Ludwig Black Beauty questions

Perplexity

Junior Member
Hey all, I recently bought a 6.5x14 black beauty. I brought it into the studio and got to see what it sounded like recorded. There was a bit of ring in the mix from the snare i'm just wondering if I'm doing something wrong with the thing. I have it tuned pretty high and I still have the rubber gaskets on it. If there is anything I could do to possibly enhance the sound somehow, It would be appreciated. If you guys are interested I could post a link to the recording of the drums so you could hear it, maybe it's just me.
 
All drums ring. If you don't like the ring, muffle it out. High end drums are supposed to be loaded with overtones, that's what makes them sound great. If you prefer non ringing drums, any cheapo or high end drum will do, just muffle the life out of it.
 
All drums ring. If you don't like the ring, muffle it out. High end drums are supposed to be loaded with overtones, that's what makes them sound great. If you prefer non ringing drums, any cheapo or high end drum will do, just muffle the life out of it.

Yeah, I normally use some muffling, but in the studio, the engineer doesn't like to use them. I think it's probably just me being new to all the recording things.
 
You could try dryer or thicker 2 ply heads,buy you'll esentially be masking the musicallity and tone,the black beauty is known for.Brass is going to ring,and like Larry said,if you don't want any overtones or ring,just use a 60's MIJ snare,with duct tape on the heads,with lots of EQ and compression .

Steve B
 
Drums are meant to ring. If you don't like the ring, have the engineer put a gate on your snare track to drop it out. If you muffle the drum with a muffle ring, tape, moongel, etc...it will cut down on the tone you get from the drum. You don't want that.

If you want less ring, use a coated two-ply head (Remo Emperor or Evans G2, for example...) I like this sound better on my 14x6.5 Black Beauty than the coated Ambassador that came on it...less ringy for sure, but still full-bodied.

Good luck!
 
If the engineer doesn't like to muffle the snare (I like him already) then you do have the option of hitting the drum in such a way that the overtones are minimized...meaning hitting the drum dead center, no rim.
 
If the engineer doesn't like to muffle the snare (I like him already) then you do have the option of hitting the drum in such a way that the overtones are minimized...meaning hitting the drum dead center, no rim.

What Larry said! You have control of your overtones by where you hit the drum as well. I assumed this was an already explored option...
 
Thanks for all the great replies you guys this is all helpful to me. I guess I was confused if I should keep the gaskets on and the tuning of the snare. Maybe I should try a lower tuning, I have a remo coated cs dot for the batter and a hazy ambassador on the rezo side with puresound custom 20s for snares.
 
Damn, Larry. Bad day? I've never heard you talk about muffling as if it were smothering. Fact is, lots of drummers, including extremely famous ones that we all try to emulate, muffle drums. Watch Steve Jordan's dvd, one of his snares has duct tape on over half the head.. and his mic is pointed straight into the sea of duct tape. Doesn't sound bad at all.

If you don't like the ring in your snare. There are lots of options. Premuffled heads, moongel, o-ring, etc. Questlove even uses a small felt strip on one of his snares. Vulfpeck's drummer puts a t-shirt under the entire batter head of his snare, and its phat as hell micked up. He also has felts strips on all his toms.. concert toms btw.

Don't be ashamed to muffle. Some people like it some people don't. Find your sound.
 
Damn, Larry. Bad day? I've never heard you talk about muffling as if it were smothering. Fact is, lots of drummers, including extremely famous ones that we all try to emulate, muffle drums. Watch Steve Jordan's dvd, one of his snares has duct tape on over half the head.. and his mic is pointed straight into the sea of duct tape. Doesn't sound bad at all.

If you don't like the ring in your snare. There are lots of options. Premuffled heads, moongel, o-ring, etc. Questlove even uses a small felt strip on one of his snares. Vulfpeck's drummer puts a t-shirt under the entire batter head of his snare, and its phat as hell micked up. He also has felts strips on all his toms.. concert toms btw.

Don't be ashamed to muffle. Some people like it some people don't. Find your sound.

Thanks, I never knew so many drummers used muffling. I just figured since a professional studio engineer wanted to go with none it must be the right way.
 
I had a coated PS3 on mine, with dot, and it dried it out alot. May be perfect for you. Worth a try.
 
Also remember that a studio engineer can use EQ, compression, gating, and lots of other techniques to alter the sound of your drum. So he can tame a wild, ringy drum. But it's a lot harder to take a dry, dead drum and make it sound open and full. Recording the drums open gives him more to work with in post-processing.
 
If it were me, I would probably use a specific head to control the BB in the studio. I also use an Aquarian Studio X coated head w/ power dot, but haven't tried it on my BB yet. I highly recommend that head, as, unlike the PS3, the muffler does not extend to the collar of the head. It is an amazing head that I'm surprised doesn't get mentioned more often.
 
Why do we have to control drums, I love the overtones. Dead is dead. It's censorship lol.

Muffling has it's place I guess. When you can't tune good....


*runs for cover*
 
I'm just being snarky. Don't listen to me.
 
.Brass is going to ring,

This. ^^^

As has been stated. Drums tend to ring by nature. Brass is prone to more overtones (ring) than most other shell materials save for steel (and possibly titanium).....that's just the nature of a brass snare......they ring. End of story.

Sure you can muffle to get rid of it. But if you really don't like the overtones, perhaps you're using the wrong tool for the job in the first instance?

I guess I was confused if I should keep the gaskets on.......

The rubber gaskets actually dampen the shell. While many of us advocate removing them, in your case I'd leave them on. If you don't like the ring from the shell as it is......you're really gonna hate what the shell sounds like without them.
 
This. ^^^

As has been stated. Drums tend to ring by nature. Brass is prone to more overtones (ring) than most other shell materials save for steel (and possibly titanium).....that's just the nature of a brass snare......they ring. End of story.

Sure you can muffle to get rid of it. But if you really don't like the overtones, perhaps you're using the wrong tool for the job in the first instance?



The rubber gaskets actually dampen the shell. While many of us advocate removing them, in your case I'd leave them on. If you don't like the ring from the shell as it is......you're really gonna hate what the shell sounds like without them.

I think I might have been misunderstood a bit. It's not that I don't like ring.. I have been told on numerous occasions that there is good and bad ring, I'm just wondering if what I'm hearing in the recording is good or bad ring.
 
I have been told on numerous occasions that there is good and bad ring, I'm just wondering if what I'm hearing in the recording is good or bad ring.
It's possible that the ring that you're hearing isn't to your liking because you don't have the tuning dialed in. I have a BB also and wasn't really getting what I wanted out of it tone-wise (the ring wasn't where I wanted it). When I was cranking the snare side head down, I noticed that metal part of the head (whatever it's called) was mashing up against the butt plate. That was using an Evans Hazy 300 but my Supra was doing the same thing with a Remo Hazy Ambassador. So I bought a couple Remo Ambassadors without the collar (part number SA-0314-TD) and problem solved. Now I can tune my snares to where I like them and they sound great.

(Forever indebted to Karl Crafton for this brilliant suggestion!)
 
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