What you hear behind the kit

Frank

Gold Member
I copied these from another thread about someone wanting to muffle their toms. I thought these thoughts were worthy of a separate thread.

This is a topic in its own right that I haven't seen discussed.

Early on in my drumming life I took to placing cotton in my ears before playing, or when I don't have cotton I use a torn up Kleenex. I do it because I frankly can't stand how shrill the snare and the cymbals sound to me from behind the kit, although it also muffles some of the annoying resonance I hear from the toms.

The funny thing is that I never feel the need to plug my ears this way when I'm listening to another drummer play from as close as maybe 10 feet away, and I assume I wouldn't need to plug my ears if I could listen to my own playing from 10 feet away. But something about being right at (in?) the kit causes me to feel a strong need to plug my ears a little to muffle the sounds I'm hearing. In fact, I'm neurotic about it. I NEVER play without first muffling my ears (which headphones do too) and am always amazed that other drummers don't bother.

This of course doesn't speak to the larger issue of getting drums tuned and sometimes muffled to a drummer's satisfaction. Putting cotton balls in your ears isn't a substitute for getting the drums (and cymbals) to sound like you want them to sound. However, I'm convinced that what we hear when playing needs more muffling than what the audience hears.

I thought I was the only one that felt this way. Maybe we should start a whole thread on it.

I'm a drummer, yet - I do not like the sound of drums and cymbals from behind the kit. Not just mine. Everyone's. Everywhere. Everything sounds shrill and harsh to me. Just 10 or 20 feet away, and then it sounds beautiful.

I, too, now play with headphones often, and I let just a little of the drum bleed in with how I adjust the headphones on my head. That tone is then glorious to my ears, and that's closer to the tone that people hear from the audience.
 
This is why I demonstrate this at every seminar with my students.

Over time we learn to hear things in a different way, have a more overall picture, look for qualities we know work in context.

I think I mention this sometimes. It's like guitar and certain mid frequencies that I first got really conscious of after reading an interview with Jerry Donahue many years ago.

Sure I wear headphones when I practice, but as most do today I mic my drums for practice also.
 
What's really insane is how different the drums sound behind compared to audience-also tuning becomes problematic as I've heard some drums tuned and sounding like shit just hitting them-but put a drummer on and band and they sound great (Keith Carlock uses those G1s on toms that when I tried sounded like shit but man he sounds fantastic using them)-then I've heard the reverse too-drums tuned to perfection sounded off with the band-what is up with that? Also sounds can jump around-I use to play in this large church and there was one spot it always sounded like the drummer-myself or any of the other three-was behind the beat (like a dead zone). I was reading about the Loudness Control knob on an AV receiver-it plays on a biological phenomena of how we hear at low or high volumes- what we hear I gather-so at low volumes it boost low and high frequencies. That got me thinking is this dead zone a real frequency dead zone from wave cancellation or jumping around , or a human perception dead zone?
 
I always using hearing protection when behind the kit. Be it with a band, on my own, or teaching. But that's for the purpose of protecting my ears, not for any kind of change in sonic qualities.

When it comes to tuning my drums, I always spend some time getting each drum to sound the best it can, and matching them to one another. Once it's where I want it from my perspective I typically have someone else go through each drum while stand out front and listen.

I think the shrillness of the snare and cymbals come from the fact that they have such a high volume and when being the kit you're right on them. Like 2 feet from your ears, so of course it's going to be bothersome compared to standing 10 feet away.
 
I started in 1963 when I was 8 years old and I've never worn protection-yes I can't hear doodle but amazingly no I've never had an STD or unwanted pregnancy LOL. Levity with brevity. But seriously as I loss my hearing it was advantageous playing drums because it was muffled and I felt like I could hear all the players better-when I got hearing aids it was startling to hear a kit again and just how damn loud all the instruments are (no wonder I'm deaf) and how they can all wash together.
 
I tune my drums for maximum volume and tone. I use thin drum heads tuned rather high with sustain and with no dampening.

One time at an open mic jam a drummer was playing my drum set. He said “the toms on your drum set sound terrible. They have too much sustain and they sound very high pitched and boingy”. I told him they sounded great from the audience when the band was playing. I’m sure he did not believed me.

Your drums will always sound different from behind the kit as compared to out in the audience when the band is playing. I learned how to tune my drums by listening to others play them in a live band setting. Having someone else play your drums is really the only way you will learn how to tune your drums. I’m referring to a live band situation where there are no microphones on the drums.

If you are in a live situation where they are putting microphones on your drums, then the sound of your drums is pretty much up to the sound engineer. I have worked with good ones and bad ones. It’s better to not even worry about how you are going to sound to the audience. The sound person is in control of that. Maybe have someone you trust in the audience to tell you how it sounds.

