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Saturday, August 15, 2009
Keeping an open mind
The world is brimming with musical philosophies and there are many approaches to learning. One of the goals of this is to help you get in touch with yourself and the way or ways you learn best. There’s no one right way to do things. Similarly, there’s no one wrong way either. Each person enters the musical arena with a different physiological and phychological makeup. Because of this, it’s important to to tailor your learning to best fit your needs.
Recognize that you’re an individual with unique strengths and weaknesses. However, don’t use this as an excuse to close off from the world around you, to rationalize mediocrity, or make excuses to avoid learning the essentials of music making. Instead, use your individuality as a springboard for honest and thoughtful musical exploration.
If you reject concepts and ideas that seem foreign or even in conflict with your own, you’ll never improve. Instead, you will spiral down a dark path toward stubborness and ignorance. Learning an instrument means that you must be an open receptacle for information and ideas. so, stay flexible, study the trails that have already been blazed, and need the advice of those who have more experience than you.
Recognize that you’re an individual with unique strengths and weaknesses. However, don’t use this as an excuse to close off from the world around you, to rationalize mediocrity, or make excuses to avoid learning the essentials of music making. Instead, use your individuality as a springboard for honest and thoughtful musical exploration.
If you reject concepts and ideas that seem foreign or even in conflict with your own, you’ll never improve. Instead, you will spiral down a dark path toward stubborness and ignorance. Learning an instrument means that you must be an open receptacle for information and ideas. so, stay flexible, study the trails that have already been blazed, and need the advice of those who have more experience than you.
Mental Preparation
Before you pick up the sticks, it’s important to cleanse your mind of any myths or other wrongheaded notions you may have about music. First of all, don’t worry about becoming the best drummer in the world. Instead, focus on your budding relationship with music, and begin difining some basic objectives.
Start by asking yourself these questions:
1. would i like to become a professional or am I only intersted in music as a hobby?
2. Is there a practical style of music that I would like to learn about?
3. If so, what?
4. Am I only interested in playing on a drum set or are there other percussion instruments I’d like to try?
5. How commited am I to regular practice?
What other questions might you have? It’s important that you begin developing a keen sense for music and drumming, and asking yourself questions will help you to become more focused. Keep in mind that you don’t need to have every question answered immedeately. All you need to do is start ruminating on them. Also, remember that your answers to many of these questions will change as the weeks, months, and years go by and your skills improve.
Question? Are you saying that spontaneity is bad? there’s nothing wrong with jamming or spontaneity. That’s not the point. Certainly, there’s an elemnt to music that is born of surpise: from experementation, mistakes, brusts of inspiration, and from just throwing caution to the wind and just whacking those drums.
each week , make a list of your musical goals and see how it evolves over time. When you play drums, or any instrument for that matter, you must first realize that everything you do must be deliberate and well concieved. Mindlessly failing away on your drum set does you no good. In other words, if you don’t think about what you’re doing, your playing will reflect it. Strong performances are mostly the result of training and mental discipline. You know you’re a solid player when you have the ability to play what you want to play, rather than what just happens to come out. So for now, just concentrate on being deliberate and thoughtful in your practice. In the end, your jamming (or improvising) will be better for it. Why? You’ll be in control, not your bad habits.
2. Is there a practical style of music that I would like to learn about?
3. If so, what?
4. Am I only interested in playing on a drum set or are there other percussion instruments I’d like to try?
5. How commited am I to regular practice?
What other questions might you have? It’s important that you begin developing a keen sense for music and drumming, and asking yourself questions will help you to become more focused. Keep in mind that you don’t need to have every question answered immedeately. All you need to do is start ruminating on them. Also, remember that your answers to many of these questions will change as the weeks, months, and years go by and your skills improve.
