Questions on tuning, muffling, head combinations, etc...

TheIronCobr4

Senior Member
So I've been playing a couple years now and have finally become comfortable enough in my tuning abilities to experiment a little bit. First off I play in a hard rock/heavy metal band and while I run Pinstripes (with Aquarian Muffling Rings) but I want to mess around with a little bit more ring (not a lot) for projection purposes. The heads right now give me a pretty good thud but I know I can find better ways of getting into the low territory I want to be in. So here is where my first question comes in...
I have Pinstripes on clear single ply resos. What other combinations can I use to get into this thick thumpy territory? Would double ply on double ply be good? Coated on coated? Pinstripe on coated? Coated on single? Any and all suggestions are welcome but I would especially appreciate some answers through personal experience. If I have to use the muffling rings on any of these combos I'm fine with that too. All this only applys to the toms only. One last thing is I'd like to avoid single ply batter heads as I tear them up to quickly.

Moving on to the bass drum. I have an EMAD 2 and a pillow inside. The pillow was to kill the massive rebound I was getting which would kick onto my feet at faster speeds single or double bass due the angle of my beaters which I wasn't diggin. Is there anyway I can take the pillow out (or even put a smaller one in) and get rid of the rebound? Would porting my resonant head take care of this? I've never ported my resonant head either so I would need a little help understanding how it is I should go about doing that.

Just for the record I'd like to add that the toms are really the biggest reason I made this head. I'm perfectly fine with my bass drum sound but was just wondering about possible alternatives and such. My snare sounds fine to me given the problems I've had (see my other threads from previous months) so I don't want to mess with that quite yet. I really just need help getting my toms into low territory with just enough ring that it holds up when I jam with my band but isn't so ringy that it bothers me. Thank you in advance as I'm sure you guys won't steer me wrong.
 
Are you judging how much ring you get from behind the kit or have you had someone play it and stood in front of it say 15 ft away. Pinstripes are pretty dead heads to start with and with zero rings on top I can imagine they'd sound like more than a card board box extremely dead. A properly tuned batter and reso can give you a great tone without additional muffling, Personally I'd never use a pinstripe as a reso, it sucks way too much sound out of the drum. If you look at what the majority of artists out there use as a reso most are a clear single ply head like and ambassador or G1 you can always go with a thinner reso like the Genera Resonant or diplomat if you don't want as much resonance. I'd go G2 over G1 and scrap the Zero Rings.

As for your bass if you are getting too much rebound try loosening the batter head a port would probably help a little but again it's all about tuning to your liking. Try the batter tightened just past wrinkle. Here again with the bass head you've got and a pillow inside your drum has no sound to it just a thud.
 
Try the Emporer Smooth with a clear ambassador on bottom. The Emp Smooth will give you a nice meaty tom sound without squelching so much of the reso.

I agree with Konaboy that it is better to settle on a head combo by listening from 15 feet away and not on top your kit. Big difference.

I use the Emad and a 5 or 6 inch hole in the reso should help reduce the bouncy beater problem. I use the smaller damping ring with the Emad and sometimes a pillow if I want to reduce the roundness of the sound and emphasize the attack.

You could also get one of these..
gretsch_cat_jazz_4.jpg

It's an Earthworks Kickpad. They're $100 but ever since I bought this, I plug it in to whatever drum and mic combo is available and I've got a great EQ'd kick mic sound with no effort.
I kid you not. Try this little piece of gear and most of your bass drum issues will disappear forever.
 
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The thud in the bass drum is fine with me. Like I said I just want the enough ring to sound in the midst of everything. I have heard my kit being played from 10 - 15 ft away plenty of times and some times it sounds better then others but for the most part very little resonance. So normal double ply heads on just a single ply resonant head tuned well should solve my problems...and if I want to use the rings I can. =P

Secondly how would I go about porting my bass drum head? I notice a lot of ported bass drums have a nice silver outlining around it and are perfect circle but what tools to I use to do such a thing? Where can I find myself one of those mics if the problem ever becomes that out of hand?

G2 on G1 or Emperor (Smooth) on Ambassdors. O rings and pillows if I absolutely need it. Hmmm...I run an Emperor coated head on my snare and a single ply head as resonant but I have no problems with it though I might try out a single ply head for it. The only thing holding me back from that is that I have ripped right through single ply heads easily and for sound (and money) purposes I just go double ply. How do you guys think my snare probably would sound to dead in the mix as well.
 
The thud in the bass drum is fine with me. Like I said I just want the enough ring to sound in the midst of everything. I have heard my kit being played from 10 - 15 ft away plenty of times and some times it sounds better then others but for the most part very little resonance. So normal double ply heads on just a single ply resonant head tuned well should solve my problems...and if I want to use the rings I can. =P

Secondly how would I go about porting my bass drum head? I notice a lot of ported bass drums have a nice silver outlining around it and are perfect circle but what tools to I use to do such a thing? Where can I find myself one of those mics if the problem ever becomes that out of hand?

G2 on G1 or Emperor (Smooth) on Ambassdors. O rings and pillows if I absolutely need it. Hmmm...I run an Emperor coated head on my snare and a single ply head as resonant but I have no problems with it though I might try out a single ply head for it. The only thing holding me back from that is that I have ripped right through single ply heads easily and for sound (and money) purposes I just go double ply. How do you guys think my snare probably would sound to dead in the mix as well.

You'll be amazed what a quality coated Ambassador can do on a snare. Works WONDERS. Tune it high, low, fat, cracking, muffle it, the possibilities are endless.

And honestly, just improve your technique a tad. If you don't completely murder the head and actually play it, not bash it, you should be fine.
 
You'll be amazed what a quality coated Ambassador can do on a snare. Works WONDERS. Tune it high, low, fat, cracking, muffle it, the possibilities are endless.

And honestly, just improve your technique a tad. If you don't completely murder the head and actually play it, not bash it, you should be fine.

Yeah I'm quite the hard hitter and have been trying to be a little less ridiculous. I guess I just gotta jump the gun and try it and hope it holds up for as long as I need. Thanks.
 
My experience is that if you're playing loud music unmiked you've got to lose the muffling. Unless you've taken konaboy's advice to the next level, and heard your kit/heads from a distance in a venue-sized room with the band playing, it's hard to appreciate that. What the kit sounds like from the driver's seat bears no resemblance to what the audience hears (or doesn't hear).

Muffled snare drums (using a 2-ply head qualifies, though you can do worse) sound soft and lifeless. With muffled toms (ditto) you hear mostly attack, and they tend to sound undifferentiated if they are tuned close in pitch. Bass drums muffled with 2-ply heads and a pillow--just right for a miked situation--are very soft and may not be heard at all.

If you use a single ply unmuffled batter on the snare, wide open, it will sound loud and lively. You can get away with pins (sans rings) if you tune highish and with good separation. (Single ply coateds or straight 2-plies like Emperors or G2s will be louder and have much more projection.) Single plies (with an edge ring like the PS3 or EQ4) on the bass drum, preferably with no port and nothing in the drum, will cut through the band.

Save the rings/pillows/etc. for your practice space if the wide-open sound bugs you. Though many drummers are coming to like that sound, and some even run a similar setup when miked these days.

Some drummers, going solely by what they hear on records, refuse to believe that unmuffled drums are louder and sound better in the live unmiked situation. But these techniques don't stem from beliefs, they come from experience.
 
If your playing in the studio and recording , i would reccomend muffling. As the volume doesn't matter to much , but when i am playing live i take muffling off usually , because all the overtones are cancelled out by the guitars etc usually.
 
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