As has been said, tuning your drums for use in the studio or for home practice is a totally different matter.

Tuning drums can be a tricky business. So many different venues, different situations, different kinds of music,
and so many different drum heads to choose from. Sorry, there are no simple easy answers.


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Too many drummers think about their sound as A drum alone, just snare, just one Tom, and from their perspective. As a result it often sounds like shit when the whole band is playing. Makes think of a guy who plays Waaaay better than me but sounds terrible because a lot of muffling (a complete bed duvet In the bass drum, dead pinstripe on toms,....)
About cotton in the ears, I think it's crazy not to protect your ears while playing with the band. Playing alone can be ok but with a whole band you play louder, without a lot of silent moment, it can be really ear damaging.
 
Drums were designed for war and fear, but then some fool decided they should bring them indoors and all that philosophy goes out the window (where it sounds better).
 
Drums were designed for war and fear, but then some fool decided they should bring them indoors and all that philosophy goes out the window (where it sounds better).

Very good point!!

And, for at least a thousand years stringed instruments have been played all over the world. They were even played along with acoustic drums.
Nobody was wearing ear protection. Then "some fool" decided to electronically amplify the guitar.
(I'm sure guitar players think it was only fair because drums were always louder than the unamplified stringed instruments.)


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Simon Phillips discusses throne tone in one of his videos. He makes a comment about how whether it's a violin or a drum, it's not going to sound right to the player. You need to be 10, 15 feet away for it to sound right. He gets a great drum sound, but with clear ambassadors and no muffling I can only imagine how shrill it might sound where he's sitting. Seems like opposite approaches are needed for an unmicd kit versus a mic'd kit. No mics: crank the heads a bit and lose the muffling. Mic'd up, deaden the drums. I started a thread a few months back about 2 kits I sat in on in the same large club, ran through a big PA, and the insane amount of muffling both guys used on their drums. Guitars and basses? They set their amps for exactly the sound they want to hear on stage; they don't even think about adapting their sound to go through a big PA. Just more proof about how adaptable and versatile we drummers need to be. We can play back to back gigs where 1 night we're in a small bar, no mics, and the next night playing a larger venue with the kit fully mic'd. The tuning, muffling, and sound from the player's perspective could potentially be polar opposites while our bandmate's basically hear the same instrument sound no matter where they are. Interesting.

Here's a link for that Simon video I mentioned: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LYrvL67PGRw

And yeah, wear hearing protection. Take it from me, tinnitus is NOT fun.
 
Man, after reading this thread I'm gonna yank the hyd heads and see how they sound with the stock "Premium Remo heads" that came with it. I never installed them when the kit arrived because my drummer sound engineer said I just HAD to get some Evans Hyd heads, so I did just that.

However, he was coming from a sound engineer's perspective - read that as he mikes everything so he's kinda fanatical about overtones/whatnot. I don't plan on miking anything anytime soon, so I wanna hear those clear remos. I have plenty of moon gel and tones rings to fine tune it.

"Throne tone..." What a cool concept.

Lemme get my drill...
 
It's not just the way the drum sounds either. A great sounding kit can still be played too loud, used innappropriately, or otherwise made to detract from the music if the player isn't sensitive to what's is needed by the music, or is inexperienced in knowing what is needed, or totally is in their own world and missing everything.

By the same token, a great player on a badly tuned set can make that bad sounding set sound great within the context of the song. Always, it's the player not the drum.

FWIW, I like a nonmuffled medium high tuned set for unmiced playing. It just sounds better than muffling the drums...out in the audience. I also like a non muffled set under mics, but the mics have to all be backed off a few feet, no close micing. I don't know why this is such an issue with sound guys, no muffling? As long as the drums are tuned well, all a sound person has to do is back off the mics. For live miced drums, I prefer a natural open ambient drum sound over a sterile closed muffled "no bleed" miced drum tone every day of the week. No stick hits on the mics either, they are up and out of the way.

When you record drums and listen back, you can reconcile what it sounds like onstage compared to how your drums sound in the audience. This helps to understand what it should sound like onstage to get a good drum tone in the audience. It usually sounds ringier and "worse" onstage, but when you know it sounds good in the audience (by listening to your recordings) you learn to accept it. And after a while, you will prefer a wide open drum with all the glorious overtones over a muffled drum that sounds constipated... at least that's what happened to me.
 
