I’ve noticed recently that many drummers are enclosing themselves in a box. They look to be made of plexiglass and encompass the drum kit on four sides, or sometimes three sides.
Why?
Well, you see, singers and guitarists can duck out of the way when the audience starts throwing bottles, but the drummer is a stationary target. He needs some protection…
Seriously though, the reason for the box is to stop the drum sound picking up on the singer’s mic, I believe.
Just had a look on Google - here’s a site that sells the things, with info about what they do:
http://www.theoriginaldrumscreen.com
Looks like it’s actually designed to give the drum sound more punch, as well as to keep more separation between drums and vocals etc.
That was my first thought. I had visions of the stage surrounded by chicken wire in The Blues Brothers.
“Stand by your man…”
I had this the other way around–I was thinking Animal from the Muppet Show.
“WILD THING! RAAAARR!”
Child: I want to be a musician when I grow up.
Adult: What instrument do you want to play?
Child: I want to play the drums!
Adult: Well, you can’t be both!
I appreciate you calling drummers musicians!
Anyway, the glass booth is to help the sound guy. The sound of the drums will bleed into the singer’s and other microphones. That makes the sound engineer’s job impossible. If he raises the singer’s level, the drums come with him. Well, if he’s trying to get the singer in front of the drums, that’s not going to work.
In the recording studio, the drummer is usually completely isolated from the rest of the band. He/She will be in a sound proof room with a window to the rest of the group. Everyone will be able to hear through the headphones. Sometimes the drummer records his/her tracks at a completely separate time from the rest of the band. He plays drums to a metronome (click track) and everyone else comes in later and lays down tracks according to the tempo set by the drums. It is possible to record an entire song with the musicians never even meeting each other.
Animal is my hero!!
The first thought in my head on seeing the title of this thread was the old “What do you call a person who hangs out with musicians?”
DrumGod has it exactly right.
Although, it’s usually only done when the venue doesn’t lend itself well to music (i.e., television soundstage).
I actually convinced my ex-brother-in-law that the plexi-box was setup because drums were pressurized. That’s how they were able to be so LOUD. Well, seems that several rock bands recently had been over-pressurizing their drumkits to get more sound out of them and there had been some terrible accidents when one of the drums would blow. The plexi-box was put there by new insurance regulations to protect the audience.
The boy SWORE that he’d heard about that happening at a concert. :rolleyes:
He was 26 years old at the time.