rods for lower volume?

braincramp

Gold Member
I bought a set of rods (I think thats the correct term) amd was pretty suprized how much I liked them..be it I lose some bounce..but my problem is volume..I played hard rock and metal up until this band that is more blues then I have ever played before..lots of Clapton ect.. I guess I'm a heavy hitter and even with the plexiglass in front of me everyone in the band complained about my volume..I dont like the idea of playing almost every song with rods at practice...any ideas??? would appreciate any help..I dont like to use anything smaller then 5B sticks..but may have to try..??
 
Maybe you could tune your drums down and lose some of that crack. You can even try 'softer' heads - like pinstripes or Evans Hydraulics, tuned down so when you play at close to your normal volume, you're not shaking everybody up around you.

Or, you could just adjust your technique to be able to play softer. It's been done. But tuning down is still necessary because you need the drum to speak well when you play soft, and a cranked up set of drums that respond well to hard-hitting do not sound good soft.
 
Thanks for the suggestions..I will try tuning them down just above mudding and see if it helps..those sticks look like something worth trying also
 
My first modification would be to lose the whiners...nothing worse than band members that complain about sound levels. Why drive yourself nuts and be unhappy not being able to enjoy yourself and/or be true to your style.

If you are set on working with the band, you can notch down to a jazz 18x14 kick/14" floor and 12" rack...put a down blanket in the kick, put a t-shirt or small pillow inside the toms and then trigger; deaden to taste/whiner requirement. Tune the kick batter up some for better feel; only let the internal tom deadening touch the reso head inside

You will be able to hit the shit out of your drums, the acoustics and feel will be good for you and the overall band sound can be controlled through use of the triggers and a decent brain unit.

Those sticks look very cool too....I need to try those at home.

Don't ask me why I know all this


Thanks for the suggestions..I will try tuning them down just above mudding and see if it helps..those sticks look like something worth trying also
 
I'm with Bo on this. If you really want to , sure - go buy another drum kit and maybe experiment with electronics.
But nothing will be better for your long term career as a drummer than learning how to play quieter...and still 'burn' if you have to. And yeah, tune the drums down a bit, maybe some controlled heads and different cymbals.
Of course, it depends on what kind of music you are playing. Certain styles demand hard hitting...but not what you describe. Playing lots of Clapton? Check out Steve Gadd playing that gig on youtube - it sure ain't about hitting hard...it's all about Gadd's groove and his impeccable touch. It will make you a better metal drummer too....just better all around.

Neal
 
My first modification would be to lose the whiners...nothing worse than band members that complain about sound levels.

I hear ya and it can be a warning sign that your band are up for a piss and a moan......or it can be a heads up that you need to work on your musicality.

There's two sides to every coin and on the flip side there's nothin' worse than a drummer who can't control his dynamics or be adaptable enough to change an approach that's clearly not cutting it either. If he's hitting too hard for the different musical style that this new band offers, then he needs to work on some control. Not throw the baby out with the bathwater and bin the band altogether.......provided he wants to stick around, of course.

Ultimately, knowing what fits tastefully with each musical application is what being a versatile musician is all about.
 
Maybe you could tune your drums down and lose some of that crack. You can even try 'softer' heads - like pinstripes or Evans Hydraulics, tuned down so when you play at close to your normal volume, you're not shaking everybody up around you.
Or, you could just adjust your technique to be able to play softer. It's been done. But tuning down is still necessary because you need the drum to speak well when you play soft, and a cranked up set of drums that respond well to hard-hitting do not sound good soft.

I don't disagree with this, but an alternative approach is to tune drums up and take out all the muffling so that the drums will be more responsive and have a full range of harmonics and overtones even if you are just tapping them lightly. Then you can learn/adjust your technique to play softer without sacrificing the timbre of the drums. I did this in Church once. The kids set up the house kit with lower tensions, a pillow in the kick, and pinstripe heads. My kit was tuned high with coated ambassadors, a felt strip in the kick, and 7a sticks. As expected, the house kit sounded like dry thuds, while my kit sang.
 