Question? Are you saying that spontaneity is bad? there’s nothing wrong with jamming or spontaneity. That’s not the point. Certainly, there’s an elemnt to music that is born of surpise: from experementation, mistakes, brusts of inspiration, and from just throwing caution to the wind and just whacking those drums.
each week , make a list of your musical goals and see how it evolves over time. When you play drums, or any instrument for that matter, you must first realize that everything you do must be deliberate and well concieved. Mindlessly failing away on your drum set does you no good. In other words, if you don’t think about what you’re doing, your playing will reflect it. Strong performances are mostly the result of training and mental discipline. You know you’re a solid player when you have the ability to play what you want to play, rather than what just happens to come out. So for now, just concentrate on being deliberate and thoughtful in your practice. In the end, your jamming (or improvising) will be better for it. Why? You’ll be in control, not your bad habits.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
All About Drums
YEaHHhhhh.... DruMminG HaRdd ... !!! RoCK Th3 CyMbALzZz EwAyyyyY !!
HaVe HiXz PLAce.. !! BuILd A FaSten DruMminG staMinA... !!
ThUs YOU CAN DRUM FAST
HaVe HiXz PLAce.. !! BuILd A FaSten DruMminG staMinA... !!
ThUs YOU CAN DRUM FAST
The Right Sound
If you have not played a drum kit before, the biggest question is how do you know if it sounds any good?
Drum kits in the flesh may not sound anything like your preconception. What you hear on recordings, television and live concerts can be very misleading. The drums have been processed through all sorts of studio and PA gear. In any case, drums sound quite different from a distance than they do when you’re sitting right on top of them, behind the kit. This is especially true when you’re playing on your own and the ring and resonance of the drums is not being absorbed by the sound of the other instruments.
It also hasn’t helped that for the last two decades drummers have regularly mimed on TV to tracks that have never been near a real drum kit nor seen a drumstick. They’ve been programmed on a computer, more often than not by a producer or keyboard player. The bottom line is this: drums ring and resonate a lot more in the flesh than you may imagine. This is perplexing for new drummers. I remember a young drummer telling me he’d just bought some new drums and they were ringing and how could he stop it?
He was genuinely surprised when I told him that was the whole idea. If his drums resonated a long time it probably meant they were good drums and the heads were fresh. Drummers still regularly plaster their top heads with horrid strips of sticky tape to get a more controlled and shorter sound, which is what they know from their CDs. If they could go into the studio and isolate their favourite drum tracks on the mixing desk they would probably be dumbfounded to hear just how much ringing and ambience were present.
The thing to appreciate is that the ringing overtones of a drum are mostly lost in the overall sound when a band plays. But that ambience and long decay is the way the drums project. If you muffle too much of it, your sound will be dry and dead and you won’t cut through. Out front you’ll perhaps hear some impact, but no body and tone. There will be times, when you use close miking, when you will need a bit of damping. We’ll talk about that later. But for now, don’t worry too much about your drums ringing.
Drum kits in the flesh may not sound anything like your preconception. What you hear on recordings, television and live concerts can be very misleading. The drums have been processed through all sorts of studio and PA gear. In any case, drums sound quite different from a distance than they do when you’re sitting right on top of them, behind the kit. This is especially true when you’re playing on your own and the ring and resonance of the drums is not being absorbed by the sound of the other instruments.
It also hasn’t helped that for the last two decades drummers have regularly mimed on TV to tracks that have never been near a real drum kit nor seen a drumstick. They’ve been programmed on a computer, more often than not by a producer or keyboard player. The bottom line is this: drums ring and resonate a lot more in the flesh than you may imagine. This is perplexing for new drummers. I remember a young drummer telling me he’d just bought some new drums and they were ringing and how could he stop it?
He was genuinely surprised when I told him that was the whole idea. If his drums resonated a long time it probably meant they were good drums and the heads were fresh. Drummers still regularly plaster their top heads with horrid strips of sticky tape to get a more controlled and shorter sound, which is what they know from their CDs. If they could go into the studio and isolate their favourite drum tracks on the mixing desk they would probably be dumbfounded to hear just how much ringing and ambience were present.
