every practice and as many gigs as possible. We have very little drum bleed into the main vocal mic. I'm the drummer and I don't even have as much bleed into my headset mic as you have into your vocal mic. I play LOUD. I noticed that your vocal sounds fine when you are directly in front of the mic and just about the only bleed is a little bit of snare. Perhaps you should consider a headset mic so that you don't have an open mic pointed at the drums for most of your performance? Maybe some other mic that isn't as sensitive as a Beta 58?

@ Jake how do you cool the drummer ?

"Plywood: free or a couple bucks" That's cute. :P

That seems like a lot of weight up high. How do you keep the walls from folding under the weight, especially considering vibrations? Genuinely curious.

How has your creation held up since this video was posted three years ago?

What are your thoughts on electric or pad drums?

Does this work for heavy metal? Or worship only??

"Only ¿ was; Is that soundproof though.?

Did you have to mike your drums after you built this?

I'd really like to hear the drum sound with and without the drum shield in comparison. I think I'd rather cope with a little bleeding from the drums into the vocal mic (like it alwys was), than taking the risk of a strong comb filter effect on the drum sound... You talk a lot about isolation but you don't mention reflections at all.

Comparisons at 3:37 and 4:16 you're welcome

How/where do ya’ll store this?

Plywood ‘free or a couple bucks’... This video was definitely pre-pandemic, you’d have to remortgage your house for that plywood now 😂.

Hey man. I have some questions on the drum booth and help with it. If you dont mind messaging me.

you need to practice support for sing you are 1/4 flat and your voice shake is a very easy fix.

Did you take any decibel readings before and after? Also I know the drummer is wearing IEM's but does he find it louder in his booth? I'm a drummer and love the idea of a fully enclosed booth but hate the idea of playing in it lol

We did something very similar to this at our church recently. For sound paneling you can even spend less by purchasing foam insulation boards www.homedepot.com/b/Building-Materials-Insulation-Foam-Board-Insulation/N-5yc1vZbaxx (will need to paint it obviously, but you'll get some more depth out of it)

What about ventilation

If we go to this much trouble to block out drums, why not just go to a digital kit like Alesis Strike or Roland TD 25or50. So where’s the benefit of an acoustic kit. If you shield then mic up a kit and put it through a digital desk with gates, compressors, effects doesn’t it just become a digital kit in the end. I like the acoustic kit in our room, from my perspective (sound technician) but it seems to cause more problems than it solves.