Making your kit sound good

M

Mystic

Guest
I would like to make this thread as a universal thread for everyone to share what they do to get the sound that they like out of their kit. I want everyone to go ahead and throw down whatever they want to tell everyone how do you get your kit to sound unique to how you want it to sound and what gear you use to obtain these sounds easily. I will start off, by saying I use heavy sticks and double ply heads to get a high volume low and powerful sound out of my toms. Now I know a lot of you will probably say just use the search tool, but this is more of a universal thread so people can figure out right away cool tips to get good sounds :)
 
I would like to make this thread as a universal thread for everyone to share what they do to get the sound that they like out of their kit. I want everyone to go ahead and throw down whatever they want to tell everyone how do you get your kit to sound unique to how you want it to sound and what gear you use to obtain these sounds easily. I will start off, by saying I use heavy sticks and double ply heads to get a high volume low and powerful sound out of my toms. Now I know a lot of you will probably say just use the search tool, but this is more of a universal thread so people can figure out right away cool tips to get good sounds :)

to stop snare buzzing i put a bit of tape on the snare wire(at the end)
 
My tips for a killer bass.

1. Learn how to tune it, lol.
2. Run it wiiiide open baby. Pillows belong on your bed.
3. Unbury the beater; burying it practically negates the previous tip.
4. I find the "sweet spot" of the BD head is usually around 2 inches off centre; If I hit it dead centre it just sounds dead to me.
5. Try and get it parallel to the floor; you'd be surprised how much difference the angle makes
 
My tips for a killer bass.

1. Learn how to tune it, lol.
2. Run it wiiiide open baby. Pillows belong on your bed.
3. Unbury the beater; burying it practically negates the previous tip.
4. I find the "sweet spot" of the BD head is usually around 2 inches off centre; If I hit it dead centre it just sounds dead to me.
5. Try and get it parallel to the floor; you'd be surprised how much difference the angle makes

I already learned new things from this thread lol, question about this, how do you hit the head off center? and what has to be parallel to the floor?
 
I already learned new things from this thread lol, question about this, how do you hit the head off center? and what has to be parallel to the floor?

To hit of center, adjust the beater...
The bass drum (I believe) should be parallel.... prevents warping of the hoops and makes a big difference in sound.

Don't take my word for it though, check the end of this video out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCCqSgrw_2M&feature=channel_page
 
To hit of center, adjust the beater...
The bass drum (I believe) should be parallel.... prevents warping of the hoops.

How could it not come out parallel? Sorry I'm probably making this to be harder than it is, but Wouldn't it be parallel no matter what? And about adjusting the beater are you able to slide the beater mount across the bar that it is mounted on? Just tell me if you don't want to try and explain it anymore I am just really confused by this, I will definitely try adjusting it next time I am on my kit though, thanks for the tip.
 
Wait do you mean parallel as in the tom mounts at the top are parallel to the floor? I'm just trying to figure out what you are comparing the floor to, to make it parallel.
 
i think it means....

so that the front of the bass drum is the same height as the back of it. if the spurs are too long/high, this wont be the case.

and yer im interested in this anti snare buzz thing.

as for my sound? im still experimenting.
 
i think it means....

so that the front of the bass drum is the same height as the back of it. if the spurs are too long/high, this wont be the case.

and yer im interested in this anti snare buzz thing.

as for my sound? im still experimenting.

Oh I see, I have the legs in the front set to the top so they are as far from the ground as I can get. So is he saying I should try and get them to be level with the batter side? Tell me about your experiments you do with trying to get different sounds, they may benefit someone here.
 
Learning pitches and notes will get your drum kit sounding great. No matter if you tune to specific notes or not, at some point after you crank each lug 2 times etc. etc. You will have to pick a pitch/note to tune your drum to, so in my opinion this would be the most important thing to have in order to achieve a great sound.
Drum head selection and quality of the kit are also important. They are a close second and third.
The great thing about tuning to specific notes is after you have worked at finding each drums' sweet spot/ideal note, when you go for a head change or your drums need to be retuned after a day or week or so, its a no brainer, you pull out your pitch pipe/tuner or whatever and you bring the drum back up to the desired note. There is no wasting time or experimenting (unless you want there to be), you spend less time tuning and more time playing, that is the goal.
Hope this helped.
 
to stop snare buzzing i put a bit of tape on the snare wire(at the end)

Not real handy if you want to use the snare with the snares off, or if you'd like to adjust their tension.

Have a look at this and this.

