Finally!!

I haven't played the snare yet as I need to pick up tension rods. Don't know what I was thinking, I picked up 12 2" tension rods when there are 20 lugs on the drum. I'll get the rest tomorrow.

But, I did get to work on the bass drum. The previous owner ported the stock reso head and it sounded ok, but too dead for me. I switched it out for a PS3 (non coated white) and holy !$#%. The combo of Evans EQ4 batter and PS3 reso is punchy, thunderous meat!! 5 or 6 feet in front of it I can feel it like a subwoofer. It's in our bedroom with hardwood floors and plaster ceiling now, so it's a little thunder overkill, but I expect it to dry out a bit in the concrete basement.

I'm struggling a bit with the 12" though. It has a really good range, but I can't figure out where I want the tone. My previous kits were 6 pieces, so I could get my higher tuning kicks from say a 10" and lower from a 13" or 14". I need to find a sweet spot to make the single tom as versatile as possible. It sounds good with the emperor batter and G1 resonant, but I think I wanna open it up a bit. I might try a slightly thinner 2 ply for a little more response. Any recommendations for a slightly more open sounding head?
 
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Got the snare together with a coated ambassador batter and ambassador reso. Sounds brighter than I expected. I think its gonna need a beefier batter head to fatten things up. I'm gonna let the heads stretch and give another go tomorrow.

More time with the bass drum and I found the EQ4 too plastic sounding. I need to soften it up. Great tone, but I need a softer attack.
 
Now I'm feeling really dumb. I swapped out the white emperor batter for an Aquarian Super II coated. In the process I realized the drums have emperor reso heads on the batter. That explains the range, but also why I couldn't dial it in. The Aquarian tuned up ridiculously easy and sounds great with a lot of tone. It sounds like it would record really well, but it doesn't have the boyant sound I was expecting. I think I'm going to try a batter emperor next time around.

It's challenging for me to tune with the 5 lug Gretsch setup. With so few lugs Im finding that small adjustments changes things a lot which makes it hard for me to balance the tuning around the drum. Overall, I'm still blown away by the range of the 12". From low and fat to tight and jazzy in just a few turns. I'm used to drums that take more turns of the key.

Btw, hope I'm not boring everyone with my constant yammering on.
 
keep it simple said:
Looks excessively wide to me, but if it's the same both sides, it's likely a deliberate decision. There's almost more bed than edge!
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Yeah, it's symetrical and I agree there might be as much if not more bed than not. How critical is even tuning across all lugs on a snare batter? I ask because the two lugs that fall within the highest point of the bed dont want to tune to the same pitch as the others. The tones sound errant. (And I get why with the head having to stretch like a taco.
 
How important is even tuning across the batter? Kinda important. Across the reso, on a snare, not as important. The snare bed should have no impact on the tuning of the batter head. That head and the lugs it is being tuned with are completely independent from the snare resonant side.

If you are talking about the resonant side, then even tuning across the head is pretty difficult. A snare bed is going to reak a bit of havoc trying to get the head evenly in tune, but that's the nature of a snare reso head. It is typically being damped by snares, so its perfection in tuning is a bit less important. Some people even de-tune the lugs around the snare bed to reduce sympathetic snare buzz from the toms.
 
Tommy_D said:
How important is even tuning across the batter? Kinda important. Across the reso, on a snare, not as important. The snare bed should have no impact on the tuning of the batter head. That head and the lugs it is being tuned with are completely independent from the snare resonant side.

If you are talking about the resonant side, then even tuning across the head is pretty difficult. A snare bed is going to reak a bit of havoc trying to get the head evenly in tune, but that's the nature of a snare reso head. It is typically being damped by snares, so its perfection in tuning is a bit less important. Some people even de-tune the lugs around the snare bed to reduce sympathetic snare buzz from the toms.
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Sorry, I meant snare reso side head. I know it makes all the difference on other drums, but the snare isn't meant to resonate in the same way a tom is, right? I can't figure out why a drum would intentionally be cut to where 50% of the edge is recessed for a snare bed.
 
I should add the snare doesn't sound wonky or errant overall. It's fairly crisp for such a thick, heavy drum. I'm going to work on fattening it up still.
 
Well, I stumbled across a make shift drum floor that's actually working well. A neighbor was about to through away a pile of 18"x18" rubber patio pavers. My kids were playing with his kids and together they were building a walkway with the pavers. Occurred to me they might work to get the drums up off the floor, so I took 'em off the neighbor's hands.

I lined up 16 of them in a four deep by four wide square and set the drums up on them. They're not interlocking, so they'll shift slightly if you shuffle across them or try to move a stand without picking it completely. But, for a quick and free drum floor it's a lot better than the concrete. There is a difference in both the floor tom and bass drum from when they're on the concrete vs the pavers. Both resonate better on the pavers.
 
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