So, one can reduce the sound of a drum by muffling it. It won't sing, but you can tell what it is supposed to be, at least good enough for rehearsal. Eventually, you can choke them until they are pretty quiet, but that's not what I'm interested in, just quiet enough so one could play in a single family home without summoning a mob with pitchforks and torches and the screaming and hurting and glavin.
Cymbals, however, have two settings: ear bleeding, and clunk. I know one could really lay off the brass in a pinch, but I'd like to maintain as much of the physical integrity of the techniques.
My idea is to rest the cymbals on what would amount to a brush, some percentage of the diameter of the instrument in question. Originally, I envisioned something like a spring steel daisy, with some sort of protective sleeves, but it struck me as complicated to build, complex to adjust to different pies of different weights, and you may not get any warning if the sleeve wore until you discovered you'd wrecked your 50s era Zildjians.
My current plan is to rest the bows of the cymbals on something like the bristles of a broom, which may mitigate the above issues. I'm guessing volume would be reduced somewhat compared to non-muting, along with sustain, but the stick feel would be pretty authentic. With the edges unencumbered, they should still ring a little, hopefully leaving enough of the splashy characteristics to serve well enough for banging around informally with friends.
Anybody heard of or tried such a thing? Or should I just get rutes?
Cymbals, however, have two settings: ear bleeding, and clunk. I know one could really lay off the brass in a pinch, but I'd like to maintain as much of the physical integrity of the techniques.
My idea is to rest the cymbals on what would amount to a brush, some percentage of the diameter of the instrument in question. Originally, I envisioned something like a spring steel daisy, with some sort of protective sleeves, but it struck me as complicated to build, complex to adjust to different pies of different weights, and you may not get any warning if the sleeve wore until you discovered you'd wrecked your 50s era Zildjians.
My current plan is to rest the bows of the cymbals on something like the bristles of a broom, which may mitigate the above issues. I'm guessing volume would be reduced somewhat compared to non-muting, along with sustain, but the stick feel would be pretty authentic. With the edges unencumbered, they should still ring a little, hopefully leaving enough of the splashy characteristics to serve well enough for banging around informally with friends.
Anybody heard of or tried such a thing? Or should I just get rutes?