It goes without saying that acoustic drums are a loud instrument. There’s little we can do to offset that volume, and asking a player to soften their touch isn’t practical. One thing live sound engineers can do is install a drum shield, sometimes called a cage, around the kit. A drum shield is one of the best ways to reduce on-stage volume of acoustic sets for a better, more balanced live mix.
What Is a Drum Shield?
Most shields consist of a set of thick acrylic panels that enclose the front and sides of a kit in a semicircle. Occasionally you might also see a top panel mimicking a ceiling of sorts to establish more of an isolation booth around a drummer on stage.
Acrylic panels reflect sound emanating from the kit back towards the drummer, and thus away from the other microphones and performers on stage. The idea is that this greatly reduces the possibility of drums, which are one of the loudest instruments in a performance, from bleeding into other microphones.
Major bleed issues can overpower a front-of-house (FOH) engineer’s mix, resulting in the audience getting a whole lot of drums, and not enough of everything else. Isolating cages are one solution engineers frequently employ to prevent significant leakage and to help keep a mix as clean and manageable as possible.
Shields offer some volume reduction in addition to sound redirection.
Do Drum Shields Really Work?
As is often the case, mileage varies based on product quality. FOH engineers who have serious bleed problems should definitely consider investing a high-quality, proven shield as opposed to something flimsy and inexpensive. It’s additionally recommended that acrylic shields are used in tandem with some form of acoustic absorption for the most effective isolation. While preventing reflections from entering other microphones on stage, it’s even better if there’s a way to absorb some of those reflections as well, lest they barrage the poor drummer who’s trapped in their isolation booth.
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In this way, drum shields can be quite effective at maintaining optimal signals in all of the microphones without the very loud drums overwhelming everything.
When Should I Use a Drum Shield?
Drum shields are primarily built for live sound environments, but are occasionally used in studios as well. You’ll frequently see them in houses of worship, where it’s important that the congregation isn’t exposed to rock concert volume levels. Using an isolated/attenuated drum kit as a baseline, the FOH engineer can mix around that and keep the overall levels appropriate for the given audience.
Depending on the genre of music, you might also see cages employed whenever it’s important to keep drums in check because the overall level of the other instruments simply doesn’t compete. Guitarists in a metal band won’t have a problem, but an acoustic guitarist/singer-songwriter probably doesn’t want to strum and shout over a drum kit all night.
The 5 Best Drum Shield Options for Your Home Studio & Live Performance
1. ClearSonic CSP A2466x7 Acrylic Drum Shield, 7-panel
This ClearSonic seven-panel kit includes pieces of acrylic that are 1/4″ thick, 24″ wide, and 66″ tall. They can be separated for storage, or also folded at the hinges and placed away. At the bottom of the panels are cable cutouts, so FOH can still run the necessary XLRs to mic up the drum set.
2. ClearSonic IsoPac A Complete Isolation Booth
ClearSonic’s IsoPac is a complete solution to on-stage drum isolation. This booth comes with not only acrylic panels, but absorptive acoustic panels, a baffling “ceiling,” and even a 6″ fan to keep your drummer cool and happy behind the kit. The IsoPac would be one of the most effective drum cages one could get.
3. Pennzoni Display DS4 5-Panel Drum Shield
Pennzoni offers a relatively affordable shield consisting of five panels which are 1/4″ thick, 2′ wide, and 5′ high. This system covers a large enough area to contain at least the front and much of the sides of the drum set. There’s no reason why this set of acrylic panels would be any less effective than another despite the price, considering the thickness and and overall dimensions of each panel.
4. Sound Shields VDS-5-K 5.5 Feet Tall, 10 Feet Wide, 5-Section Acrylic Shield System
Standing a whopping 10 feet tall, this five-panel kit is perfect for houses of worship or venues with ample ceiling height. The extra several feet of panel length helps further contain mid- and high-frequency content radiating from the cymbals. Like many quality drum shields, this setup contains “mouse holes” for cable runs.
5. Clearsound Baffles Pack of 4 Acoustic Cymbal Shields
Finally, we have a totally different approach to drum shielding altogether with Clearsound’s cymbal baffles. Easily mountable to a cymbal stand, this pack of four shields specifically isolates a drummer’s cymbals, so that super sizzly high frequencies stay out of vocalists’ microphones and help them cut through the mix.