Tom reso head for "dead" sound

Mastiff

Senior Member
I know there are a lot of people on this forum who like the full resonant drum sound, but I'm after more of the classic rock "dead" sound with more attack and fast decay. I bought some Evans hydraulic batter heads and I like them, but so far have just kept the original resonant heads. I believe the old school way was to have no resonant head at all, but short of that, I'm looking for suggestions on how to tune the resonant head relative to the batter, or possibly what kind of resonant heads to get. My floor tom in particular still has too much resonance and long decay for what I'm after. I've tried loosening up the reso, but it actually makes it much worse and gives it a really deep boom that is all wrong with the rack toms.
 
If you're looking to deaden the resos, try dropping a muffling ring into the drum on top of the resos. That should get you a nice dry thump.
 
I'd try removing the reso heads as others have suggested.

If that gives you the sound you are looking for I'd cut holes in the reso heads, leaving an inch or so around the head and refit them so you don't risk damaging the bearing edges. Also concert toms with extra holes or an extra set of redundant lugs look odd to me.
 
Besides muffling and removing, try tightening the reso head, a LOT. I worked as a tech for a drummer in the 80's who showed me this trick. He used Pinstripes on the batter side, tuned quite low, and simple Ambassadors on the reso side, but they were tuned very very high, as in snare-drum high. Mic'd up it gave a very short, deep note with lots of attack. He used no muffling whatsoever.
 
I play with the my toms open.

- No resos help

- Try Aquarian Studio-X's - they have muffle rings built in

Before you go further than that, tune your kit, then let someone play it while you are 30+ feet away. You'll be surprised at how the resonance you hear behind the kit dies out just a little away. Don't go overboard. Between the distance to the audience and the mix when the rest of the band is playing, you don't need to kill the toms to get a short/fast decay sound.
 
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You could also put styrofoam popcorn in your drums, or even shredded newspaper. It sits on the reso and muffles the drum. Lots of trial and error required though.
 
Thanks for the help. I experimented this morning just taking the reso head fully off on the floor tom. I discovered that that is more dead (or non musical, if that makes sense) than I'm really going for. I kind of like the sound I got tuning the reso very low, like half a turn past finger tight. The batter is much tighter. I have a lot more experimenting to do though.
 
I think I remember reading Bonham also used to put shredded newspaper in his bass drum, perhaps in his pre-endorsement pre-26" bass drum days. Either way if you want dead drums, obviously Opentune is the guy to listen to ;). Sorry couldnt resist..
 
Evans Reso7. I had them on a gretsch catalina club 12/14" toms with G2s on top. Definitely reduced the sustain. So much so that I took em of pretty quick and put the clear G1s back on.
 
I know there are a lot of people on this forum who like the full resonant drum sound, but I'm after more of the classic rock "dead" sound with more attack and fast decay.

I've been working on this kind of sound as of late...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amOcqHlztVM


Notes so far.... Towels on the tom heads will lose the sticking sound. Kind of a zero attack Ringo sound. I've had success with stock Ambassadors with excessive amounts of taped-on auxiliary dampening and no towels.

Snare ... Homemade Bigfatsnare with a terrycloth. BFSD lowers the pitch and towel kills the sticking.
 
I think I remember reading Bonham also used to put shredded newspaper in his bass drum....

Actually I read that was the Motown guys, Pistol Allen for one. Apparently his Gretsch kit was unearthed years later, with filthy heads and a bass drum partially filled with 1960's newspaper clips. Don't care for the dead sound personally. Somebody else on here (Tony?) suggested bubble wrap (it's light!).
 
Thanks for the help. I experimented this morning just taking the reso head fully off on the floor tom. I discovered that that is more dead (or non musical, if that makes sense) than I'm really going for. I kind of like the sound I got tuning the reso very low, like half a turn past finger tight. The batter is much tighter. I have a lot more experimenting to do though.

Try the same heads top and bottom, and when you're talking EVANS HYDRAULICs the note will be more pure, even, and less sustain.
 
I've been working on this kind of sound as of late...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amOcqHlztVM


Notes so far.... Towels on the tom heads will lose the sticking sound. Kind of a zero attack Ringo sound. I've had success with stock Ambassadors with excessive amounts of taped-on auxiliary dampening and no towels.

Snare ... Homemade Bigfatsnare with a terrycloth. BFSD lowers the pitch and towel kills the sticking.

That tune could easily easily explain every day in the studio. As far as the sound on that; that's a low velocity/ high gain sound. Like our Ringo. Muffle the hell out of it, hit it softly, and let the engineer take care of the rest. Brian Reitzell, iirc, did this with Air on 10,000htz.
 
Keep the Evans Hydraulic heads, and tighten the resonant heads until the sound starts to choke. I found out this trick by accident when I was playing around with the tuning configuration of my Slingerland 15 x 12 Sound King marching snare. The batter head controls the pitch, whereas the bottom head controls the resonance, so cranking it up will help shorten the sustain.
 
There was a thread on here where someone mentioned putting cotton balls inside the drum resting on the resonant head. I haven't tried it yet but there were a lot of people on here who used it. Just a thought.
 
There's a Sweetwater video with that drummer fellow (Nick?) doing a demo and presentation. He yanked the batter head of his FT and dropped 3 or 4 cotton balls that were evenly pulled apart and laid flat on the RH.

He didn't just drop the balls in: he spread their mass apart to make its effect even across the head.

Cool.
 
Have you thought about adding a felt strip to the reso? It works great for a little muffling on a bass drum.
 
I tried cranking the resos. It does eventually start killing the sustain/ring, but it also had the effect of really raising the pitch on the rack toms. I may try some sort of muffling next.
 
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