ColdFusion
Active Member
My budget doesn't permit me to buy gear as often as I'd like, but I always have enough to get the little upgrades that I need, as I need them.
Sometimes I come to a crossroad where I absolutely must get a certain piece of gear to continue the journey. When my stylistic journeys finally brought me to the realm of metalcore I knew I had to upgrade a few things.
The first thing I had to do was get a bass trigger for my V-Drums that was big enough it could accommodate some wide-set beaters. My current double pedal was old and wobbly, and not very photogenic for videos. So the first thing I did was get a larger size Roland bass trigger (KD-85) and a decent Pearl Redline double kick pedal to go with it.
I don't mind buying things gently used, and so I got the kick pad from Japan, and the Redline from France! (Ebay and Reverb, no issues)
Pearl Redline & KD-85
My acoustic drum kit also needed a bit of "heavy metal treatment". The one snare drum on my acoustic kit was a basic Pearl Masters "all maple" I bought ten years ago at Guitar Center. It's a nice warm drum, with decent sensitivity for jazzy snare work. It also cuts and rings well enough for funk and hiphop stuff.
But one thing I learned very quickly recording metalcore music on my V-kit, the snare drum sound has to be extra bold and cutting even just to hold its own in a chugging distorted heavy metal mix.
Even on my V-kit where I have some control to shape the snare drum sound, there are only two voices I dare use for heavy metal, the rest just get swallowed up and drowned out, even just by the sound of the persistent double bass kicks. Let alone chugging rhythm guitar and screaming guttural vocals.
So with this in mind I decided to go with a metal-shell snare drum for my acoustic kit. I figured steel would do the trick, given that I'm not expecting this drum to be terribly versatile, and I need something I know will have significant cutting power. But I ended up going with a brass Sensitone "Heritage" snare from Pearl, just in case a steel one might be "too hot/rude" for a starting place. My new snare arrived today and I can already tell that it's going to be a pretty good fit.
It doesn't sound like I "want" it to sound. Of course the sound in my head was unrealistically polished and probably more versatile than I can expect from a basic brass drum. However, when playing metalcore style beats, with chopping trash stack and thundering double kick, yessir the brass snare has a "throat" to it that I can feel cutting through the mix. It's not as cutting or even as "ringing" as I hoped it would be, but boy it's got something extra that the maple snare just doesn't have. It's like an internal explosive "pop" whenever I dig deep into the brass drum. This is exactly the kind of characteristic needed to make the snare drum feel authoritative in a metal mix.
Definitely the maple snare is more sensitive for ghosting and such. The ghost notes on the brass drum are present, but sound more "lo-fi" like there's just less information in the sound. Whereas the maple drum really kind of shines with delicate, fast, silky notes, the brass just kind of 'coughs', lol. To be fair, I haven't had time to explore the actual range of this new drum. This is just my impression from a quick tightening of the heads and some thoughtful groove experiments.
So now that I know what the brass sounds like, I think I can confidently pick up a Heritage steel snare and be able to use it happily, just for those moments when I need some serious cutting metal. FWIW, I got the Sensitone brass drum from ProAudioStar. They do indeed sell brand new items in a factory box, at "used" prices. So +1 for that company if you need a discount but all the used reverb stuff is scuffed and overpriced.
Pearl Sensitone Heritage Brass
And finally, some further treatment to make my acoustic kit sound more metalcore. I bought a pair of hard wood bass beaters, and if that's not enough to get the thing clicking, I got a set of kicker stickers to add articulation to my double bass licks. The one in the photo has a plastic-like disc in the strike zone. And there's another one I ordered that uses aluminum, for a really really clicky kick.
Kick Drum Kit by Danmar
Sometimes I come to a crossroad where I absolutely must get a certain piece of gear to continue the journey. When my stylistic journeys finally brought me to the realm of metalcore I knew I had to upgrade a few things.
The first thing I had to do was get a bass trigger for my V-Drums that was big enough it could accommodate some wide-set beaters. My current double pedal was old and wobbly, and not very photogenic for videos. So the first thing I did was get a larger size Roland bass trigger (KD-85) and a decent Pearl Redline double kick pedal to go with it.
I don't mind buying things gently used, and so I got the kick pad from Japan, and the Redline from France! (Ebay and Reverb, no issues)
Pearl Redline & KD-85
My acoustic drum kit also needed a bit of "heavy metal treatment". The one snare drum on my acoustic kit was a basic Pearl Masters "all maple" I bought ten years ago at Guitar Center. It's a nice warm drum, with decent sensitivity for jazzy snare work. It also cuts and rings well enough for funk and hiphop stuff.
But one thing I learned very quickly recording metalcore music on my V-kit, the snare drum sound has to be extra bold and cutting even just to hold its own in a chugging distorted heavy metal mix.
Even on my V-kit where I have some control to shape the snare drum sound, there are only two voices I dare use for heavy metal, the rest just get swallowed up and drowned out, even just by the sound of the persistent double bass kicks. Let alone chugging rhythm guitar and screaming guttural vocals.
So with this in mind I decided to go with a metal-shell snare drum for my acoustic kit. I figured steel would do the trick, given that I'm not expecting this drum to be terribly versatile, and I need something I know will have significant cutting power. But I ended up going with a brass Sensitone "Heritage" snare from Pearl, just in case a steel one might be "too hot/rude" for a starting place. My new snare arrived today and I can already tell that it's going to be a pretty good fit.
It doesn't sound like I "want" it to sound. Of course the sound in my head was unrealistically polished and probably more versatile than I can expect from a basic brass drum. However, when playing metalcore style beats, with chopping trash stack and thundering double kick, yessir the brass snare has a "throat" to it that I can feel cutting through the mix. It's not as cutting or even as "ringing" as I hoped it would be, but boy it's got something extra that the maple snare just doesn't have. It's like an internal explosive "pop" whenever I dig deep into the brass drum. This is exactly the kind of characteristic needed to make the snare drum feel authoritative in a metal mix.
Definitely the maple snare is more sensitive for ghosting and such. The ghost notes on the brass drum are present, but sound more "lo-fi" like there's just less information in the sound. Whereas the maple drum really kind of shines with delicate, fast, silky notes, the brass just kind of 'coughs', lol. To be fair, I haven't had time to explore the actual range of this new drum. This is just my impression from a quick tightening of the heads and some thoughtful groove experiments.
So now that I know what the brass sounds like, I think I can confidently pick up a Heritage steel snare and be able to use it happily, just for those moments when I need some serious cutting metal. FWIW, I got the Sensitone brass drum from ProAudioStar. They do indeed sell brand new items in a factory box, at "used" prices. So +1 for that company if you need a discount but all the used reverb stuff is scuffed and overpriced.
Pearl Sensitone Heritage Brass
And finally, some further treatment to make my acoustic kit sound more metalcore. I bought a pair of hard wood bass beaters, and if that's not enough to get the thing clicking, I got a set of kicker stickers to add articulation to my double bass licks. The one in the photo has a plastic-like disc in the strike zone. And there's another one I ordered that uses aluminum, for a really really clicky kick.
Kick Drum Kit by Danmar
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