The thing to appreciate is that the ringing overtones of a drum are mostly lost in the overall sound when a band plays. But that ambience and long decay is the way the drums project. If you muffle too much of it, your sound will be dry and dead and you won’t cut through. Out front you’ll perhaps hear some impact, but no body and tone. There will be times, when you use close miking, when you will need a bit of damping. We’ll talk about that later. But for now, don’t worry too much about your drums ringing.
Sustainable Woods
The mention of real mahogany leads us to another question. How damaging is a drum making to the world’s shrinking rainforests? Whenever I’ve asked drum companies they have, of course, all said they only use hardwoods for their regular lines from sustainable, managed and replenishable stocks. They’re well aware of the problem.
But this is a hot political issue and despite n or because of - many hours looking around on the web I don’t feel qualified to make any binding judgments. There are surprising labyrinthine issues and arguments, which are far too abstruse and involved to explore here. Most people accept, however, that deforestation of old growth timbers is detrimental to the world’s eco-systems. Many species are under threat and some trees take hundreds of years to grow to maturity.
But is the world going to stop using hard wood products? It’s a similar dilemma we face every time we fill up the car with petrol. Are we suddenly going to stop driving? I don’t think so. Luckily the impact of the drum industry on timber resources is minute compared with that of the construction and furniture industries. But it’s still an issue that drummers might want to take time to consider. You can divide hardwoods into two categories. Those which are managed, replanted and harvested; and those from tropical forests, mainly in the Far East, Africa, Central and South America, etc, which are to a large extent irreplaceable. I think we’ve all heard something of the rain forest issues.
The managed forests, on the other hand, are mostly in the northern hemisphere and include relatively fast growing species like maple, birch and beech. These are what most high-end kits are made from. My guess is that if you buy a typical professional set made of maple or birch, etc, you’re on pretty safe ground. Phew! But what about the truly exotic woods which increasingly appear on mouthwateringly beautiful, limited edition drums? You may need to ask some searching questions of the manufacturers.
There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation, for instance that the wood is from trees which have fallen through natural causes, storms or earthquakes, or that the timber has been salvaged from ancient wooden buildings, etc. There are reputable timber companies that deal in small quantities of exotic timbers that have come through these relatively blameless routes. A good example is the Exotic Finish series from DW, which scours wood yards for rare, one-off logs that may have been lying around for decades.
And then there are DW’s Lake Superior Timeless Timber drums. These are veneered with timber made from logs that had been submerged at the bottom of Lake Superior for a century. The reason genuinely old timbers are so prized is that they come from ancient trees from deep in the forest, where there is little light and the growth rings are exceptionally densely packed. This means the wood is extra hard and resonant.
It is impossible to get that sort of wood from regularly harvested, sustainable, new growth forests. So modern hardwood drums, while being beautifully made and finished, lack that extra something that comes from truly old wood. And this, of course, is the argument for vintage wood shells. Drums from the 1920s and 1930s, for example, were made at a time when old growth timber was more readily available.
The longer you keep your modern kit though, the more wood will dry and increase in resonance. If you’ve got a well-made modern kit, just remember it will one day be a vintage kit too.
But this is a hot political issue and despite n or because of - many hours looking around on the web I don’t feel qualified to make any binding judgments. There are surprising labyrinthine issues and arguments, which are far too abstruse and involved to explore here. Most people accept, however, that deforestation of old growth timbers is detrimental to the world’s eco-systems. Many species are under threat and some trees take hundreds of years to grow to maturity.
But is the world going to stop using hard wood products? It’s a similar dilemma we face every time we fill up the car with petrol. Are we suddenly going to stop driving? I don’t think so. Luckily the impact of the drum industry on timber resources is minute compared with that of the construction and furniture industries. But it’s still an issue that drummers might want to take time to consider. You can divide hardwoods into two categories. Those which are managed, replanted and harvested; and those from tropical forests, mainly in the Far East, Africa, Central and South America, etc, which are to a large extent irreplaceable. I think we’ve all heard something of the rain forest issues.
The managed forests, on the other hand, are mostly in the northern hemisphere and include relatively fast growing species like maple, birch and beech. These are what most high-end kits are made from. My guess is that if you buy a typical professional set made of maple or birch, etc, you’re on pretty safe ground. Phew! But what about the truly exotic woods which increasingly appear on mouthwateringly beautiful, limited edition drums? You may need to ask some searching questions of the manufacturers.
