5 Ways To Get Your Drums To Sound Great

are you tired of your drums I don't like the boxes that they were shipped in during playback oh let's fix that hey great recording starts with a great sounding instrument the first part of the chain it's also good to know that what our ears here is completely different than what the mic hears so tuning is a good start you'll kind of get in the ballpark but then it's a good idea to check your work by actually recording it listening back seeing what you got making adjustments from there sometimes it sounds good to your ear bad on tape sometimes it sounds bad to your ear great on tape sometimes it sounds bad to your ear and bad on tape but it sounds great in a mix so it's a good idea to check what it actually sounds like even if it sounds good to check it in the mix with the song that you're working with because if you have to do it all over again after you track this amazing you know drum performance that would be a little frustrating so it's a good idea to check all scenarios before you actually track your song it'll save you a lot of time and heartache so we're going to go over five different areas to consider outside of shell material and shell thickness that'll have a massive impact on the sound that you can expect to get from your drums the five areas are the bearing Edge hoops and Hardware the drum heads the mounting system and last but not least tuning first up bearing edges got the 45 degree lots of warmth attack and a long sustain then the 45 degree dual cut warmth attack and controlled sustain 45 degree rounded attack projection and punch 60 degree bearing edge attack punch and a very quick Decay and then the fully rounded bearing Edge great low end punch and subdued sustain next up Hoops so when it comes to Hoops there are a ton of different options I personally love the triple flange 1.6 millimeter they're a little lighter than the common found 2.3 2.3 millimeters I went into an accident and I don't know where it came from let's just move on so the 2.3 millimeter hoop is the common one from today it's uh it focuses the note just a little bit more doesn't allow it to breathe as much as of 1.6 millimeter I go for the 1.6 millimeters because it allows it to breathe a little bit more more and resonate and I love it for the studio so going actually sticking with flash Hoops you have the triple flange double flange single flange and no flange and just consider this the lighter the hoop the more the drum is allowed to breathe and resonate so if you're looking for maximum resonance a no flange hoop is going to be your go-to keep in mind they're going to need the clips and they are something that you're going to have to kind of work around even though it's just a little tiny guy there just clipping on kind of like a bass drum it's it can be a little distracting at first but then you gotta get used to it so looking for resonance single flange or no flange through double flange and if you're cool with the triple flange 1.6 millimeter is phenomenal going in the opposite direction would be the Die Cast hoops and the wood Hoops so Die Cast Hoops Focus the note quite a bit they restrict any kind of movement from the drum head tuning can be a little bit of a thing learning how to do it uh going from triple flange to a die cast tube it's different little tiny increments make a big difference so uh just keep that in mind and if you really want to focus your note I would go for a wood hoop a wood and there's that X saying I don't know where's it coming from so go for a wood hoop it's going to really focus and it's going to make your drum project like crazy so there you go the other part of this would be Hardware so it has nothing to do with Hoops but I did group these into the same deal so the hardware that's attached to the drum the weight of the hardware and how much if you have the long lugs or you know heavier lugs it does tend to add a little uh less resonance to your drum and a little less it's weird yeah focus on that for a second so anyway um with the exception so it's kind of an odd thing that adding weight to Hardware does to a drum it's a weird thing Yamaha did this thing where they added weight to the lugs inside the bass drum and it brought the low end out it focused it and it made it a lot lower so that's an interesting thing maybe we can do that and try that with uh some Toms and see what happens that would be in a later video so okay so the next part that we're gonna talk about would be the drum heads so when it comes to drum heads the general rule keep this short and sweet single ply resonance two-ply attack a lot of people like to combo platter the deal and put two ply on top single ply on bottom it gives them the attack and resonance at the same time it focuses the resonance a little bit because of the two ply on top but there you go that's a great combo it's worked for thousands of musicians around the world and it works great for especially for like a rock sound if you're into like a jazzier sound or even a just a bigger airier sound with warmth two ply top and bottom especially Autumn especially if you go coated but if you happen to want a little bit more attack and you still want to go with single ply single ply clear is going to be your go-to all right so now we're going to move on to the next subject which would be the mounting hardware mounting hardware okay so there are three different types of situations here you can mount the hardware directly to the Shell and there's pros and cons there suspension systems which attach to the tension rods which eliminates any kind of tension on the shell allowing the drum to breathe and resonate more and then there's the time honor tradition of placing your Tom on a snare stand let's go over all three of these so back to the mounting the hardware directly to the Shell that's damaging to the drum not good uh and it causes tension on the shell and it can cause the shell to go out of ground there are however uh you know companies now that that have found the spot to place that Hardware that isn't