FWIW, I like a nonmuffled medium high tuned set for unmiced playing. It just sounds better than muffling the drums...out in the audience. I also like a non muffled set under mics, but the mics have to all be backed off a few feet, no close micing. I don't know why this is such an issue with sound guys, no muffling? As long as the drums are tuned well, all a sound person has to do is back off the mics. For live miced drums, I prefer a natural open ambient drum sound over a sterile closed muffled "no bleed" miced drum tone every day of the week. No stick hits on the mics either, they are up and out of the way

At a large local club I used to play frequently (sadly out of business) the sound man used 1 overhead and a bass drum mic to reinforce the kit. The drums always sounded great there; mine, and every other drummer I saw there. I agree with you, and have no idea why this practice isn't more popular.
 
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Sometimes it's feedback, but not every soundguy knows their craft and work for the situation, they often just do things the one way they were taught or are used to without thinking. The idea of using their ears and doing what works whatever that might be doesn't exist in their tiny minds. That it either works/sounds good or doesn't.

This concept is not limited to soundmen, though.

The only thing that really doesn't translate through the overheads is the bass drum and that's both about frequency, direction and that bottom end and attack we expect in most modern situations. As with anything else in a small or very live room it's often just about reinforcing what's already there acoustically, a little help or get some more definition or just a bit of spread.
 
It's not just the way the drum sounds either. A great sounding kit can still be played too loud, used innappropriately, or otherwise made to detract from the music if the player isn't sensitive to what's is needed by the music, or is inexperienced in knowing what is needed, or totally is in their own world and missing everything.

By the same token, a great player on a badly tuned set can make that bad sounding set sound great within the context of the song. Always, it's the player not the drum.

Right on Larry !


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Badly tuned drums are going to sound like badly tuned drums---I don't care who is playing them. I like my drums wide open---PS-3 bass batter is the only muffling I use. I tune them for the audience, and leave them that way even when practicing alone, and just toss on a set of Evans E-rings.
 
Every drummer, especially new ones, should be required to read this thread. Judging one's drum sound by what one hears from behind the kit has totally wrecked many drummer's tuning/muffling abilities. It took me twenty years of playing before I finally realized the disparity in sound from behind the kit vs. the audience perspective. And the 1970's trend toward dead-sounding drums only aggravated the problem.

When I was still working in MI retail, I used to urge my buyers (whether it be a new kit or new heads) to listen to me play the kit from across the room. The results were always a clear revelation to the customers - even those who had been playing for 40-50 years.

I always strove to keep at least one kit on the floor with good heads tuned to proper intervals - and zero damping. One day a drummer for the Memphis (I think) Symphony walked in and tapped gingerly on a new set of Mapex Saturns that I'd set up. He smiled to his wife, then sat down to play with a broad grin on his face.

I asked him if he liked the kit, and he replied, "Not particularly, but I love the tuning! This is the first music store I've ever been in that had a kit on display that was tuned right. I'm a stickler when it comes to tuning." By the way, the man could play!

I tell this story not to brag or boast of my tuning abilities. It's not hard to do - even a near-moron like me can do it. All it takes is listening - and realizing that the audience is hearing something totally different than the drummer. Once I have my kit tuned to the ranges that my experience has taught me, I always submit the kit to the final judgement - by sitting in the audience and having somebody else play them!

Thanks to Frank for kicking off this vital discussion.

GeeDeeEmm
 
Well, does anyone wanna buy some hyd heads? Crikey, the toms sounded so much better I switched the kick, too! VERY much improved, IMO. Now they sound like drums! But, I haven't heard them from across the room yet...

I have tone rings and one piece of moongel on them.
 
Well, does anyone wanna buy some hyd heads? Crikey, the toms sounded so much better I switched the kick, too! VERY much improved, IMO. Now they sound like drums! But, I haven't heard them from across the room yet...

I have tone rings and one piece of moongel on them.

Super! Congratulations, you have just graduated from drum school 101.

My drums are always tuned for maximum tone and ringing. But I always carry dampening rings in my cymbal case. Just in case the drums are too loud and ringing for the music or venue.


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Very good point!!

And, for at least a thousand years stringed instruments have been played all over the world. They were even played along with acoustic drums.
Nobody was wearing ear protection. Then "some fool" decided to electronically amplify the guitar.
(I'm sure guitar players think it was only fair because drums were always louder than the unamplified stringed instruments.)


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Yea but in a way that kind of made stringed instruments more percussive. Amplifying a guitar or bass and using a lot of gain and effects usually makes guitars have more punch and attack. Really everyone is just trying to keep up with drums by this point. I mean look at how drums have evolved in music over the past hundred years, and even today drum and bass music dominate the industry

Or maybe I'm just making myself feel better for picking the drums as a kid...
 
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