There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation, for instance that the wood is from trees which have fallen through natural causes, storms or earthquakes, or that the timber has been salvaged from ancient wooden buildings, etc. There are reputable timber companies that deal in small quantities of exotic timbers that have come through these relatively blameless routes. A good example is the Exotic Finish series from DW, which scours wood yards for rare, one-off logs that may have been lying around for decades.
And then there are DW’s Lake Superior Timeless Timber drums. These are veneered with timber made from logs that had been submerged at the bottom of Lake Superior for a century. The reason genuinely old timbers are so prized is that they come from ancient trees from deep in the forest, where there is little light and the growth rings are exceptionally densely packed. This means the wood is extra hard and resonant.
It is impossible to get that sort of wood from regularly harvested, sustainable, new growth forests. So modern hardwood drums, while being beautifully made and finished, lack that extra something that comes from truly old wood. And this, of course, is the argument for vintage wood shells. Drums from the 1920s and 1930s, for example, were made at a time when old growth timber was more readily available.
The longer you keep your modern kit though, the more wood will dry and increase in resonance. If you’ve got a well-made modern kit, just remember it will one day be a vintage kit too.
Solid Drum Shells
Solid shells are today highly prized, but they are difficult and expensive to make and are usually reserved for snare drums. It’s most unusual for a complete drum kit to be made from solid timber, although at least one major company, Noble and Cooley, has offered a full range of solid sizes in the recent past. Another way of achieving what is almost a solid shell is via the ancient technique of stave construction. This is the same method used to make barrels n and some congas and bongos n where vertical sections of wood are joined into a circle.
This type of construction produces a shell that is free from the ewanting-to-straighten-out’ tension of bent wood. The Italian company Tamburo constructs complete kits in this manner, using maple and mahogany. The staves have interlocking zigzag cuts so that they slot together precisely. Each different diameter of drum requires the staves to be cut at a different angle, which means a large investment in special machinery. Tamburo drums are, however, left with multi-flat-faced exteriors.
Although this looks rather attractive it creates a problem with the bearing edge. Rather than sanding the edge into a round, Tamburo has chosen to attach a circular edge sleeve made from a tough black plastic material called ABS. This strengthens the shell but insulates the head from direct contact with the wood. Still, when I tried them, they certainly projected very well.
This type of construction produces a shell that is free from the ewanting-to-straighten-out’ tension of bent wood. The Italian company Tamburo constructs complete kits in this manner, using maple and mahogany. The staves have interlocking zigzag cuts so that they slot together precisely. Each different diameter of drum requires the staves to be cut at a different angle, which means a large investment in special machinery. Tamburo drums are, however, left with multi-flat-faced exteriors.
Although this looks rather attractive it creates a problem with the bearing edge. Rather than sanding the edge into a round, Tamburo has chosen to attach a circular edge sleeve made from a tough black plastic material called ABS. This strengthens the shell but insulates the head from direct contact with the wood. Still, when I tried them, they certainly projected very well.
Snare Drums
As for the snare drum, it always used to be the case that the snare drum was the weakest link in the beginner package. It would have a steel shell with an ugly internal vertical butt-weld and turned-over bearing edges that were ragged and did not inspire confidence in the overall quality of construction.
The steel would be thin, and the chroming poor so that the sound would be dark and ringy. These might strike you as admirable sonic properties for a tom tom but they’re not so hot for a snare drum. You generally want your snare drum to be high pitched and bright with a fastish decay: a sort of short, sharp, shock.
The bottom line is it’s probably impossible to make a really good metal-shelled snare drum at this sort of price. The most recent examples are better but will never be great. The trend in any case is towards including a matching wood-shelled snare drum. These are slightly less of a problem in as much as they are less ringy with fewer nasty overtones.
