Bass drum muffling

rarely use muffling ... but when I do I use bubble wrap

adds zero weight to drums
doesn't choke them out
and doesn't move in transport

I love this answer. Perfect for the job. How bout foam everyone? Acoustic, eggshell, convoluted. Works perfect, is aesthetic, and Stays In Place! Who has time to fudge with napkins and shite at a show? Leave the linens in the closet. Drummers spend so much time being mathematical, scientific and methodical only to turn around and throw a blanket inside the BD. There's a tool for that. What do you wipe your a__ with...acoustic foam? If you feel the need to muffle, get some foam or zero rings moon gels, etc. Leave the pillows at home and your wallet in your pocket.
 
Single ply Emad with small ring, nothing in the drum, gets me (& most of our customers) through 95% of playing situations. The drums themselves already have errant high overtones (basketball "syndrome") engineered out of the equation. The rest is simply down to tuning. Seems to work really well with the resonant head ported or not.
 
I've been using Evans EMADs recently.

The only thing I've noticed about them, is that at low volumes, played with a bomber beater, I think the plastic ring that keeps the foam against the head will buzz slightly.

It's not an annoying sound, I actually don't mind it at all.
If your snares are on, it will get drowned out by snare buzz.
 
I absolutely needed a small pillow on the res head my old 22x18" Pearl kick when I had it. Just could not get it to sound decent any other way or in any tuning.
 
I absolutely needed a small pillow on the res head my old 22x18" Pearl kick when I had it. Just could not get it to sound decent any other way or in any tuning.

But, why a pillow? I get that you needed something, but why a pillow? What do people put on the wall of there recording studio? Is it pillows? How about towels? It would work, but it would look really stupid. Please, dear fellow drummers, look into studio grade acoustic foam for your BD. All my usual glibness aside, it's a superior solution to pillows, towels, etc and looks clean and professional.
 
Fair point, I can see how for a gigging professional acoustic foam would look much more professional. But I think for some people, the player of the drum might be the only one to actually see the inside of their bass drum.
And if the batter is coated then NO one will see the inside. :)
 
We always seem to have old pillows, old towels and even old bubble wrap in our cupboards. But not acoustic foam I'm afraid. So I'll try all the free, convenient options first...

Having said that, one kit has a rolled up 1/2 bathtowel touching the batter side. The other has a 14" x 5" piece of gray polyester acoustic insulation running front to back.
 
We always seem to have old pillows, old towels and even old bubble wrap in our cupboards. But not acoustic foam I'm afraid. So I'll try all the free, convenient options first...

Having said that, one kit has a rolled up 1/2 bathtowel touching the batter side. The other has a 14" x 5" piece of gray polyester acoustic insulation running front to back.

Do you have heads and sticks in the cupboard? Where do you get them? I don't necessarily insist on foam, but some alternative exists other than an old table cloth. Funny story, one back-line kit I played had a shower curtain inside the bass drum.
 
I tune the front head pretty tight so it goes boing! like a tympani. That does a nice job of wrangling all the o-tones together into a more pleasing arrangement. It sounds perfectly muffled to me on the recordings, when actually it's totally empty inside and the only real muffling is the foam ring holder thingy (minus the foam ring) on the Emad 1.
 
To be honest: I don't use any muffling on my 20" and 22" bassdrums. I tried several muffling methods, none made me really happy. Then I spent some more time with finetuning my bassdrums and that solved the "problem" for me.

I want a bassdrumsound that is "alive", that lets the drum speak. I hate e.g. this Metal-"klick"-bassdrumsound. For that sound, I don't need bassdrums but a tap dancer on stage.
 
Absolutely no muffling on a 24". A Ludwig power collar reso and a coated single ply EMAD without either of the two foam rings just the plastic collar. The drum sounds great. The reso head is tuned just slightly higher. I recently started tuning my tom resos lower for live gigs and been getting compliments from out front.
 
Seems like it's been 100 years since practically everybody (including me) has been using heads with some kind of built-in muffing around the edges. I like the PS3 myself, but have also tried the EMADs, and I see many who swear by the Super Kicks.

But this got me to thinking about Deadringers and Pinstripes, which use more or less the same principle ... there's a definite sound difference between muffling around the edges vs. muffling from the center. I've been using Black Dots on my toms for a few years now and really like that effect, but now that I've connected the dots (pun intended!) I'm thinking about moving away from edge muffled heads on the bass drum, too.

Anyone done an A/B between a Black Dot (or straight single/double ply) and an edge muffled head?
 
I just took delivery of a couple new heads today for the 26" Vistalite kick. I got a clear Remo Ambassador and a clear Remo Emperor head. I had picked up another 3" felt strip today to handle the muffling duty.

But... before I did. I wanted to check out what it sounded like wide open with no port, no muffling.

I dig it quite a bit. I will run it like that for a while. They sound HUGE! lol.
 
It wasn't till my brother had a rental kit returned in the following condition that I understood the proper way to dampen a bass drum.

zkBMm68.jpg


Note: The afghan was not included with the rental.
 
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I'm currently rolling with PS3's both front and back with nothing in the drum, and it sounds great. I'm really tempted to try the Keith Carlock sound of just ambassadors front and back, but I'm afraid if I used it on any gig I'd get fired.
 
I'm currently rolling with PS3's both front and back with nothing in the drum, and it sounds great. I'm really tempted to try the Keith Carlock sound of just ambassadors front and back, but I'm afraid if I used it on any gig I'd get fired.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of his sound. He gets a lot of punch out of the drum and it's super dynamic. BTW, he's using a clear Evans G1 batter and coated G1 reso (no Ambassadors).
 
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Oddly, used external straps and newspaper on the batter head since the '80s. Nothing internal. However I recently started using a 6" wide strip of hardware store plastic mesh screen that runs horizontally at the bottom of the head (below the beater). It's held in place tightly by being sandwiched between the rim and the head. It forms a "pocket" that holds a neoprene mouse pad cut to size.

I never cared for anything resting against the batter head internally because it resists impacts, whereas an external damper only affects the head when it springs back after the initial impact. To my ears it sounds pleasing and feels good.
 
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The Remo fiberskyn I put on my Renown bass reso didnt have any control ring so I taped the smaller foam ring from my EMAD to the back of it. Evans EQ pad wide side touching my batter. I get some bounce since it is non ported, but I like the sound and it forces me to work on foot technique.
 
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Personally, I'm a huge fan of his sound. He gets a lot of punch out of the drum and it's super dynamic. BTW, he's using a clear Evans G1 batter and coated G1 reso (no Ambassadors).

Ah. My mistake. One day I'll be brave enough and try it.
 
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