How to Make Your Drums Sound Great: Killer Kick Drums

foreign [Music] [Music] foreign greetings everybody Nick D virgilio here and this video series is called how to make your drums sound great and we're going to concentrate on this video with the kick drum there's many many ways to make your kick drum sound great the first way is the kit that you're actually playing that's going to determine what your drum sounds like what the shell is made out of is it a maple drum is it a birch drum is it a mahogany drum what size is the drum 24 26 22 like I have here 20 18 there's so many varieties of Kick Drum but what I want to show you here today could be pretty much Universal especially if you play rock pop Funk gospel anything like that the drum sound will work for those one sound it might not work for it could but it might not is if you if you're a total jazzer a Bebop player you're going to want something different a smaller drum with a head on the front that does not have a hole nothing inside no dampening tuned up really high that's a more typical Jazz sound before we get into messing around with the kick drum let me tell you about what I'm playing on here today this is a Ludwig element Evolution Kit it it's a poplar drum kit and a great intermediate all-in-one drum kit if you're a beginner and you're going to step up to a new level of drum set definitely check out this drum kit talk to your Sweetwater sales engineer there's a lot going on for this kit you get everything you need in the Box all the way down to your drumsticks nice suspension system on the toms great edges nice heads right out of the box you have a great sounding drum kit right from the right from the get-go but drums do really well with different head combinations so I always encourage you to use the head you get right out of the box and then find the heads that are your favorite and just dial in the drum sound that way the kick drum is a 22 by 16 and we're going to use the stock heads for today's video but what I want to do is take off the toms and grab the kick drum and bring it over the table and show you how I tune a kick drum let's go well here you go kickstrom's right here on the table a couple things to point out the front head has a hole in it I had an extra head here at the Sweetwater video studio and I prefer to play Kick Drum when there's a hole in the front head when you get the drum out of the box the heads they give you do not have a hole cut so it's easy to cut a hole but you can also put the head on there without the hole cut and play the drum that way the sound you'll get out of the drum with no hole in the front head is more open more sustained and one thing you need to be careful of when you tune a bigger drum like this with both heads on that don't have a hole sometimes you might get that sort of basketball sound out of the kick drum we that's not the sound we want out of a kick drum you want something thuddy big sustain is good roundness is good but that kind of hollow sound is what we want to avoid you can avoid that quite easily by putting the hole in the front head that also lets the air travel through the drum once in the when the beater hits the head in the front the air blows through it and that's a good thing it gives you that kind of punch especially for rock pop country music anything like that gospel funk music it's good for that kind of stuff right now there's no dampening inside I'll show you what I did for dampening in just a minute but what I want to show you is how to tune the kick drum it's very similar to the other videos in this series The Snare and the Tom I tuned the drum the exactly same way so I'm going to tilt the drum over I'll show you what I do we're gonna start with the front head the head with the hole in it right now all the tensured rods are totally loose so what you want to do is just finger tighten them just get them snug get the head centered how you want it so the logo is right in between the two lugs on the top that kind of stuff and since there's a hole in this front head we're not going to worry about tone As Much from the front head because the air is going through if you had the hole not there you would worry about tone a lot more then we're going to take our drum key and dial it in from there so that's what I got so far logo of the heads right there in the center and I'm ready to go one more thing to mention this particular head has the hole right in the center that's great you'll see a lot of holes and kick drum heads where the hole is off center usually off to the left or the right that's great too a good thing about that is you have more space for stuff on your kick drum head especially if you're in a band you want to paint the logo on the front head putting the hole off center just gives you more real estate to work with this way is good because it's just right there in the center there really is no right or wrong and how you put the hole in the head except if you put it too low and you can't get the microphone in so just make sure you don't put it too low or close to the edge Center off center is totally fine so like with the other videos The Snare and the Tom videos I want to just take the ripples out of this head if I push down on the center you can definitely see the ripples in the head right so a few turns on each tension rod should get those ripples out so push down on the head like a full turn maybe a turn and a half on each lug so they're not too loose anymore just go till the ripples are gone and really that's about it if I push back down on this I see a couple little tiny ones I'll make those tweaks right now but we're really close and again you just want a nice flat head that's touching the edges evenly all the way around the shell I also want to point out as I'm doing this right now for you here this is the way I tune the drums there's a million ways to tune drums and there's lots of theories on how to tune drums this works for me all the time it's simple it's not too scientific but it really gives you a nice good sound out of your drums whether it's Toms snares or kick drum and it's simple just get rid of the bubbles get rid of the wrinkles and you're really close just like that now if I tap on this front head with the mallet you hear a little bit of low end that's cool that's what I'm looking for now let's get on to the batter side same thing here I'm going to finger tighten all of the lugs all the tension rods I should say get them started then we'll take the wrinkles out