What gives a drum its sound??

I

Irrational Gaze

Junior Member
Hi everyone,

I'm a fairly new drummer who currently plays on a Roland electric kid and i might want to buy a new kit soon. I'm confused on what gives a drum its sound though. If anyone can answer these questions that would be of great help:

1. How do dimensions affect sound?

2. How do different shell materials (ex. mahogany or brass)?

3. What sounds are different drum companies characterized by? (ex. does Sonor have a sound that's distinct to all of its drums?)

4. How do different drum heads affect sound? What distinct sounds do each company/model make?

Thanks everybody
 
Answer: You give your drums your sound.
 
1. How do dimensions affect sound? I'm not going to go into much detail here, but generally GENERALLY larger drums allow you to achieve deeper sounds smaller drums find their voices when tuned higher...

2. How do different shell materials (ex. mahogany or brass)? There is no doubt a wide array of opinions on this. People insist that certain woods achieve certain sonic qualities and with use words like "tone" or "overtone" "deep" "wet" "dry" etc.. As with cymbals this is all extremely subjective as well. I'd say that unless you were playing a given drumset under extremely controlled sonic conditions like in a studio or a "drum room" you'd have a hard time telling the difference between birch, maple, ash, beech, or whatever... I think more has to do with tuning and environment for day to day players than wood type.

3. What sounds are different drum companies characterized by? (ex. does Sonor have a sound that's distinct to all of its drums?) All drum companies have low, mid, and high end drums. People have preferences, and brand loyalties and what have you, but generally speaking all high end kits are going to be great. Some companies take greater care in their low-end kits, but I think the playing field is even leveling out there.

4. How do different drum heads affect sound? What distinct sounds do each company/model make? Sigh... Lots of OPINIONS here as well. Thicker heads give deeper tone, less resonance, faster decay... Thinner heads tend to be on the opposite end of that spectrum.

These are good, but extremely broad questions regarding drums in general. A good portion of all threads and posts on this entire forum deal with at least one of these questions and there are some threads with literally pages devoted to wood type, drumheads, and tuning. Welcome to the forum! What kind of e-kit do you play? I'm just jumping into that myself and have even joined the vdrums forum. That's as good a resource for e-drumming as this is for acoustic!
 
The movement of air and the way it resonates within its shell it what makes the noise. It also requires an atmosphere and someone to hear it.
 
thanks for the help garvin. i play on a Roland V-Series TD-35W

http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?ObjectId=803&ParentId=60

Its the most basic and low end of all of their electric kits, but its my first set, and my parents wanted to make sure i was comitted to drumming so they wouldnt waste their money. Also, i wouldve gotten an acoustic set, but they wanted to let me practice all the time without bothering anyone else in my family
 
Monica McCoy said:
It also requires an atmosphere and someone to hear it.
Click to expand...

Hmm interesting. So a drum played on the moon wouldn't make any sound? No air to move. I can't quite get my head around that, I'm having a hard time imagining striking a drum and hearing nothing.
 
The thickness of the shell also the beiring edge the type of wood used to make the shell and last THE DRUM PLAYER!
 
The most instrumental variable that gives a drum its sound is how you tune it.
Secondly, how you play it.
Shell material follows and head selection follow.
Everyone should take drum tuning lessons, the earlier the better. Unfortunately very few do. If everyone did that you wouldn't see posts like which is better Evans or Remo?
What heads to use? I want to sound like so and so drummer? Everyone needs the basic working knowledge of tuning a drumset, it is vital for a drummer.
 
veggo32 said:
Shell material follows and head selection follow.
Click to expand...

I disagree; the movement on the head is much bigger and therefore produces more volume than the movement of the shell. The movement of the head is only slightly influenced bu the shell. If you ask me, heads determine more of a drum's sound than shell material for these physical reasons.
Correct me if I am wrong though
 
You've missed the point entirely. Your focusing on the statement "Shell material follows and head selection follow". My point was that the two follow but not necessarily in that order or distance from eachother.
The focus of my post was tuning and how you play the drum. These are in my opinion the most important factors that contribute to a drum sound.
But yes I agree that heads do play a bigger part of the sound than shell material, but those are a distant 3rd and 4th compared to 1st tuning 2nd how you hit the drum.
 
Big_Philly said:
I disagree; the movement on the head is much bigger and therefore produces more volume than the movement of the shell. The movement of the head is only slightly influenced bu the shell. If you ask me, heads determine more of a drum's sound than shell material for these physical reasons.
Correct me if I am wrong though
Click to expand...

A heavy shell, like sonor's heavy beech (12mm) definitely contributes much, much less to the sound than a DW collectors shell does.

On a heavy shell, the drum head is easily 80% of the sound. The shell is so thick that it doesn't contribute much. On something like a dw collectors, it's closer to 50/50, but not quite.
 
I can see this thread going on for pages and pages as we get into the type of threads used on the tuning rods etc. For the purpose of the OP's question I think Garvin did a heck of a job giving a good basic overview.
 
In this order:
-Shell composition and construction (maple plywood vs. rosewood/bubinga stave shell, for example).
-Bearing edge style and quality, since the amount of shell contacting the head will have a slight but noticeable effect on the sound the head makes and garbage edges will make good tuning all but impossible.
-Resonance inhibitors, otherwise known as huge lugs, clunky mounting systems, floor toms with six legs and so forth. Sometimes they can be compensated for, but we still have not figured out how to make toms float in midair so it's really a matter of doing what makes the most sense for the tone you want from the little darlings.
-Head selection. You will NOT get a nice crispy snare sound with a 4-ply Aquarian double-dot batter head, nor a deep, rich bass sound from a Remo Diplomat on your kick. Do your homework on what heads are geared for what kind of tuning, and speaking of...
-Tuning. A 7x8" tom has a "floor" and a "ceiling" as far as its tuning range goes, like every other drum on planet earth. I once listened to a guy trashing on DW because he bought a kit and said it sounded terrible. I picked up a couple of his toms (8" and 10") and they made a *BLAP* kind of sound. You want to sound like Bonham? 15, 16, 18 and 26" should be a good starting point. Drums sound best when TIGHTENED.

8" toms going *BLAP* indeed! You should be horsewhipped, sir!

-The drummer. Some guys can really finesse a drum and pull nine kinds of sounds out of a coffee can. Others are surprised they can even keep a beat. That stuff matters too, and in a strange sort of way they can feed off of each other. Sometimes you sit down behind a set of well made, well tuned drums and it makes you that much more comfortable with what you're playing. I don't know if you would actually play better, but I know it sure feels like you do!

I thought I was going to keep this simple. What a windbag I am!
 
larryace said:
Hmm interesting. So a drum played on the moon wouldn't make any sound? No air to move. I can't quite get my head around that, I'm having a hard time imagining striking a drum and hearing nothing.
Click to expand...

Sound is what is made by pressure waves travelling through a medium (matter = water, air, solid objects etc.). If there is no air, a vacuum, then the air can't travel = no sound.

It's kind of hard to imagine but it's physics, the way of the universe.
 
thanks for the help everybody. Also, if anyone has any links to any sites about tuning or the effect of different materials on drum sound, i ould really appreciate it.

thanks
 
Irrational Gaze said:
thanks for the help everybody. Also, if anyone has any links to any sites about tuning or the effect of different materials on drum sound, i ould really appreciate it.

thanks
Click to expand...

Once again, all those answers are at the link I posted.
 
Heads and tuning simply dwarf everything else, despite what the drum companies would like you to believe. Bearing edges or hoops or shell thickness--take your pick--will be a distant third, and type of wood is well after all of 'em.
 
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