Instrument differences and relearning what I thought I already knew

spleeeeen

spleeeeen

Platinum Member
So, I periodically check in on drummerschoice.co.uk to see and hear what gear they have up for review. In case you’re not familiar, they take an “honest capture” approach to recording the instruments they review (i.e., no enhancing EQ, effects, etc.) The aim is to let the listener hear what people in the room are hearing.

Relearning #1: Without significant signal processing, the differences in sound between drums made by various manufacturers, various materials, various shell structures, etc., is much less than I previously thought. Of course, there are difference that can be important to consider, but over all, they seem to be of a lesser percentage than I’d previously noticed. I thought I knew this, but this has really clarified it for me in a much more “embodied” way.

Relearning #2: Drummers are going to sound like themselves on whatever drums they happen to be playing. Not exactly the same of course but in a general sense, yes. This is something I see Bo mention on here pretty regularly. I thought I knew that but as I continue to listen to these reviews of gear played by the same drummer, I really “get it.”

For me, the net effect is likely one the manufacturers of the reviewed instruments weren’t hoping for; I’m now much less interested in buying new drums and actually reinvigorated to continue developing “my sound” on the instruments I already have. At present, time invested in working on this is much more satisfying (and affordable!) than money invested in new instruments.

I’m curious to hear how others have been affected by this kind of experience?

Jason
 
I sold my Taye set and bought the Gretsch because I thought the Gretsch would have a better sound since they were a bigger name. Kind of like "keeping up with the Joneses". I soon learned that i tuned the same way no matter the brand. I have also learned that the recording engineers, or sound men for most drum ads, seem to all have the same sound in mine. Every Youtube ad sounds alike. I, like you, have decided to tune what I have to what suits my ears and move on. I think my Gretsch sound great and that is fantastic.
 
I agree with Grunter and do much the same thing with my Gretsch. Played a lot of "Shit Kits" over the years before getting this brand & I chose it only because I sat down & heard it first hand live.
No mics, no effect...just me.
From there it was all head selection based on the shell material I got. I'm a fan of mahogany and at the time, Gretsch was the only brand that offered it.
Not all heads worked with that harder, brighter wood, but eventually I found the combo that worked.

I like the research many YouTubers put into the instruments they demo, but I'll never buy one solely based on just that. I have no idea how they've played with the sound to make themselves sound good.
Nick from Sweetwater seems to demo his sets pretty clean, but I could be wrong.

Good post man!
 
I agree, and that's why I'm of the opinion that people are not foolish when they buy with their eyes, or based on a kind of mojo they get from certain brands. I'd argue those intangibles, in some ways, are the biggest differentiators between brands.
 
With a few exceptions I agree with you. There are however two things that make certain drum sets stand out from the rest. One is hardware. When your playing your drums and they start moving around on you or start falling apart or going out of tune it really sucks. The other issue is the size of the drums. When I need that tight little pop, my 20 inch Slingerland bass drum works perfect. But when I need the big loud boom, I bring out my 22 inch Tama Starclassic BB. With the same heads and tuning these two bass drums sound quite a bit different.



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Good thread Jason.

I've been through the GAS stage and came out the other side. Gear is a big time sink. Hey I still waste too much time looking to see whats around on my local CL but I'm over buying gear. What I have works. I've put too much emphasis on gear minutia but I'm finally at a point where I can say I've been there done that, and it's not all that terribly important in the big picture.

The difference in my playing on my former PDP or Pearl set is no different than my playing on arguably some of the worlds finest drums. My level of pride of ownership may be higher than some but really, that means not a whole lot, except to a certain facet of me that feels I somehow deserve this.

Steve Gadd swinging with brushes (and killing it) on an Ampex tape box is all the proof I need that the quest for the very best gear is akin to coveting a solid gold Phillips screwdriver.

Of course this is extremely easy for me to say since I reached my goal of owning a drumset that I absolutely coveted over any other.
 
I have two sets, a Sonorlite and a Reference Pure.
They sound drastically different and I do play them very differently Maybe it’s because they’re different depths and the deeper drums have no iso mounts.

I do think the subtleties in different sets are there even if it’s not very evident in honest capture videos.
There’s also an issue of sound quality coming from my computer compared to what I hear through a headphone amp coming out of my interface. The interface sound has much more depth of clarity and there are resonances that can’t be heard on my computer that are very evident from the interface.

I’m similarly impressed when I hear a recording through high end studio maims compared to what you hear from Yamaha monitors. You don’t know what you’re getting without hearing it in full fidelity.

