Pillow question

[yamaha drumer]

Just a question about pillows in the bass drum....
I always have a pillow in my bass drum or a blanket...
What about all you people??? Do you like the sound
of a bass drum when they are empty??? I've heard a few
nice bass drums that had nothing in them, but never had
much luck getting a sound I like out of my BASS drum...
Empty OR cushioned?????????????????????????

[my sacred music]

i've nvr put a blanket in there. but yah i use a pillowright up on the head. dont like the sound of my bass though, im hoping to get an aquarian super kick so i dont hafta have a pillow in there.

[radiofriendlyunitshifter]

i was tuning my drums today, and decided to mess around with my bass drum a bit.

when i first got my kit, i thought the bass was too boomy and put a sheet in there. the

result was what i desired: less boom more punch. i took the sheet out today, just to try it

out, and liked it the sound i got. nice, open boom, but not as resonant as i had

remembered. i need to tinker with it a bit more, but ultimately it's up to you to decide

what you want your bass to sound like and what you need to do to get it to sound like that.

[Drummerboy3940]

I use a pillow. A small decorative pillow gives me a good sound. A too big pillow muffles too much. This size is working great for me.

[somedrummer]

I just use my EMAD with the small muffling ring, with no extra internal muffling. The sound is just what I want.

[hauk]

with a coated EMAD and the larger ring on it, i dont need a pillow anymore... shweet

[Fat Elvis]

i had an evans EQ pillow in there as well as an aquarian SKII -- tonight i took the pillow out and loved it. I will be rocking it that way from now on.

[yamaha drumer]

So it comes down to using quality BASS heads???

[Fat Elvis]

i believe so, yes. That and a quality bass drum make all the difference.

[Lintball]

i always played with a blanket AND a pillow in my bassdrum. i recently took out the blanket and just left the pillow and it sounds alright..but i like my bass drum to have a solid kick sound because i mostly play hard rock and metal.

[MikeM]

I'd never given it much thought until one day at the music store I was thumping on a DW kick and asked the guy why it sounded so killer. After all, my kick is the same dimensions, a nice Keller maple shell, it should be pretty close, right? He told me that believe it or not, it was a combination of the EMAD with the smaller ring and DWs own special pillow.

I thought, "what the hell," and bought both right there. Wow! He was right. Even though my EMAD retainer ring didn't last two weeks (and therefore the foam ring didn't either), my kick sounded a lot like that DW I was liking so much, and a huge improvement over the small blanket and Evans EQ4 I had been using.

[drumtechdad]

Muffling = softer, so if you play out unmiked I recommend you do not muffle the bass drum if you want it heard. No port, either, and use single-ply heads. You need booooom for the drum to cut through. You don't hear the sustain from the audience, you just hear a loud bass drum.

Miked, of course, is another story.

[Deathmetalconga]

I never put a pillow or anything else in any of my drums; it makes them sound like cardboard. If you need to control tones, use thicker heads. People often want the thinnest, brightest heads, then start stuffing mattresses in their drums when it's too ringy.

[witchcraftery]

I use an empty bass for funk, rock, ska, jazz, indie.

I use muffling, like a pillow, for metal, death metal, and any other situation where I'll be doing quick bass hits. Makes it more defined.

I use Aquarian Super Kick T2, so it's fantastic with or without the muffling.

[alparrott]

I only stuff the bass drum when I need to; I try to let the head combo do the work. (Currently using an EQ2 batter and Ebony front; looking at an EMAD2 and an EQ2 ported front).

If you roll a fleece throw blanket till it's a tube about 6" across, and just long enough to touch both heads, that works great to knock off just a hair of boominess, but still enough to get the message across loud and clear.

[bobdadruma]

Put the pillow back on the couch, Where it belongs! Then put it on the floor when you sit down because it gets in your way!
Get an SK 1 or an SK2. That goes on your bass drum, Not on the couch, Or the floor!