You want less snare buzzing, use snares with fewer wires. It works.
 
if you cant seem to get your toms to sound right. stop changing your batter head but instead change the resonant head. my toms refused to sound how i wanted until i finally bought some coated g1's and threw em on there. sound like a dream now
 
Check out Bob Gatzen's videos on youtube, he gives a good explanation about how to tune everything and get it to be at a perfect pitch, and he has a good video about snare wires and another one about getting your drums to resonate fully. All very good videos I enjoyed them.
 
I like Bob's tips. He has been more helpful than "professor sound." Visually, and audibly demonstrating setup is the best way to do it.

I have decided to give G plus coated a try on my kit.
 
I would try Evans, but the thing is, I'm biased so I won't try them, however I will try Aquarian some time. Not that Evans are bad, I think they have nice heads I just don't like the name. What i found made my toms sound best is matching the tone on my batter heads with the tone on my reso heads. My reasoning behind this is because I like the toms to sound powerful and have a really loud full sound and I think when you match the tones it amplifies the sound of that one tone cause you don't have 2 different weaker tones, but 1 tone with double the force. Now bass drum and snare I am trying to figure out still, I also found that 2 ply muffled heads on toms are specifically for low tones, they tend to choke a lot easier within higher tunings. I tuned my 18" floor tom down a lot and it resonates much better with a much more low end sound. Another thing I seemed to notice is projection in wood. My friend's m birch mapex bass drum projects a whole lot better than my poplar export, but I experienced other bass drums having better projection than mine in many other circumstances. Maybe it is just poplar that doesn't project well or maybe I am tuning my heads the wrong way, or maybe it is even the acoustics in the rooms I am playing my set in. I am on the quest to figuring out how to get my poplar bass drums to project and another comment to make is my friend has a body pillow in his m birch as well and I threw one in mine, but in mine it only seemed to lower the volume yet increase the attack, but his seemed to get great attack and punch while maintaining a pretty good volume. If anyone can comment on how to get poplar pearl export bass drums to project in sound it would be great.
 
I would try Evans, but the thing is, I'm biased so I won't try them, however I will try Aquarian some time. Not that Evans are bad, I think they have nice heads I just don't like the name. .

I prefer evans to aquarian, because they are punchier and less diffuse. My kit is aluminum, so any drumhead sounds good and is always easy to perfectly tune. Definitely zero issues with projection. It has projection that resonates through walls.

"Don't like the name"? Did someone named Evans beat you up? Not sure what is wrong with the name since they are very consistent with quality.
 
I prefer evans to aquarian, because they are punchier and less diffuse. My kit is aluminum, so any drumhead sounds good and is always easy to perfectly tune. Definitely zero issues with projection. It has projection that resonates through walls.

"Don't like the name"? Did someone named Evans beat you up? Not sure what is wrong with the name since they are very consistent with quality.

See you just have to understand that I don't like that name. I don't know why and i don't know what it has to do with me using them. I already said I think their heads are fine, but the name just doesn't fancy my personality. I think thats what it is, a personality thing. I happen to like some of their heads I have tried, but I just won't go as far as to buy them. It's just me so you just gotta accept it lol.
 
See you just have to understand that I don't like that name. I don't know why and i don't know what it has to do with me using them. I already said I think their heads are fine, but the name just doesn't fancy my personality. I think thats what it is, a personality thing. I happen to like some of their heads I have tried, but I just won't go as far as to buy them. It's just me so you just gotta accept it lol.

You'll get over that one day. You are simply locking yourself out of options.

I wouldn't care if they were called frog puke drum head company as long as they worked well.

Personally, I think the name "Remo" is Italian for "inconsistent" or "coating flakes off." But that's more about experience than some nomophobic reason.
 
You'll get over that one day. You are simply locking yourself out of options.

I wouldn't care if they were called frog puke drum head company as long as they worked well.

Personally, I think the name "Remo" is Italian for "inconsistent" or "coating flakes off." But that's more about experience than some nomophobic reason.

Locking my self out or sticking to what I know I like? I don't want to go blowing money on other stuff when I don't know if I like it more when I am using something I have become to really like. See what I mean? It's more than name, it's experience with the company and I happen to like Remo, I have no quarrel with Evans I think every company has great heads they make, they sure get the job done a lot better than I ever could. So why switch when I'm not having any problems? Now let's add the scenario that I am just starting to have major problems with the company and I was getting faulty heads constantly, I would certainly switch, but to my next choice, Aquarian. Same thing with them if they became as you would say "inconsistent" I would then eventually try Evans. Make sense?
 
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