The steel would be thin, and the chroming poor so that the sound would be dark and ringy. These might strike you as admirable sonic properties for a tom tom but they’re not so hot for a snare drum. You generally want your snare drum to be high pitched and bright with a fastish decay: a sort of short, sharp, shock.
The bottom line is it’s probably impossible to make a really good metal-shelled snare drum at this sort of price. The most recent examples are better but will never be great. The trend in any case is towards including a matching wood-shelled snare drum. These are slightly less of a problem in as much as they are less ringy with fewer nasty overtones.
No-Shell Drums
The British inventor Marcus de Mowbray makes drums that are basically frames with a top and a bottom rim and head but with no shell in between n and they still sound remarkably like other drums. The diameter of the head and the distance between the top and bottom head seems to be enough to do the trick. Marcus also makes timpani with just a top head and no massive copper bowl. And they sound like timpani. Other drums, like Arbiter’s Flats and Remo’s Roto-toms, which have just top heads but no shells, also project loads of sound.
The sound, though, is more open and spread-out, which is perhaps what you’d expect. When it comes to normal, wood shelled drums, the size of drum, how it’s tuned and played and the type of head all have a bigger impact on the perceived sound than the shell itself. What the shell does though is to change the timbre slightly n it’s the icing on the cake for the high budget buyer. If you want proof that the shell affects the sound you only have to think of the difference in timbre between a steel shell and a wood shell snare drum.
Most drummers can hear such a difference very easily, though they might not always recognize it on a recording. Obviously the shell acts as a resonating chamber absorbing and reflecting, reducing and amplifying various frequencies n acting like a combination of amplifier and graphic equalizer n and so the sound is colored and altered in subtle ways. But never forget that the generating source is the head.
The sound, though, is more open and spread-out, which is perhaps what you’d expect. When it comes to normal, wood shelled drums, the size of drum, how it’s tuned and played and the type of head all have a bigger impact on the perceived sound than the shell itself. What the shell does though is to change the timbre slightly n it’s the icing on the cake for the high budget buyer. If you want proof that the shell affects the sound you only have to think of the difference in timbre between a steel shell and a wood shell snare drum.
Most drummers can hear such a difference very easily, though they might not always recognize it on a recording. Obviously the shell acts as a resonating chamber absorbing and reflecting, reducing and amplifying various frequencies n acting like a combination of amplifier and graphic equalizer n and so the sound is colored and altered in subtle ways. But never forget that the generating source is the head.
Name Brand Kits
The next level of drum kit consists of those bearing the familiar names of the dedicated drum companies. These budget kits are also made in the Far East, and if you go back a few years they didn’t look much different from the generic brands. Some were pretty indifferent, despite the illustrious labels. But as the market has evolved, kits have taken on more and more of the features of their parent brands, so that now you can get kits by Sonor, Premier, Tama, Mapex and all the other big names, displaying the identity of those companies in their lug designs and tom mounts, etc.
As for price, we’re talking around $400 upwards in the USA. These are street prices, which are sometimes way below the manufacturer’s listed prices. You will see discounts of 10 to 20 percent in Britain and double that or even better in the States. For example, I’ve seen Pearl Forums advertised in the USA at $600, which is barely more than half the list price of $950. Yes, pricing and competition are fierce, but it’s often difficult to compare like-for-like since there are so many different packages offered by stores and on-line dealers. If you’re starting at this level look out for an all-in package, including stool, sticks and cymbals. The Forum even includes a video with advice on setting up and tuning. The edesigner’ companies do not necessarily have their own factories in the Far East.
But they have gradually established production shops using their own tools, dies, moulds and quality control procedures, so that they can reproduce their own designs economically. Over the years there have been instances where the shells and items of hardware of one brand are the same as those used by another. But as time goes on each company is gradually producing its own completely individual kits.
Obviously it’s nice to move up to the drum world’s equivalent of the designer label. The companies want you to get hooked on their product and hope that you will eventually trade up to their more expensive lines. To do this they will try to persuade you of the merits of their particular design solutions. The big difference is that you’re moving away from the generic look and buying into the particular style of the big-name company. You’ll find that items like the tom mounts, tension lugs, snare throw-offs and pedal footboard castings all have the particular company’s look and feel, but are budget versions of the company’s pro lines.
