Maple vs Birch

this may help :)

www.gear4music.com

What Wood Sounds Good? Your Guide to Shell Materials

Looking for the perfect drum shell? We explore different drum shell materials and constructions and discuss their sonic properties.
www.gear4music.com www.gear4music.com


also, you then get drums like the british drum co merlin snare, the virgil donati pearl snare, and the premier gen-x kits, which are all maple/birch hybrids :)

and the steve gadd signature kit has a maple bass drum and birch toms :)
 
I have all Birch Tama Starclassic Performers
88 model Yamaha Birch Mahogany hybrid
2019 model Ludwig Maple Poplar hybrid
and they all sing really good after I spend a little time tuning them to my liking. They basically have the same heads and all sound pretty close to each other. The mounting brackets seem to make the biggest difference on the toms sound. The Tamas have die cast hoops the others are triple flanged steel, with exception of the Yamaha snare it has cast aluminum hoops
 
Rattlin' Bones said:
They're really close sounding. Birch and maple I cannot tell apart. A few others the tunings sounded a bit flatter thus sound was different. But this would be a good test: don't tell they type and mask the shells and then try and tell what type of wood each was blind. No way that a statistically significant % of folks would get them right.
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter if you can't name the wood. If you are sitting behind the kit, playing it, you CAN hear the difference. And the important difference is a musical one, not a wood name.
If you like brighter, ringing toms, your ears will tell you which tom to choose (in a blind test), so long as you are playing the drum yourself.
 
Chris Whitten said:
It doesn't matter if you can't name the wood. If you are sitting behind the kit, playing it, you CAN hear the difference. And the important difference is a musical one, not a wood name.
If you like brighter, ringing toms, your ears will tell you which tom to choose (in a blind test), so long as you are playing the drum yourself.
Click to expand...
Agree 100%. My experience is that you can usually tell a bigger difference when sitting behind a kit than a video where the toms are close miced (this is why I am such a fan of Drum Centre of NH doing 'room mics only' as well in their videos).

For me, the biggest difference between birch and maple is in the kick drum. On my former birch kit, the kick sounded 'fine' sitting in the driver's seat (mostly attack) and awesome when in the audience. On my new maple / walnut Saturn, the drum punches much deeper when sitting behind it too. I imagine that in a close miced situation, this difference would be largely lost.
 
mellanslag said:
When I'm listening to those comparison videos I tend to

Pure birch kits aren't that common nowadays, Mapex Mars, Yamaha Stage Custom, Premier Genista and Sonor SQ1 are the ones I can come up with on the top of my head. I'm guessing customshops like Pearl Masterwork, Dw Collectors, Sonor SQ2 and similar offerings do birch, aswell as some boutique companies I guess.

Seems that every major brand offers pure maple kits, with some o them having 2-3 different lines that has pure maple shells.
Click to expand...
Discontinued now, but Tama also made Silverstar kits in all Birch. I play rock music, not metal, but ever so slightly "heavier" rock music and that kit blends perfectly with what I'm playing with guitar and bass wise. It all has a place and I personally side with the heads and tuning make all the major difference camp.
 
dalekay9ine said:
Discontinued now, but Tama also made Silverstar kits in all Birch. I play rock music, not metal, but ever so slightly "heavier" rock music and that kit blends perfectly with what I'm playing with guitar and bass wise. It all has a place and I personally side with the heads and tuning make all the major difference camp.
Click to expand...
Yes, I have one of those in bop sizes, works great for that and in somewhat of a rock tuning as well. Great drums.
 
I can't Do a Side By Side because none of my toms from the Birch Kit and the Maple Kits i have are the same size. I have noticed that The Maple Have More sustain.
 
Jamos33 said:
Completely agree. I have a bad habit of binge watching YouTube review videos. I think Drum Centre, Portsmouth does a great job with their videos in that they let you hear the drums or cymbals in different settings / mics etc. But overall, always better hearing in person for yourself
Click to expand...
DCP, 2112 and all the drum stores all add compression, EQ and Gates to all their videos so the Drums don't actually sound like that. Agree in person is best. Sounds like a Drum is the only Youtuube site ive seen that does no EQ or anything.
 
Last edited:
classikdrummr said:
DCP, 2112 and all the drum stores all add compression, EQ and Gates to all their videos so the Drums don't actually sound like that. Agree in person is best. Sounds like a Drum is the only Youtuube site ive seen that does no EQ or anything.
Click to expand...
Also there are the room in witch they are played at, I'm guessing my place isn't the only one that's quite small and dead sounding.
 
IBitePrettyHard said:
Birch generally has a slightly more staccato attack, less sustain, and a colder tone. The shorter sustain makes it ideal for recording.

Maple typically has more body (aka resonance) and longer sustain. It has a richer and warmer tone.

Personally, I prefer the full body and warmth of Maple. It sounds more "pleasing" to my ears.

Birch is a little cold sounding for my taste.
Click to expand...
I agree with this. I've owned two birch sets and sold both rather quickly, as they were dark and somewhat brittle sounding, didn't project very well and sounded harsh to my ears. Even our bass player commented that they sounded harsh and brittle. Since then, I've favored maple, or combinations of maple and mahogany, with the exception of my Ludwig Standards, and I have no idea what the shell makeup is on those.

I'm done with birch drums. They have their place, but not for me.
 
Last edited:
Some of the differences could be due to some factors other than the material. For example, I vastly prefer Tama's Superstar Birch Reissue to their standard Superstar Classic Maple (still great drums), but the former's got almost twice as thick shells as the latter. I hear the satisfying quick attack in the birch Superstars, but also in maple/poplar Ludwig Classics and my $20 luan stencil kit.
Not to say that material doesn't matter. My luan kit is overall darker, woodier and tunes low better. I used to own a Ludwig Classic tom, and IIRC it was very bright and tunes high very well. The birch Superstar seems to sit somewhere in between - clearer than luan but thuddier than maple.
Physically I'd guess:
  • Luan is light and soft
  • Maple is medium weight and hard
  • Birch is heavy and medium hardness
Could be that weight enhances treble and less stiffness enhances woodiness.
 
The player, hardware and heads have much more influence on the sound than the wood species.

If the drums are miced then all bets are off. I’ve been on tour and played a house kit that sounded like crap acoustically yet sounded awesome through the PA.

As an example, John Bonham played wood and acrylic drums with Zep yet he always sounded like himself.

The difference between acrylic and any wood is greater than the difference between wood species.

All good, play what you like but it ain’t about the type of wood y’all.
 
I-P said:
I'm a HUGE advocate for room mics on YouTube videos. Need LOTS more of it.
Click to expand...
Close-miking is terrible for drum demoing purposes. It distorts and homogenizes everything. It blows my mind that so many demo channels don't realize this.

Ironically, the audio from cell phone videos is surprisingly accurate, as long as the acoustics of the room sounds good enough.
 
Last edited:
Had some amazing Birch kits, none of which I still own and the toms have always really stood out. Especially when recorded. Good birch is pre-eq'd. Never liked birch snares.

I've always found maple to be a good all-rounder wood for everything. Everyone should own a steambent maple snare.

All of this only matters if you can tune well and have a great room and mics. Nobody other than drummers, producers and engineers will either notice or care!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top