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I use Rods for some tunes and I like them al lot. I also use different sized sticks such as 7a for softer playing. Technique is the most effective way to play quieter. I suggest that you work on using smaller sticks along with a softer touch to control volume. You can also change your grip to the French grip to help lover volume.
 
I like the idea of changing sticks, like Bob suggested. A stick I like a lot for lower dynamic levels is the Vater Fusion. I'm a big guy with big hands. Small sticks make my hands cramp up, but this stick fills my hand up nicely yet I find it easy to play quietly with it. It has a long taper with a small round tip. I like thin cymbals, and I find the round tip gets a bit more stick definition at low dynamic levels. So maybe check out sticks with a long taper, like the Fusion or Vic Firth's American Jazz series to help you keep it down.
 
I, like gish, am also a big fan of the Vic Firth AJ2 sticks.
I find Vater sticks heavier than Vic Firth. I like Vater when I want a lot of bounce.
 
Before rods were invented, how did people play play softly? they just used technigue to play softly, as well as lighter sticks.
 
Another stick suggestion is Vic Firth 8D. They're the length of 5A and width of 7A. They were a revelation for me when I used to play in smaller, quieter venues. I like Hot Rods for their own applications, but not as a substitute for sticks.
 
FWIW, I also use rods occasionally when I want a softer sound. For example, there's a little snare intro to Melissa Etheridge's Angels Would Fall which I attempt to play AND sing on so there's definitely no time for a stick change after the intro. On the track it sounds as if they use brushes but that was too soft so I tried the rods and found that I could use them both for the intro and during the song. Kind of the three bears approach...you know, sticks too loud, brushes too soft but the rods were JUST RIGHT. :)
 
Musicians have to adapt to the style of music. A "one approach fits all" is bound to bite back sometime. Most drummers have to walk through that door at some point on the journey.

For me it was a security issue. I thought if I was not giving all I had, like all the time, I wasn't doing my best. Lol. That is just wrong on so many levels. It's not about me, it's about the song. I just wasn't comfortable with time or space or headroom yet. I would feel ill at ease playing simply. It's boring right? NO, IT'S NOT!

If it's boring, you're doing something wrong. You are not feeling it deeply enough. Not you personally, you know what I mean, speaking to everyone. Playing softer... more accurately blending, and playing straight ahead with no lone drummer detours..., generally speaking, that is what works in blues. 99 percent beats, 1% fills, only when necessary. Support your singers and soloists, they need you to provide a somewhat predictable framework so they can weave in and out of it. You don't want to get "creative" with the pulse lol. You do listen to the soloists and comp by playing to their spaces a little, that's where your creativity comes in, how well you hear what the soloists are doing so you can predict where they are going so you can help them get there. You will be very much in demand if you do that.

You also shine on the transitions, endings, and especially dynamic buildups/dropdowns, and really, just keeping an unwavering pulse. The beats can be rich and chock full of nuance, but don't do a fill unless the song really has to have one there. Harder than you think, straightening out your thinking. Not your thinking, you understand lol.

So it's pretty much the polar opposite of what you are accustomed to. In Blues, you never want to be the loudest guy on the stage. People playing blues need to understand that playing less and playing underneath the singer and slightly under the soloist volume-wise....sounds friggin phenomenal. So you get to sound great and physically work less hard. I for one was not comfortable with that when I started playing Blues, as I came more from a rock background. But once you understand what the music requires, then you really start to understand the beauty of simplicity.

If you haven't recorded yourself you should. In Blues, if you start out like me being a really hard hitter and trying to impress, you get better by subtraction not addition. It's backwards. But it's the truth.

This is one subject that's close to my heart, I'm just sharing how I had to do a similar thing that you are going through now, I'm trying not to be preachy about it. Probably not doing so well lol.
 
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I don't disagree with this, but an alternative approach is to tune drums up and take out all the muffling so that the drums will be more responsive and have a full range of harmonics and overtones even if you are just tapping them lightly

Yeah, my advice when playing with rods is to tune everything up. Generally, low-tuned drums are the "slamming" ones IMO.