For example, Pearl’s Forum has its famous double post tom mount while Yamaha’s YD has its equally illustrious ball and clamp design. You need to get down to the drum store and decide which works best for you n or failing that, which look you prefer. Shells will still be made from between six and nine piles of semi-hardwood and again you’ll see woods like Phillipines mahogany, basswood, meranti, falkata and so on. For example, both the Mapex V and Sonor’s Force 1001 have nine-ply basswood shells, while the Gretsch Blackhawk has six-ply and Premier’s Cabria Lite seven-ply mahogany. The latter two companies have always preferred slightly thinner shells, and you can see them trying to carry that philosophy right through to their cheapest line.
Pearl’s Forum shells are made using the heat compression molding system (HCMS) it always uses. Likewise Yamaha’s nine-ply Philippine mahogany YD shells benefit from the company’s air seal technique. In terms of finish, most of these kits still have plastic wraps, but the choice of colors is considerably wider and the wrap is hopefully secured a bit better. Many of the features that once made high-end kits more attractive have filtered down to the budget level. Wooden rather than metal bass drum hoops are often fitted. And in a few cases your toms will have resonance isolation mounts, which were a major selling point of the most expensive kits just a few years ago. By isolation mounts we mean tom tom mounts that do not penetrate the shells of the toms, as do the older tom arms. Instead they suspend the toms via a bracket attached to the top metal rim of each drum.
The idea is that the tom is left free to resonate rather than being tightly gripped and stifled. Wood shell snare drums are gradually replacing the previously ubiquitous steel shelled models, and these will give you a warmer, crisper sound. The snare throw-off will be a simple, side-lever affair, which should be sturdy enough under moderate use. And one thing you can be sure of is that there will be no stinting on tension lugs. Snare drums, bass drums and floor toms will all have eight turning points per head. Many kits are today fitted with budget heads made by Remo, the leading American professional drumhead company.
Remo has a factory in Taiwan that uses American made polyester Mylar film to produce a cheaper version of its own industry standard Weatherking heads. This is a great improvement on the past when, because most of the big name drum companies don’t produce their own heads, they would throw on frankly dire heads to keep the cost down. This did the drums no favors. Now that the budget kits are themselves of a better standard the heads are getting better too. Pear, incidentally, has gone its own way and produces its own ProTone Mylar heads, which also sound pretty good.
As for hardware, nearly all packages now have double braced stands. You will have to look closely at the specifications to see whether you get one or two cymbal stands. If there are two, the second is nearly always a boom stand. The hi-hat and bass drum pedals should be of an adequate standard, which will give you good service until you can afford heftier and more flexible models. Since so many new drummers want to play heavy, their first upgrade is often to a stronger pedal or even a double pedal, followed by a better snare drum and cymbals.
As for price, we’re talking around $400 upwards in the USA. These are street prices, which are sometimes way below the manufacturer’s listed prices. You will see discounts of 10 to 20 percent in Britain and double that or even better in the States. For example, I’ve seen Pearl Forums advertised in the USA at $600, which is barely more than half the list price of $950. Yes, pricing and competition are fierce, but it’s often difficult to compare like-for-like since there are so many different packages offered by stores and on-line dealers. If you’re starting at this level look out for an all-in package, including stool, sticks and cymbals. The Forum even includes a video with advice on setting up and tuning. The edesigner’ companies do not necessarily have their own factories in the Far East.
But they have gradually established production shops using their own tools, dies, moulds and quality control procedures, so that they can reproduce their own designs economically. Over the years there have been instances where the shells and items of hardware of one brand are the same as those used by another. But as time goes on each company is gradually producing its own completely individual kits.
Obviously it’s nice to move up to the drum world’s equivalent of the designer label. The companies want you to get hooked on their product and hope that you will eventually trade up to their more expensive lines. To do this they will try to persuade you of the merits of their particular design solutions. The big difference is that you’re moving away from the generic look and buying into the particular style of the big-name company. You’ll find that items like the tom mounts, tension lugs, snare throw-offs and pedal footboard castings all have the particular company’s look and feel, but are budget versions of the company’s pro lines.
