drumhedd
Senior Member
Hey gang!
I'd like to discuss shell thickness- specifically the notion that as sizes of drums increase, shells should become progressively thinner. This is something that Danny Carey of Tool spoke about briefly in an interview in Modern Drummer a few years back.
One would think the opposite should be true, in order to keep the shell thickness proportional to the amount of air inside the drum. However, when you consider the fact that drumheads and hoops do not get proportionally more massive, and the charactaristics of sound waves, this theory makes a little more sense (to me anyways).
As smaller drums vibrate at higher frequencies, the nature of the soundwaves is not hindered by a thicker shell, but rather would become more focused.
In addition, because larger drums are moving a lot more air at much lower frequencies, one would want the shell to do more of the work in order to even the playing field.
Carey's Sonor designer kit has extremely thick shells on the 8x8 and 10x10 rack toms (probably close to 15 plies) and thinner shells for the 14x16 and 16x18 floors, as well as the 24x18 kicks (dia.xdepth). In planning for a future kit, I've been considering doing something similar (albeit with less extreme variation).
Thoughts?! Any sort of more accurate scientific knowledge would be appreciated
I'd like to discuss shell thickness- specifically the notion that as sizes of drums increase, shells should become progressively thinner. This is something that Danny Carey of Tool spoke about briefly in an interview in Modern Drummer a few years back.
One would think the opposite should be true, in order to keep the shell thickness proportional to the amount of air inside the drum. However, when you consider the fact that drumheads and hoops do not get proportionally more massive, and the charactaristics of sound waves, this theory makes a little more sense (to me anyways).
As smaller drums vibrate at higher frequencies, the nature of the soundwaves is not hindered by a thicker shell, but rather would become more focused.
In addition, because larger drums are moving a lot more air at much lower frequencies, one would want the shell to do more of the work in order to even the playing field.
Carey's Sonor designer kit has extremely thick shells on the 8x8 and 10x10 rack toms (probably close to 15 plies) and thinner shells for the 14x16 and 16x18 floors, as well as the 24x18 kicks (dia.xdepth). In planning for a future kit, I've been considering doing something similar (albeit with less extreme variation).
Thoughts?! Any sort of more accurate scientific knowledge would be appreciated