and we'll be well on our way to a great kick drum sound all right there you go press down on the center tighten away push down on the head I see a little wrinkle over here on my left not too much on my right it's pretty close the reason I like tuning like this is that it's it's easier not to think too much about it there's some great accessories out there in the world where you can get the tension at each lug dial it in you can see the number there those all work fine there's nothing wrong with any of those pieces of gear I've just been doing tuning like this since I was I don't know 10 12 years old and it works all the time let's see looking pretty good now if I take the Mallet just sort of lightly hit the head let's see what it sounds like [Music] all the lugs are pretty even all the way around foreign now what I want to do is take it back over to the drum set set it back up and I want to first hit the kick drum without any of the dampening on the inside usually when we're playing rock and roll any style of music like that we put some sort of pillow some sort of dampening on the inside which I will definitely do but I want you to hear it without the dampening and then with the dampenings so let's do it okay as you can tell the kit is set up again there's no dampening on the inside of the kick drum let's hear what it sounds like with the snare wires off first here we go [Music] from my vantage point behind the kit it's punchy definitely has low end and it feels pretty good now I'm going to definitely want to put something on the inside because I'll get a little more low end element out of the sound once I put the dampening in there but right now it feels and sounds pretty good let's put the snare wires on and I'll play a little Groove so you can kind of hear it in context here we go [Music] foreign [Music] I get a great rock and roll Vibe instantly by just hearing this tone it's wide open it's got a little bit sustained and it sounds really musical now head combinations for the kick drum are just as important as head combinations for your Toms and snare the head you get here stock with the Evolution Kit is a single ply head with a re-ring around the outside of the head think of it as sort of like a power stroke style drum head but if you've got a thicker head of two ply head a coated head all kinds of different heads will definitely change the sound and give you a different vibe and feel so again I encourage you use the stock head and then find your favorite head to put on your Kick Drum all that being said let's put something on the inside and kind of dial in that low end study rock and roll sound now I have a couple of things here I have two accessories here this is just like a typical pillow it's made for kick drums has a little bit of Velcro on the bottom and it's not too thick one thing I want to suggest is don't don't grab your pillow that you sleep on in bed and put that inside your Kick Drum because you don't want to overdo it we're looking to dampen the drum not completely kill the sound and the tone of the drum so this is doing a good job then I also have one of these Evans EQ pillows which just the front of it leans on the front the batter or the result head the rest lays on the bottom you can lay a microphone on this part of the of the pillow if you want it's a really cool accessory I'm going to use a little bit of both give me a second to put them on the inside I'll be right back with you I put the pillow on the inside of the drum and it's just laying along the bottom of the shell the round part of the bottom of the shell and lightly touching the head I don't have it stuffed up against the head too much it's just touching to kind of dampen that front head a little bit here's what it sounds like with the snare wires off [Music] Punchy and round and there's a fatness that came just by dampening the head that little bit [Music] yeah that sounded good from here from my vantage point let's put the snare wires on and do it again [Music] [Music] right there I have a pretty great sounding Kick Drum and I didn't even do that much a little bit of tuning and a little bit of dampening on the inside now I'm going to take the Evans EQ pillow and put it on the inside of the drum and I'm going to let this front part just touch the resonance side a little bit and let's see what that does to the sound okay now that EQ pillow is just touching the resonant head let's see what this sounds like first with the snare wires off here we go [Music] to my ear it's a little maybe too dead but let's put the snare wires on and compare here we go [Music] it's punchy and round but again I think it's a little bit too dead so I'm going to take that EQ pillow out and just use the regular pillow on the batter side and that's what you're going to have to do when you're at home with your own Kick Drum do the tuning like I showed you earlier get all the wrinkles out get in a nice spot hit it with a mallet or a stick and kind of see what it sounds like when it's by itself away from the kit and then when you get it to your kit start and just do layers start with nothing in it and then a little bit and then a little bit and before you know it you'll dial in your exact sound because it's your kit you want to dial in a great sound for your drum set and what you like and what I'm doing right here is pretty much Universal you can do with any drum kit all right we're back to just the one pillow in there I'm gonna play a little bit and then we'll talk some more here we go [Music] foreign [Music] yes low end punch and great vibe from the player's perspective that's really what else can you ask for from your Kick Drum you wanted to deliver the low end the punch it's going to play together with the bass guitar and all the low end in the band well so it's pretty simple everybody a little bit of tuning a nice drum head a little bit of dampening and you will get yourself a great drum sound thanks so much for hanging out with me I hope you found this video useful and just experiment and you'll have a great time keep playing music drums are so much fun they're so energetic and when it sounds great you play better you get more Vibe more inspiration and I'm inspired right now so thanks again for watching and we'll see you again next time here we go foreign [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Sweetwater

Views: 47,848

Keywords: Sweetwater, Drums, Guide, Nick D’Virgilio

Id: -yyHNkcL9CM

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023