For example, Pearl’s Forum has its famous double post tom mount while Yamaha’s YD has its equally illustrious ball and clamp design. You need to get down to the drum store and decide which works best for you n or failing that, which look you prefer. Shells will still be made from between six and nine piles of semi-hardwood and again you’ll see woods like Phillipines mahogany, basswood, meranti, falkata and so on. For example, both the Mapex V and Sonor’s Force 1001 have nine-ply basswood shells, while the Gretsch Blackhawk has six-ply and Premier’s Cabria Lite seven-ply mahogany. The latter two companies have always preferred slightly thinner shells, and you can see them trying to carry that philosophy right through to their cheapest line.
Pearl’s Forum shells are made using the heat compression molding system (HCMS) it always uses. Likewise Yamaha’s nine-ply Philippine mahogany YD shells benefit from the company’s air seal technique. In terms of finish, most of these kits still have plastic wraps, but the choice of colors is considerably wider and the wrap is hopefully secured a bit better. Many of the features that once made high-end kits more attractive have filtered down to the budget level. Wooden rather than metal bass drum hoops are often fitted. And in a few cases your toms will have resonance isolation mounts, which were a major selling point of the most expensive kits just a few years ago. By isolation mounts we mean tom tom mounts that do not penetrate the shells of the toms, as do the older tom arms. Instead they suspend the toms via a bracket attached to the top metal rim of each drum.
The idea is that the tom is left free to resonate rather than being tightly gripped and stifled. Wood shell snare drums are gradually replacing the previously ubiquitous steel shelled models, and these will give you a warmer, crisper sound. The snare throw-off will be a simple, side-lever affair, which should be sturdy enough under moderate use. And one thing you can be sure of is that there will be no stinting on tension lugs. Snare drums, bass drums and floor toms will all have eight turning points per head. Many kits are today fitted with budget heads made by Remo, the leading American professional drumhead company.
Remo has a factory in Taiwan that uses American made polyester Mylar film to produce a cheaper version of its own industry standard Weatherking heads. This is a great improvement on the past when, because most of the big name drum companies don’t produce their own heads, they would throw on frankly dire heads to keep the cost down. This did the drums no favors. Now that the budget kits are themselves of a better standard the heads are getting better too. Pear, incidentally, has gone its own way and produces its own ProTone Mylar heads, which also sound pretty good.
As for hardware, nearly all packages now have double braced stands. You will have to look closely at the specifications to see whether you get one or two cymbal stands. If there are two, the second is nearly always a boom stand. The hi-hat and bass drum pedals should be of an adequate standard, which will give you good service until you can afford heftier and more flexible models. Since so many new drummers want to play heavy, their first upgrade is often to a stronger pedal or even a double pedal, followed by a better snare drum and cymbals.
Name Brand Cymbals
Like the drum companies, the big name cymbal companies recognize the need to attract new players to their brands and so they offer boxed starter sets of their budget lines. A set will usually comprise a 16” crash, 20” ride and pair of 14” hi-hats. Dealers will be keen to put drum and cymbal packages together and usually offer two or three basic options. If you’ve suffered with unbranded starter cymbals up till now then these sets will be a great step forward. Budget cymbals lack some of the body and shimmering sustain of a professional set, but they’re still a big improvement. Popular choices include Sabian Solar, BB, pro and Sonix, Zildjian ZBT and ZXT, Paiste 101, 302-Plus, 402-Plus and 502-Plus and Meinl MCS and Classics. Dealers will entice you with offers to throw in a cymbal bag or stick bag, a towel with a logo, or whatever.
Interior Drum Finishes
While the exterior finish has little if any effect on the drum’s sound, this is not the case with the interior. Since the sound generated by the head travels down the interior of the shell and then bounces around inside, it seems reasonable to assume the inner surface of the drum has an effect. Pearl has recently tested out many different combinations of wood plies in its masters Custom series. It found that the inner ply is crucial and that mahogany, for example, has a marked effect, making the sound noticeably warmer.
