We need to be honest about drum shield panels—they’re just OK. And for the price, just OK isn’t that great. Any good drum kit really needs the seven-panel setup, which will run you right around $1000. But what are you getting for the money? Just the panels. No sound dampening, no roof to stop wild echoes from free-ranging around your room, no back wall. And once you’ve paid for dampening along the floor and the roof and the back, there’s still all these little spaces where sound escapes because the shield panels aren’t flush at the top and the bottom. The whole thing just bleeds drum noise. You get a reasonable noise floor reduction, but nothing to really give your engineer full control over the sound in the room, and you’re out two or three thousand dollars.
…a custom build with no bleed is going to give your audio engineer a very low noise floor which will result in more control of the sound in your room, especially in smaller sanctuary. It’s worth it.
You could hire someone to build a custom cage for you, but, uh… get ready. Your executive pastor is just going to love that estimate.
Or you could just do it yourself. Or maybe you and some enterprising team members who love to help. Turns out, it’s not that hard.
Famous last words, right?
No, for real.
There are two basic designs floating out there around the internet, the box and the half-circle (see below), and I’m going to break them down for you here.
If you want to go with the half-circle aesthetic, there’s some math involved, so you’ll also need a good router or jigsaw and a steady hand. Thankfully, these guys already did the math for you.
First—You Need a Floor
This might seem unnecessary, but it’s actually quite important, especially if your stage is covered in some sort of hard flooring. Those hard surfaces reflect sound and introduce bleed into your kit mics. A simple frame floor covered with some carpet is going to go a long way to eat up sound and kill vibrations coming into your stage. You can really ramp up the dampening by filling the floor with some good old fashioned pink insulation, and chances are someone in your church has some neutral carpet remnants and insulation trimmings lying around. Further chances are that person is also a contractor and would love to help you build this thing. Don’t be afraid to ask around. People love to serve and help.
The floor is a simple frame covered with OSB or plywood. If you’ve chosen to shape your cage like a big box, all you’ll need is a rotary saw, screws and a good impact driver. What I would do (and have done) is purchase an impact driver with my general production budget because what production ministry doesn’t need good tools? That way you have one available for future projects.
If you want to go with the half-circle aesthetic, there’s some math involved, so you’ll also need a good router or jigsaw and a steady hand. Thankfully, these guys already did the math for you.
For drum shields, the consensus from the internet seems to be that ¼” Lexan is the material of choice…
Second—You Need a Shield
This will require some phone calls because you need to find a plastics manufacturer nearby. That shouldn’t be difficult if you live in a good-sized city; however, rural churches will need to be willing to put in a drive, but the cost effectiveness is worth it. The consensus from the internet seems to be that ¼” Lexan is the material of choice as it can bend whereas acrylic cannot. Again, if you’re making a box, this is easy. If you’re doing a half circle enclosure, you’ll need to do more math. Refer to the links above. The folks at Church Media Drop did say that some companies will want some sort of diagram from you, so be prepared to maybe draw something up, but perhaps you’ll find someone who just wants dimensions.
If you’re making a box, you’ll need to find something to join the sides of the box together. You can make this with 1x4’s or something similar. This church had some corner steel material in the basement of their building that worked really well.
Third—The Roof and More Dampening
The roof will mirror the shape of your floor, but without the framing—just cut some plywood in the shape of your floor. You can then add a slot for your shield in one of two ways: draw a line and rout it out, or you can make a channel by attaching furring strips, which are nice and bendy if you’re using the half-circle design.
Get creative with the dampening. You can find cheap soundproofing foam that you can tack to the roof, or even just use more carpet. The idea here is bang for buck, so if you have material lying around that will absorb sound and won’t look bad or can be otherwise hidden while tacked to the ceiling of your cage, use it. If it’s a funky color, break out some spray paint and have a day.
Some Final Considerations
You’ll want some sort of ventilation system. It gets hot in there. Here at LifeMission Church, our cage has fans built into the wall in addition to a small tabletop fan that blows on the drummer. You’ll also need a door. Some stages already have a door that leads to backstage; you could just build your cage around that door. Our cage has a big cut outdoor with hinges and a latch. You’ll just want to make sure it’s tight so that sound doesn’t bleed out.
The various builds I found on the internet ranged from $500 to $2000 based on what people had lying around, and while the high end of that range isn’t necessarily cheaper than buying a panel kit on Amazon, a custom build with no bleed is going to give your audio engineer a very low noise floor which will result in more control of the sound in your room, especially in smaller sanctuary. It’s worth it.
———————
For reference, here’s a list of the drum cage builds that I found:
