Yamaha People- Pre-YESS tom mounting question

[wraub]

How, if at all, does the length of the mounting rod affect the sound of the drum?

I have Yamaha drums with Pre-YESS mounts, and I have mounting arms with different length rods.
If you have tried both, what (if anything) happened to the sound? And, if anything, was it enough to make a difference in a recording situation?

Thanks.

 

[Mr. Compactness]

Bob Gatzen, I believe, has a video that he did years ago where he demonstrates that how far the rod penetrates the drum does make a difference in resonance.

 

[C.M. Jones]

I'm not a Yamaha guy, but I've never found any mounting system to be problematic live or in the studio. I've played my 12" tom in snare stand for many years now. Some claim that a snare stand has a choking effect on resonance, but it's never caused me the slightest trouble. I'm not suggesting that mounting options are irrelevant -- just that they aren't worth losing sleep over. At the end of the day, it's all about playing, not about how you hang your toms.

 

[wraub]

Yes, I definitely agree. It was more a question of lazy curiosity, to be honest... I have both types of tom arms (plus another older Premier-made Yamaha tom mount) and was curious if they had any different affect on the sound of the drums, but was too lazy to move all the pieces around.

I have to move the drums soon to make room for some home maintenance, I may do it then.
Until that, I thought I'd ask the more knowledgeable.

I'm not a Yamaha guy, but I've never found any mounting system to be problematic live or in the studio. I've played my 12" tom in snare stand for many years now. Some claim that a snare stand has a choking effect on resonance, but it's never caused me the slightest trouble. I'm not suggesting that mounting options are irrelevant -- just that they aren't worth losing sleep over. At the end of the day, it's all about playing, not about how you hang your toms.

 

[DrumDoug]

The further the tom arm goes into the drum the more it interferes with the sound waves moving in the drum and the more it chokes the sound. I haven’t tried it with a Yamaha arm, but I have experimented with Pearl. When I put the tom arm only inside the mount and kept it from entering the shell, the drum resonated a lot more and had more bottom end. It was a trick a Pearl rep told me about when he played at our church.

 

[MusiQmaN]

Always go for the shorter yess arm if you want full sustain when recording.

If you want options, go with the longer one.

If you mute your toms by choice with heads or other items, go with the longer one instead and put it all the way through.

 

[Old PIT Guy]

People have talked about this for some time, and while I've noticed a variance in resonance depending upon where a Yamaha drum is tightened on its mount rod, I tend to think it has something to do with how close the drum is to the rest of the mounting hardware. In the case of Yamaha, this would be the clamp and ball mechanism.

I've never been able to visualize a skinny rod inside a drum choking it to such an extent as I've heard on occasion. I'm not a physics person, but perhaps when the drum is closer to the end of the rod there's more movement and vibration of the drum allowed, where as when you cinch it up closer to the bulk introduced by the rest of the mounting system, and whatever its ground is, BD or floor stand, there's less movement and vibration of the drum allowed.

Just a thought.

 

[Yamaha Rider]

Could I hijack your thread a tad to ask what is the prevailing opinion on Yamaha's stand mounted 'floor toms'?
I have one on my 90s Stage Custom and it seems awfully ungainly and unstable.
Wouldn't legs be better?

 

[Yamaha Rider]

The further the tom arm goes into the drum the more it interferes with the sound waves moving in the drum and the more it chokes the sound. I haven’t tried it with a Yamaha arm, but I have experimented with Pearl. When I put the tom arm only inside the mount and kept it from entering the shell, the drum resonated a lot more and had more bottom end. It was a trick a Pearl rep told me about when he played at our church.

Isn't it more likely that the longer arm allows a better reso frequency than the rod killing reso when inside the shell?

 

[Living Dead Drummer]

My 80's RC's had really long rods that go directly into the shell. I did notice in recording situations that the Tom's sounded bit deader. I switched them out to shorter, modern, Tom arms that would stick into the shell a lot less and it def opened up the sound more, much to my liking.

 

[wraub]

Hijack away.

My "floor tom" is a hanging one, a 16x14 Beech Custom, but it's YESS mounted, and it's very stable and somewhat gainly.
Better is subjective but I see no need, and have no desire, to change anything.

Could I hijack your thread a tad to ask what is the prevailing opinion on Yamaha's stand mounted 'floor toms'?
I have one on my 90s Stage Custom and it seems awfully ungainly and unstable.
Wouldn't legs be better?

 

[Yamaha Rider]

Hijack away.

My "floor tom" is a hanging one, a 16x14 Beech Custom, but it's YESS mounted, and it's very stable and somewhat gainly.
Better is subjective but I see no need, and have no desire, to change anything.

Gainly is good.
I was a little disgruntled, but now I'm reasonably gruntled.
(It's mounted on a ridiculousy spindly stand, so I'll get that replaced) ☺

 

[wraub]

Gruntled isn't bad.

My hanging tom uses the standard shorter-arm Yamaha mount in the bottom half of a Yamaha CS755 stand. Periodically, when cleaning the drums or changing heads I will check the YESS mount hardware on the drum to make sure all is tightly secured.
I see some videos where hanging low toms wiggle around a bit when struck, but mine doesn't move much at all.

Conveniently, the top part of the stand is in the mount on the bass drum, holding a splash cymbal.

Gainly is good.
I was a little disgruntled, but now I'm reasonably gruntled.
(It's mounted on a ridiculousy spindly stand, so I'll get that replaced) ☺

 

[wraub]

I did the switch of tom arms the other day, replacing the longer arms with shorter ones.
I definitely noticed a change for the better, the drums imo have more clarity are resonance and less unwanted harmonic content.

My guess is that the longer tom arm resonates at a lower pitch which interfered with the way the drums were setup and the shorter arm's likely higher resonant frequency interferes less. Kind of like a dead spot on a guitar or bass neck, which can be alleviated by changing the mass of the neck with weights, different tuners, etc. I don't know if different heads or wildly different tunings would make any difference, but I will update as changes are made.

Either way, it's a definite change, and for me it is for the better. Ymmv and whatnot.