I like the idea of changing sticks, like Bob suggested. A stick I like a lot for lower dynamic levels is the Vater Fusion. I'm a big guy with big hands. Small sticks make my hands cramp up, but this stick fills my hand up nicely yet I find it easy to play quietly with it. It has a long taper with a small round tip. I like thin cymbals, and I find the round tip gets a bit more stick definition at low dynamic levels.

I don't think the taper is especially long on the Fusions but they are a comfortable diameter for me and the ball tip dovetails perfectly with the thin-ish diameter to produce a GREAT stick for lower volume thin cymbals. My HHX Legacy ride sounds fantastic with them.

I find Vater sticks heavier than Vic Firth. I like Vater when I want a lot of bounce.

Vater uses hickory with a 13% moisture content rather than VF and most others' 8% (i think those are the numbers, can't find where I saw the specific data on that), so they are heavier than comparable models. Personally- I like it. It's also why Innovative Percussion's sticks are heavier, Vater is an OEM for IP.
 
The Vic Firth Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson Signature Drum Stick is a very light stick that sometimes can do the job. The black coating however smears hands and drumheads - at least in tropical Malaysia.
 
Musicians have to adapt to the style of music. A "one approach fits all" is bound to bite back sometime. Most drummers have to walk through that door at some point on the journey.

For me it was a security issue. I thought if I was not giving all I had, like all the time, I wasn't doing my best. Lol. That is just wrong on so many levels. It's not about me, it's about the song. I just wasn't comfortable with time or space or headroom yet. I would feel ill at ease playing simply. It's boring right? NO, IT'S NOT!

If it's boring, you're doing something wrong. You are not feeling it deeply enough. Not you personally, you know what I mean, speaking to everyone. Playing softer... more accurately blending, and playing straight ahead with no lone drummer detours..., generally speaking, that is what works in blues. 99 percent beats, 1% fills, only when necessary. Support your singers and soloists, they need you to provide a somewhat predictable framework so they can weave in and out of it. You don't want to get "creative" with the pulse lol. You do listen to the soloists and comp by playing to their spaces a little, that's where your creativity comes in, how well you hear what the soloists are doing so you can predict where they are going so you can help them get there. You will be very much in demand if you do that.

You also shine on the transitions, endings, and especially dynamic buildups/dropdowns, and really, just keeping an unwavering pulse. The beats can be rich and chock full of nuance, but don't do a fill unless the song really has to have one there. Harder than you think, straightening out your thinking. Not your thinking, you understand lol.

So it's pretty much the polar opposite of what you are accustomed to. In Blues, you never want to be the loudest guy on the stage. People playing blues need to understand that playing less and playing underneath the singer and slightly under the soloist volume-wise....sounds friggin phenomenal. So you get to sound great and physically work less hard. I for one was not comfortable with that when I started playing Blues, as I came more from a rock background. But once you understand what the music requires, then you really start to understand the beauty of simplicity.

If you haven't recorded yourself you should. In Blues, if you start out like me being a really hard hitter and trying to impress, you get better by subtraction not addition. It's backwards. But it's the truth.

This is one subject that's close to my heart, I'm just sharing how I had to do a similar thing that you are going through now, I'm trying not to be preachy about it. Probably not doing so well lol.

Larry has nailed it yet again.

This just deserved to be repeated.

I play in a blues band as well and it's just about the complete opposite approach to my jazz band. With jazz, I get to stretch out a little bit and play a little busier. In blues, you are not the focus. Just lay down that groove and listen.
 
Yes,, excellent post Larry.
Every word is so true.
May apply more to Jazz and Blues but the key points are for almost any genre.
Sage advice for anyone with the "Am I hitting too hard" conundrum

Neal
 
I just read some more replies to this thread I posted and thanks for all the great advise..I have switched to 7A's and all is working real well.. I am learning so much about dynamics, playing different levels and its quite an education..I have to admit Larry's point about 99% beat and 1% fill is a very tough pill for me to swallow but it is 100% correct..and I will definately record myself with the band..yes you can teach an old dog new tricks.. at 51 it is real enjoyable playing the music I grew up with and still get to rock out hard with the other band I sub gigs for..kinda getting the best of both worlds now..
 
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