It’s like when chefs repeatedly say that it’s the ingredients, the freshest ingredients will always make a more impresssive dish. Even though most people aren’t super tasters, the difference is there, but it’s still the prep of the chef that makes it taste unique.
 
It does seem we all have a "trademark" playing-people would tell me before entering the sanctuary they could hear and tell which drummer was up that week to play. We all played the same kit so we all obviously have our ways. But I have a friend who sold a business and decided to take up drums-so he built a giant drum room and bought numerous high end kits-Brady, Sonor, Gretch, etc and snares. They were all impressive-but the Brady really did sound different than all the others. But I think we naturally want to find and create our own distinctive sound-just as we are each unique.
 
I know I play my drums differently to get my character across.
On one set I play with heavier sticks and with more effort to articulate, while on the other, I’m using smaller sticks and saying it with less effort.
But then, the set that needs more effort also gives out more power.
 
Oh, yeah. It's close.

It's so much about feel and how thy cut in the mix naturally, though.

It's also in the hands of the drummer, who if he/she is good enough will technically compensate to make the kit sound like them.
 
Great post, and also a great response from Larry regarding buying with your eyes or for the Mojo. I think how you feel about your instrument makes more difference than the instrument itself.

I kind of came to the same conclusion, from a different direction. I have simply purchased a fair amount of gear over the years, and found myself continually disappointed. I wasn't disappointed because the gear was BAD, I was disappointed because none of it was what I really expected, nor was it anything really special. The gear doesn't do anything. *I* do.
 
I thought I'd jump in to relate an experience I had at a drum event/clinic.

I'd gone up to Manchester, NH to the 1st (and only) Annual New England International Drum Expo back around 2007, and I attended a clinic hosted by a Boston area drummer named Jerome Deupree.

He asked for 5 volunteers from the crowd, and when they came up to the stage, he handed them his sticks, sat each of them down behind the same set of drums, and had them all play the "Back in Black" drum groove - just a straight basic groove.

All 5 of them sounded very different, because all of them had different approaches to their playing.

To further illustrate the difference, he sent three of the five back to the audience, and had the two who were the most different play again.

His point to that clinic was to basically say, don't get too caught up in gear, or trying to sound just like your favorite drum hero, because ultimately you are going to sound like you no matter what gear you are playing. He further went on to say that while it was beneficial to have takeaways from your favorite drummer, your best bet was to get comfortable coming up with your own sound, and work on developing that.

I've always gotten compliments on the sound of my snares, and although I do work at keeping my snares dialed in well, I think it really comes down to how I hit the drum.
 
IDDrummer said:
I wasn't disappointed because the gear was BAD, I was disappointed because none of it was what I really expected, nor was it anything really special. The gear doesn't do anything. *I* do.
Click to expand...

Very true here indeed. Going to NAMM will wow a musician on the many little bits and tricks they can use to make what they already do that much better. However, through trial and error, you learn a different lesson.

For example: I loved the tilt stands Tama had for a while. It allowed me to fill in the spaces the tilt head or arms on standard stands wouldn't get quite right.
But then one day & pulled the whole kit apart to clean & when I put it all back together, I found that I didn't really need those stands to tilt as it was simply a matter of arrangement.

So in the end, what you have is just fine once you learn to use it the way you like.
 
spleeeeen said:
Relearning #1: Without significant signal processing, the differences in sound between drums made by various manufacturers, various materials, various shell structures, etc., is much less than I previously thought. Of course, there are difference that can be important to consider, but over all, they seem to be of a lesser percentage than I’d previously noticed. I thought I knew this, but this has really clarified it for me in a much more “embodied” way.

Jason
Click to expand...
Great thread Jason, & there's much grounded truth in your observations. http://drummersreview.com (name changed early on) is fairly unique in it's approach. The honesty & consistency of the recording approach, as well as the preparation of the instruments, sets them apart, as does the quality of capture. Whilst the environment is examining, it's also a leveller in terms of providing a much better platform for all drums to sound good.

Whilst the differences in that environment are often nuanced, when you take the same selection of instruments into a less ideal environment, it's then that those differences often become much more apparent. In other words, the more capable instruments deliver tonally in a much wider spectrum of playing environments, whereas the less capable instruments can struggle to satisfy. To that end, the very environment designed to allow accurate comparison, becomes a constraint on evaluation.

As for placing the importance of a fine instrument way down the list in terms of personal priority, I couldn't agree more. Concentration on personal playing development yields benefits 100 fold by comparison. It's contextual too. A fairly low percentage of players will gain the full tangible benefits of a fine instrument, whereas every player will gain fully from personal playing development.
 