nearly as damage as damaging as say in the 80s or 70s when they were just now let's just put it here they've actually figured out okay it's best to put it here and so you barely notice any uh reduction in resonance and it doesn't damage the shell so beautiful suspension systems uh attach like I said to the tension rods and there's so many different companies out there doing this now and so many different types where they attach to maybe like Pearl I believe does it attaches to the top and bottom and it holds it really well I forgot the name of it anyway it's great there's a rims Mount the original Tama has it where it's going directly through the hoop which is pretty fantastic uh then there's what I don't know the snare stand let's go over that a lot of people think that it's just instantly going to kill all the resonance not true unless you're using the heavy duty cranking it down with nothing in between the hoop and the basket so with those three things in mind if you use a lighter stand that's offset that where the basket is off step offset and you place rubber uh I don't know feet or whatever not feet but a place for the drum to make contact with the stand so it's actually sitting on rubber and I'm talking about that thick rubber that you find on practice pads it works it works great check it out it's uh it's where your drum is going to sound actually even better than it does with a suspension system totally possible so check that out next subject is tuning finger foreign [Music] so I'm working with those key here that actually can you see that top part makes it to where it's easy to do finger tight because I have these uh Atlas mounts on here it makes it difficult to actually get in there and do the finger type thing and that's how I like to start a tuning session is getting everything finger tight and this key allows me to do that but if you don't have a key like this you just use your fingers and hopefully you don't have something like that but if you do just get it snug but not start actually tuning so here we go this is what I do for any recording session um which I'm actually doing today right after this I've got a rock tune that I'm working on and I want to go with some resonance but keep it low so that's what I'm going to go for and we'll see if I can get there the way I do it is I start on the left lug to my left your right so it's this one and I do that just so I have a starting point and nowhere to end so if I start here I usually do a star pattern and I start with small increments I usually start with quarter turns and then go up diagonally here you go and then that's when the star pattern starts I don't know if it's actually technically a star but it kind of looks like one and a quarter turn then go up and diagonal and that's one turn so I start here again but I want to check to see where we're at with just a quarter turn because it might be enough [Music] and these two sound a little low so I'm going to just give it a little tweak and see where we're at [Music] number two [Music] it's still a little low beautiful that might be enough that actually might be perfect so we'll see what it sounds like recording then I do the opposite side some people like to tune their drums and tops to one pitch and then the resonant side they like to tune Higher by Major third some people choose a perfect fourth and you can use a pitch pipe if you want to do those type of things or a keyboard you have to get your music theory on I prefer to tune to the same pitch it's just something I've done for most of my life but there are times when I do use the major third or perfect fourth it just sounds incredible especially if your nurse in a different type of room that you've never been in and your drums normally sound good in your room and then you take them to a like a club or um concert venue or whatever and all of a sudden there's no life in it and so you wonder what is going on it's tuning and so start experimenting there because sometimes when you tune these guys up what it will do is uh do it like a pitch Bend and it actually focuses the note a little bit too which is kind of nice especially live so the drums aren't resonating all over the place uh so there are situations where I do that but in the studio I really prefer the uh both of the batter and resonant side to be tuned to the same pitch which is what I'm going to do right now so let's try that again I'm going to do the finger tight thing foreign [Music] and then hopefully tune this to the same pitch just as easily as I did the first time diagonal and then over here star pattern diagonal that sounds a little higher [Music] too I'm a little high take them down just a little bit [Music] see and then what I do is I mute one side and tap the other to hear the note it's the resonant side and that is the batter side so I think the batter or the resonant side excuse me is higher and it's starting let's see just tiny bits okay I'm going to call that close enough now we want to check what it sounds like after it's been recorded because that's the only way we're going to know if it's okay [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so what'd you think uh I think it turned out pretty good I really actually enjoyed the way it blended with the other Toms and the other Toms are tuned the same way same pitch top and bottom and they all every drum I have has well every Tom I have they all have coded ambassadors on tops and bottoms and it just to me it sounds magical next week I'm going to be going over how to mic your Toms with a Sennheiser 421 actually all my Toms I have a 13 15 18 setup and Sennheiser 421s on all of them anyway thank you again for being here much appreciated and I'll see you next week alright bye [Music]

Channel: Recording Drums With Brad

Views: 943

Keywords: How To Record Drums, Drum Recording, Studio Tips for Drums, Tuning Drums, How To Tune Drums, Studio Drummer, Tama Superstar Drums, Paiste Cymbals, Apollo x8p, Sennheiser 421 on toms

Id: tNTgh-vUvQY

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Mon May 01 2023