Muffling a 20" x 16" bassdrum

HansBal

Member
Is it necessarily required to muffle a 20" x 16" bassdrum?
I like an open Simon Phillips sound but on the other hand a tight studio sound.

Do these things work and are they necessarily required?


 
Most batter heads have a ring or 2 plies. That might be enough. You can experiment with ported resos and felt strips. That would be free. If you want to find out how much you need, put a towel between the batter and the pedal or a towel against the reso. It's always easier to add muffling to a more or less regular head than removing it. The evans emad comes with interchangeable rings if you want to get a solution right out the box.
 
No is the answer to your question, see Keith Carlock!

The Simon Phillips muffling only works on bigger bass drums I find as you have the moving air to play with.

I use a 20x14 for most things I'm running a PS4 coated batter/Ambassador with a felt strip on the reso side that's it. You get the perfect mix of punch and boom and the maximum amount of air is moving through the drum.

You can do a lot with the tuning too, the resonant head tuning is a lot more important that you think.

Have an experiment, for foam I'd buy a foam sheet and cut it down to size, a lot cheaper than the same thing with a fancy sticker on it.
 
I'm running a PS4 batter and a PS3 un-ported resonant head on my 20 x 16 stage custom. Sounds great as is. No muffling required.

As a side note, during set up I mistakenly attached the pedal to the wrong side of the drum a few weeks ago. I gave it a quick tap. It sounded horrible and I couldn't figure out why.
 
What playing environment/style are you wortking in?

I ask this because another great player who used a 20x16 was Mel Lewis with his big band.
 
What playing environment/style are you wortking in?

I ask this because another great player who used a 20x16 was Mel Lewis with his big band.
I play mostly classic rock. Gigs are mostly small to medium indoor venues.

As for micing.... I used to mic everything. Then I just miced the bass drum (ported, muffled, internally mounted Shure beta 52). For future gigs, I'm not going to mic at all. My bass drum will be unported, unmuffled, and LOUD!

Over the years I found that micing a kit for the size of venues I was playing was unnecessary.
 
I got one of these recently, it's good but I really need a second one (or third) like Dave has here. You have a ton of options plus nothing inside the drum or permanent on the heads themselves.

 
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As much as I respect Rob Brown, I can't agree with the loose reso recommendation for a 20" BD size and larger. Especially larger.

This may be the way to go on an 18" BD which IMO, is too anemic for my needs, and needs all the low end it can get

I believe tuning the BD reso...boingy tight...raises the frequencies that were subsonic at a lower tension...so they actually are brought into the audible range and can contribute to the BD tone in a meaningful way.

For punch, I think it sounds punchiest (by a large margin) with the BD reso head boingy tight, like a tympani. (no boing in the resolved tone) Batters on the medium/loose side (JAJAW) to move max air. At those tight reso tensions, all I need is a T shirt in there to absorb the errant basketball freqs. It's naturally muffled with a tight front
 
I have a 1994 Pearl Master Custom Maple 20x16 kick, and it is wide open with a Remo PS3 head on batter, and a Remo Ebony bass head on front with a 3" mic port

that PS3 head is Godlike in that it gives just the right amount of muffling, but still allows resonance...sound guys LOVE how easy it is to dial in my kick sound.

We found a hunk of junk 20x16 no name BD in an alley a few years back...put a PS3 on the batter side, and an Ebony on the front, and I now use it at school in our outdoor drum set...it is a freaking cannon as well when run through the PA

I can't stand the look/sound/feel of bass drums with a bunch of crap in them
 
No muffling in my 20×16 and I can get amazing boom. On the batter side I run a medium-low tensioned coated PS3 and a homemade falam patch cut from an old 10 mil Ambassador head.

The reso is a Fiberskyn with approx 3.5" port, tuned "boingy" tight like @larryace mentioned. I also find the tight reso and port act together to tame any unwanterd freqs, even though it seems like it would either ring like crazy or totally choke. Very rich boom. I regain any lost attack by using the patch and a wooden beater.

This combo also worked on a 18x16 FT/BD conversion with incredible boom from such a small drum.
 
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For what it's worth on my 20" X 16" Yamaha Recording Custom I'm running an Aquarian Clear Force I batter and an Aquarian Modern Vintage with a single felt strip for the reso head. I have an Evans EQ pad inside to tame frequencies. The reso head has a small 2" port at the bottom for a jumper cable to feed the two internal mic's. Really beautiful tone with this set up.
 
I like to use an Aquarian super kick one or Evans Emad one And Aquarian regulator ported. Right now I have a custom made band logo Reso instead of the regulator with a 3" porthole just a touch of foam probablie 3/4 inch thick and Maybe 10" wide lying in the bottom of the drum barely touching both heads. I get a lot of low end tone but not very much head ringing
 
Is it necessarily required to muffle a 20" x 16" bassdrum?
I like an open Simon Phillips sound but on the other hand a tight studio sound.
Hard to have both. A happy medium, perhaps. Remember, Simon's playing 24" kicks. Even a muffled head like an Emad or Superkick is gonna sound a lot more "open" than a 20"er with the same head.

I used a P3 batter, for years. Still do, on some of my kicks. But then I started working with SKI and SKII heads batter, and the Emad. Some of my kicks I like wide open. Some I like that tight punch.

The way my 2 20"ers are set up right now, my Gretsch Round Badge is wide open, with an Ambassador head on both ends. My Yamaha 8000 has an Ambassador batter, with a strip of felt taped onto it, and a smooth white Controlled Sound reso. The later might be what you wanna try, or a variation of. It's not quite as tight as one of my kicks with an Superkick/Emad ..... but it's more of a "studio sound" than wide open.
 
Is it necessarily required to muffle a 20" x 16" bassdrum?
....

No - especially for playing live.
For recording, if you can't get what you want with EQ and gates, then I'd say start muffling till you're hearing what you want.
 
No is the answer to your question, see Keith Carlock!

The Simon Phillips muffling only works on bigger bass drums I find as you have the moving air to play with.

I use a 20x14 for most things I'm running a PS4 coated batter/Ambassador with a felt strip on the reso side that's it. You get the perfect mix of punch and boom and the maximum amount of air is moving through the drum.

You can do a lot with the tuning too, the resonant head tuning is a lot more important that you think.

Have an experiment, for foam I'd buy a foam sheet and cut it down to size, a lot cheaper than the same thing with a fancy sticker on it.
Second that.

My 20" I use a ps3 and a calfskin with felt strip on the reso. Nothing inside the drum what so ever. Wide-open great sound!
 
As much as I respect Rob Brown, I can't agree with the loose reso recommendation for a 20" BD size and larger. Especially larger.

This may be the way to go on an 18" BD which IMO, is too anemic for my needs, and needs all the low end it can get

I believe tuning the BD reso...boingy tight...raises the frequencies that were subsonic at a lower tension...so they actually are brought into the audible range and can contribute to the BD tone in a meaningful way.

For punch, I think it sounds punchiest (by a large margin) with the BD reso head boingy tight, like a tympani. (no boing in the resolved tone) Batters on the medium/loose side (JAJAW) to move max air. At those tight reso tensions, all I need is a T shirt in there to absorb the errant basketball freqs. It's naturally muffled with a tight front
I’ve always found the best bass drum sound with a tighter reso head. I have drummer friends who neglect the reso head and focus entirely on the batter. The same guys always seem awestruck by my kick sound regardless of what kind of drum I have. I’ve told them for years…it’s how I tune my reso head. Still, they use the same flabby jaw tuning on theirs.
 
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