Drums "choking"

Larry

"Uncle Larry"
When a drum chokes from too tight a tuning, what is it that's holding up the works, the shell or the head or both?
 
My take on it is it's the heads. Don't know for sure, though. It seems as if the tight head wouldn't be able to move as freely, and therefore would choke. I'd love to see some actual evidence either for or against this. I'd also like to know why a head chokes when it's tuned lower and you smack it really hard. I had heard that it was because of too much air pressure in the drum (the amount of air moved from the stroke can't escape the hole fast enough, and causes a weird compression within the shell). This is how the Gretsch round badge and old Slingerland rack tom sound (no air vents) was explained to me. That's why they have that jazz "choked sound" no matter how you tune 'em...
 
mostly the head I would think.

any head will choke if it is tuned up not inrelationto the resonant head and shell diameter. For instance you tune up your batter till it chokes then flip the drum over and tune up the reso and viola - your batter is not choked anymore

I have noticed two ply heads choke easier than single. this is because there are two membranes getting stretched but not at exactly the same rate. The bottom layer will alway be just a micrometer tighter then the top.

This is why I can only tune up my 12" clear emperor so high before it begins
to sound "choked" but I throw a clear ambassador on there and can tune a bit higher still.

The shell comes into play as well - I just don't know exactly how.

Someone told me you want to have your batter slightly choked sounding
(but not your reso) as it helps the toms punch through the mix better.

Does anyone agree with that?

I can't stand that sound from the driver seat so I've never tried it or agreed with it.
 
It's a very particular sound, Spectron, which some people like a lot and some people don't like at all. It only works when the kit's mic'd up, you get a deep fundamental tone and a snappy, leathery sort of attack which tends to get lost as you up the tension. It all depends what you're going for, really, and what the total mix consists of.
 
My experiences:

I have a 79 - 14 x 6.5 Ludwig chromed Ludalloy 10 lug Supra SS and also a 14 x 6.5 - 8 lug Canopus Zelkova, which (for those who may not be familiar) is a drum that's carved from a tree, vertical grain, zero glue. This drum was completely milled and the grain is not stressed one bit from manufacture. The lugs are a single bolt, single point (centered) lug. The only stress on the shell should be the difference in tension between the batter and reso heads, due to a centered single bolt lug. If both heads exerted the same tension, in theory there should be next to no tension on the grain. This shell has the least amount of tension on it's grain compared to almost any other drum in the world. If they would put milled drums on a Sleishman System, in my mind that would be the worlds most resonant drum. But back to choking...
I use coated emps on all my snares.
The Luddie I can choke easily at a tighter tuning. The Canopus can be cranked way tighter than the Luddie can and retain a useable tone. It will get unuseable if it's insanely tight, but I can get a really cool sound from the Zelkova that the Luddie is incapable of. So it can take much more tension before it chokes.

So, on paper, as much sense as Spectrons post makes about the 2 ply heads being responsible, that's not my experience.
BUT...the bearing edges on each drum is different, and the bearing edge sits on the head differently with respect to each drum, so who knows if that has an effect... My Zelkova has one of the sharpest bearing edges I've ever seen, and it sits before the arc on the flat part of the head. I almost worry if it will split my snare side head, but it doesn't. So I don't know. We need someone with engineering chops here I think.
 
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Maybe that's the answer, the bearing edge? Could it be mostly responsible for the choke threshold of any drum?
 
I'm sure some of the builders will chime in on this, but I'll throw my theory/experience into the pot. Bearing edges, head construction, tuning & venting are the elements at play here. With the exception of extremely thin vs. extremely thick shells, I don't think the shell material makes much difference, except to dictate the fundamental tone.

Think of the head as a membrane tensioned over a ridge. A sharp bearing edge offers less impedance to free resonation than a more rounded profile. Let's exaggerate the rounded edge, & imagine it as a flat edge in profile. When the head is struck, it moves up & down, with greater throw in the center, then diminishing towards the outer edge. If the edge was flat, the head would only contact the outer edge of the flat on the rebound stroke, but contact the inner edge on the down stroke. This change in contact position, or fulcrum if you prefer, produces a dampening affect. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but relates to the difference between a very sharp, & more rounded bearing edge profile. Effectively, I'm encouraging you to imagine a microscope image of the dynamic about the bearing edge. Put simply, the greater area of contact surface between the head & bearing edge, the greater the dampening affect. This change of fulcrum also explains why Caddy's drum chokes when struck hard. He's essentially increasing the amplitude of the oscillation, thus bringing different fulcrum points into play. A head is at it's most resonant when struck very lightly and resting on a knife sharp edge. Sorry, this is a bitch to explain in writing.

Then there's tuning. Two heads of the same material, & tuned exactly the same, with identical bearing edge profile, will offer the greatest resonance. Any differentiation from that will produce a muting affect. Sympathetic resonance is at it's most pronounced when two identical elements react reciprocally. It's not all about creating pressure waves in a sealed environment either, hence the influence of the breathing hole. Relying totally on a captive pressure transfer confuses the natural sympathetic resonance of the two heads. Put simply, the returning pressure waves collide with the mating head, but not necessarily in sync, hence the muting affect. Remove some of that pressure influence, & the unimpeded sypathetic resonance is allowed to dominate. A clear sonic image is transferred perfectly without the need for containment. There's plenty of examples of this in real life. Think of how your ears react to speaker output.

A similar & related explanation also works for two ply vs. one ply heads. As already pointed out, both plies are not equally tensioned, but more than that, it's a composite form that reacts less harmoniously than a single element.

My next drum project relies very much on the principal of sypathetic resonace being more useful & dominant than resonance transferred by point contact. I'll be swimming against the tide on that one, but the results will dictate who's right. I find the prospect of being completely wrong adds a lovely element of anticipation.
 
WOW - Keep it Simple yeah right LOL

That was great by the way.
You are good at explaining things bro....
 
any head will choke if it is tuned up not inrelationto the resonant head and shell diameter. For instance you tune up your batter till it chokes then flip the drum over and tune up the reso and viola - your batter is not choked anymore

What you described has a term... phase cancellation AKA comb filtering. Anyone who has spent their hours learning to tune drums knows that, there are a few zones...certain tensions... where the drum just dies. It's all about frequencies from the top head negating frequencies from the bottom head. A pretty interesting occurance actually...Perhaps, at the very top end of tuning, you hit a zone of phase cancellation, and we all mistake that for a choke because it's so tight. Now I'm even more confused....Never tuned past the choke, my shells/lugs don't need the stress..

Actually the brand new 100 dollar special el cheapo Pearl wood snare that I got for free would make a nice guinea pig..... Muuuu haaa haaa!
 
I've heard two ideas before reading this thread. The air compression/venting makes a bit of sense. I always thought it was how the bearing edge met up with the collar of the head. Maybe a bigger collar on the head would let you tune it higher, because it would sit more naturally. Someone tried to tell me that after a certain point, the head reaches it's maximum, and then starts to stretch. If you can dent a head by hitting too hard, why not stretch it by tuning too far? After cranking a head, I would like to see how it sounds once you tune it back down, kind of like after seating the head, which you're not supposed to do apparently. Maybe our friend the EvansSpecialist has an idea.
 
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