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Rant: Recording drums outdoors at a friend's barn ruined indoor mics for me

Last summer I hauled my kit to a buddy's property outside Austin for a weekend jam. We set up under this old tin roof, no walls, just open air and gravel. I ran a simple two-mic setup, one overhead and one kick, through a cheap interface. The room tone was insane, you could hear birds and wind but it sat behind the kit like a natural reverb. Compare that to my backyard studio, where I fought carpet echo and HVAC hum for months. Now every indoor take feels dead and boxy to me. Has anyone else tried recording outside and struggled to go back to a treated room?
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2 Comments
wyatt_fox68
Wait, you recorded under a tin roof with just two mics and got natural reverb from birds and wind? That sounds like some kind of magic trick, man. Every time I try that outside, all I get is wind noise and my kick sound like a cardboard box.
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miles_roberts22
Feel that, man. Outside air just hits different.
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