Andy said:
Great thread Jason, & there's much grounded truth in your observations. http://drummersreview.com (name changed early on) is fairly unique in it's approach. The honesty & consistency of the recording approach, as well as the preparation of the instruments, sets them apart, as does the quality of capture. Whilst the environment is examining, it's also a leveller in terms of providing a much better platform for all drums to sound good.

Whilst the differences in that environment are often nuanced, when you take the same selection of instruments into a less ideal environment, it's then that those differences often become much more apparent. In other words, the more capable instruments deliver tonally in a much wider spectrum of playing environments, whereas the less capable instruments can struggle to satisfy. To that end, the very environment designed to allow accurate comparison, becomes a constraint on evaluation.

As for placing the importance of a fine instrument way down the list in terms of personal priority, I couldn't agree more. Concentration on personal playing development yields benefits 100 fold by comparison. It's contextual too. A fairly low percentage of players will gain the full tangible benefits of a fine instrument, whereas every player will gain fully from personal playing development.
Click to expand...

Now you have me courious. How does a custom drum manufacturer deal with customer satisfaction when the buyers playing ability plays such a big role in the sound of the instrument? It must be a real mine field.


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On the flip side....


I own a Geo Way not because I'm a great drummer.... Rather, it's so that I am fully aware that any deficiency in the sound it produces is my fault and mine alone. It basically removes one of the top excuses that people have for their poor performance.
 
Hollywood Jim said:
Now you have me courious. How does a custom drum manufacturer deal with customer satisfaction when the buyers playing ability plays such a big role in the sound of the instrument? It must be a real mine field.
Click to expand...


A businees is a business. The point is to make money and have people keep their jobs based on providing what the market wants.

If there's a legacy, some classic products, they will try to keep them in the line even if they don't sell that well. They mostly will, though. Even if there are low dips sometimes. Never been easier to sell something based on history than it is today, me thinks.

Yamaha dropping their signature snares was a weird one, but it seems they just wanted to make a few lines with a specific purpose and market after moving production. Who really knows but them if those made any economic sense globally.
 
Thanks everyone for your contributions to the thread. I've enjoyed reading the responses and feel all the more inspired to continue a journey of discovering all that is possible with the instruments I already own.

The culture of consumerism is an insidious thing and, while this may not be their intention, the videos by Drummers Review, Sounds Like A Drum, and the like, have done a lot to help me step out from under its influence. And that's a good thing!
 
I was hoping to add a twist to this thread, but Andy already covered it. I 100% agree that focusing on skills pays back a 100 fold, and there’s just a point when some instruments won’t deliver.

I spent hours on this forum reading about how heads and tuning would make crap drums sound like a pot of gold. I spent 10x the number of hours tuning my old PDPs to try and get the sound I wanted. Worse part, after all that effort and expense, I could get zero articulation from the heads and if I did the drums would choke. I had all bearing edges recut, which improved things tremendously, but still couldn’t do a double stroke roll on the 14 or 16 inch floor toms and actually hear two hits. From the driver’s seat, those drums sounded either like mud, or a tightly wound rubber band. Picked up a tune bot and followed others recommendations and just couldn’t find the happy spot.

I almost didn’t buy a new set, because I thought my playing was just so terrible that nothing was going to improve it. After all, I had done all the right things.

After buying my Gretsch Brooklyn, I didn’t even put a stick to the stock heads, but swapped all heads from my PDP kit over (UV1 over G1), used the tune bot to get them to the exact same note. and the difference was night and day. I wasn’t hearing with my eyes, but my wife who usually would only comment on how loud and obnoxious drums are said “your new drums sound really nice...and full...and soft somehow” and she wasn’t talking about volume.

My playing instantly improved. I could actually hear articulation, where I was hearing mud before. The 12” tom was singing where I got a thud before. I wasn’t instantly a better drummer, I was just not struggling as much as I thought. In other words, it wasn’t all technique. I’m still nowhere near where I want to be but know with certainty, if I can pull it off, the drums will give back.

I was debating going with the USA Customs, because the Brooklyn is supposed to give up articulation for a rounder tone, but they sit right where I want them, so it was a great move for me.

Another benefit has been that they stay in tune with themselves, so even though the heads are softening up with time as heads do, I don’t hate their sound. I just let them go till I feel they are too soft, since it’s just me playing for me. I’d get a week max out of my PDPs, before I couldn’t stand the modulation and unmatched tone I’d get from them.

Hardware wise I never had an issue with the PDP stuff. They never collapsed on me or stripped out. The Gretsch stuff is like silk by comparison though...

It’s not always heads and tuning and the drummer. Sometimes, equipment does help you play better.
 
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