Go easy on the floor toms dudes!

Davo-London

Gold Member
As a drummer-bassist I obviously play bass with fellow drummers.

My experience is that when drummers head for the floor toms they morph into monsters and hit the floor toms as if their life depended on it. Trust me it doesn't. I have learnt to stop playing bass when some of my fellow drummers hit a floor tom groove. Why? Because it obliterates everything and anything the bassist covers.
I will now get flamed.

All I'm saying is - you have responsibilities: "Go easy on those FTs dudes"

Peace
Davo
 
Ha..the the old low mid range huh. I'm an x bassist and floor toms are the drummers equivalent of the P bass....know exactly what u mean.
 
I agree...but sometimes when this happens, I just go up an octave in my part (in my originals band), or sometimes try to come up with a "counter-groove" or texture if I still feel like I need to play
 
I have learnt to stop playing bass when some of my fellow drummers hit a floor tom groove. Why? Because it obliterates everything and anything the bassist covers.
Every drummer knows this, and it’s why we bother schlepping floor toms to gigs. Quit hoarding the low frequencies, and let us start a party! ?
 
As a drummer-bassist I obviously play bass with fellow drummers.

My experience is that when drummers head for the floor toms they morph into monsters and hit the floor toms as if their life depended on it. Trust me it doesn't. I have learnt to stop playing bass when some of my fellow drummers hit a floor tom groove. Why? Because it obliterates everything and anything the bassist covers.
I will now get flamed.

All I'm saying is - you have responsibilities: "Go easy on those FTs dudes"

Peace
Davo

Ok, I will let up....for now. Once I get my hands on a Classic Maple 18" FT, it's going to be every man for himself.
 
As a drummer-bassist I obviously play bass with fellow drummers.

My experience is that when drummers head for the floor toms they morph into monsters and hit the floor toms as if their life depended on it. Trust me it doesn't. I have learnt to stop playing bass when some of my fellow drummers hit a floor tom groove. Why? Because it obliterates everything and anything the bassist covers.
I will now get flamed.

All I'm saying is - you have responsibilities: "Go easy on those FTs dudes"

Peace
Davo


I can certainly see this as being a problem - especially now that people are tuning floor toms down into the kick range (even using EMAD heads, etc.)

(Luckily my drums are tuned sky high haha - so I never run into this)

I think the important thing really is to look at the internal dynamics of your playing in general and to make sure that each individual instrument within the kit is played at an appropriate level in relation to each other. I think learning that is one of the biggest things a player can do to sound more like a "professional".

I've talked about this in depth with Carter McLean and Juan Carlos Mendoza just in the past few weeks - if you have someone just SLAMMING on the hi hats and practically ghosting the snare and slamming the kick....the dynamics of that instantly sound off to people's ears.

Same for slamming floor toms.
 
As Nouveau Cliche stated, it's not a floor tom problem, it's a dynamics issue.

I know when I got a tiny bit of a highlight in the past, I would up my volume during that spot, and yea, ruin it.

Now I understand that playing things too loud ruins it. The right notes at the wrong volume is just as wrong as wrong notes. Thanks field recorder! Valuable lesson for me. Stay the course volume-wise in these situations is what I do now. If anything I come down slightly to try and draw the people in. It sounds and works much better than trying to stick out volume-wise.
 
I’m a one up/two down player and my floors are 16 and 18. The 18 has a TomPort on the reso to calm down the thunder.
As an 80’s teen, I loved the power tom sizes and still prefer them today.

That being said, I’m 100% on board with keeping the desire to “beat them like they owe me money” in check.
Front of house guys tell me 16 and 18’s hit together will rumble the stage like the hand of God hit them. So I respect that and have learned to use good dynamics to serve the song and know my place in the band.

Drum solo time? All bets are off baby!!??
 
Back
Top