Help With Floor Tom Overtones

gospelchops

Junior Member
Hello everyone. So I have a Coated Ambassador on the top, and a Clear Ambassador on the bottom. I've tried tuning it over, and over. I have had success with getting rid of some of the overtones, but when it is all said and done the tune of the the drum is a little lower than I like. I COULD put tape, and dampening rings, and moon gels, or a blanket underneath the floor tom. I've tried all that, but I don't want to kill all of the beautiful tone, and I still want my drums to look pretty. So here's the question: If i were to put an Ambassador on top, and an Emperor on the bottom would that reduce the overtones, seeing how the Ambassador is a single 10 mil ply, and the Emperor is a two ply? Thicker head on bottom?
 
I have recently been unhappy with the tone from my floor tom, I had an Evans coated G2 on the drum, and I could not get it to sound how i wanted. I ended up with an Aquarian Force Ten head, clear, not coated and am very happy with the results so far. It went on very easily, and tuned up quickly. At present it gives a nice low thump (it's tuned low at present) and has a nice ring, without going on too long. You can hear the heads on the website. Hope this helps, or at least gives a little more food for thought.
 
Hello everyone. So I have a Coated Ambassador on the top, and a Clear Ambassador on the bottom. I've tried tuning it over, and over. I have had success with getting rid of some of the overtones, but when it is all said and done the tune of the the drum is a little lower than I like. I COULD put tape, and dampening rings, and moon gels, or a blanket underneath the floor tom. I've tried all that, but I don't want to kill all of the beautiful tone, and I still want my drums to look pretty. So here's the question: If i were to put an Ambassador on top, and an Emperor on the bottom would that reduce the overtones, seeing how the Ambassador is a single 10 mil ply, and the Emperor is a two ply? Thicker head on bottom?

If you don't want to dampen any more, try taking one leg and re-inserting it upside down, see if that eliminates any overtones. If there are still unwanted overtones, try two and then all three legs.
 
A lot of people like the coted heads on top and bottom I have never tryed it.
I use fiber skin emporers on the top and single ply clear on the bottom I tune my drums a little on the higher end and I find tuneing the bottom head a little tighter then the top helps a lot with the over tones. I also found in different rooms I have to tune a little different to get the same effect. Keep changeing the difference between the top and bottom till it works
 
Try tuning the reso a bit tighter this should reduce some overtones as well as bring up the pitch a bit. If your gonna put an emperor on I would suggest putting it on the batter side as a 2 ply reso will really choke the drum IMO. If the heads are fairly new then some of the overtones may disappear as the head gets played in and starts to deaden up a bit and in my experience with remo shouldnt take very long and you can use a 0ring to control the overtones until this starts to happen. Personally I use aquarian studio x heads just for this type of problem as they are a single ply clear with a small strip of power dot material on the underside of the outside edge to help control the high frequency overtones. Plus they are cheaper and last a lot longer.
 
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to bring pitch up, tighten reso, also gets the overtones down, unless its far out of sync with batter pitch.
don't forget every drum has a sweet spot in 'pitch' and maybe yours is lower than you prefer. you may never completely rid yourself of overtones *unless* you start putting stuff on (tape, moongel etc.). also overtones are less audible to the ears that are 'out there' a meter or two away from your kit (you can record your kit and listen for that)
I prefer a coated reso, but single ply, makes it a little warmer (but i mostly do it for looks).
 
Ambassador batter and reso., makes for a fairly open drum. A Controlled Sound (black dot), batter, might due the trick. Or, keep the Coated Ambassador batter, and put the C.S. head reso.​
Personally, I'm a big fan of the Powerstroke 3, as a batter head. Gives you a nice "fat" tone, with little overtone.​
 
I've always found floor toms hard to tune, but lately I'm starting to get the sound I like. I tune the reso head to the desired overall pitch, and I'm using a 0.5" O-ring resting on the reso head inside the drum to get rid of some overtones, and it also drastically kills the growl and makes the attack more present. The batter head is tuned a few steps lower than the reso, I just go up until there's a good balance between tone and attack. Finally, I put a small piece of moongel on the batter head. Single ply 10mil head on the bottom (G1 or ambassadors) and currently clear emperors as batters which I absolutely love.
 
I have my two floors tuned low and just let them sing. Resonance is a good thing
 
By the OP's explanation, it just seems as if his heads are not in tune with themselves. There are no rules, but the two ply head, or thicker head, usually is used as the batter head. I keep the heads on all my toms approximately the same tension to get the same pitch from them and as GRUNTERSDAD said, let them sing, if that's your type of sound.

Dennis
 
Thanks for all of the replies, and the options. I'll try some of these, and get back with you. Thanks again.
 
A friend suggested throwing a few cotton balls in the drum, the drum resonates when hit, but as soon as the cotton balls hit, it dies out, it works ok, for me i like the resonance, especially when playing with everybody, it cuts through nice.
 
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