Most modern shell interiors are very lightly sealed, just enough to keep out moisture. But this has not always been the case. Until the 1970s many shells had heavily lacquered interiors. Others were painted on the inside with a thick coating of white paint (Ludwig, Camco, Hayman) or gray paint (Rogers, Tama). I think the only company that still does this is Gretsch, whose drums have a thin silver paint on the inside. This is in line with the Gretsch philosophy not to change the sound for which it is so famous. Any hard, reflective inner surface will produce a brighter sound.
Conversely, a porous inner surface will produce a softer, warmer sound. Many budget shells, as noted previously, have an inner ply of harder wood for better projection. I once read an interview with Buddy Rich in which he said something to the effect that he didn’t much mind what snare drum he played so long as it had several coats of varnish on the interior to brighten up the sound.
Buddy was obviously out of step with today’s thinking. Evidently, this is another factor in drum sound that is under the influence of fashion. Today’s requirement is for as natural an interior as is practical.
Most modern shell interiors are very lightly sealed, just enough to keep out moisture. But this has not always been the case. Until the 1970s many shells had heavily lacquered interiors. Others were painted on the inside with a thick coating of white paint (Ludwig, Camco, Hayman) or gray paint (Rogers, Tama). I think the only company that still does this is Gretsch, whose drums have a thin silver paint on the inside. This is in line with the Gretsch philosophy not to change the sound for which it is so famous. Any hard, reflective inner surface will produce a brighter sound.
Conversely, a porous inner surface will produce a softer, warmer sound. Many budget shells, as noted previously, have an inner ply of harder wood for better projection. I once read an interview with Buddy Rich in which he said something to the effect that he didn’t much mind what snare drum he played so long as it had several coats of varnish on the interior to brighten up the sound.
Buddy was obviously out of step with today’s thinking. Evidently, this is another factor in drum sound that is under the influence of fashion. Today’s requirement is for as natural an interior as is practical.
h-End Drum Shells
So when it comes to the top line drums, assembly takes place back in the home factory. This gives the company direct control over all the finishing, at least for their top line product. The eraw’ shells themselves are either made on site (European and Oriental companies) or bought in from specialist manufacturers (American companies). Those manufacturers who construct their own shells generally use the same method for all their ranges, cheap or expensive. But the top-level shells will generally be thinner. The reason for this is that thinner shells resonate better and have a deeper, richer timbre.
In order to make them thinner, though, they must use the best quality, densest hardwoods. In recent decades that has generally meant birch or maple, but there are signs the companies are exploring other timbers such as beech, oak, walnut and ereal’ mahogany: woods which, by the way, have all been used previously in the history of drum making. By the time you’re ready to move up to a top class kit you may well have opinions about the sound of particular woods which will dictate whether you plump for a maple, birch, or other kit. As with some middle bracket kits, the drum makers sell top-line eshell packs’ rather than traditional complete kits. The shell pack concept recognizes that, whereas at the lower levels it’s handy to buy a complete package, maybe even including cymbals, by the time the drummers are ready to buy a first-rate kit they have a pretty exact idea of what they want.
So there has to be flexibility in the layout and sizes, etc. A shell pack is just a convenient deal on a set of drums incorporating the toms and a bass drum, together with the mounting hardware but excluding stands and pedals. Often, minus a snare drum too. The reason for this is that when you upgrade your kit you may not want a complete hardware package. A lot of drummers have a favorite bass drum pedal that they want to hang on to. Or they may actually have set their sights on a particular pedal by another manufacturer.
As for the snare drum, there are now so many types and varieties the companies leave that for you to decide. You might even have a lovely old vintage snare that you always play and you really don’t want the standard model that comes with the toms you’ve chosen. In short, drum companies realize they are far more likely to sell you a top end kit if you’re free to choose the items you really want and not have to buy loads of bits you don’t need. So shell packs are a liberation. But they’re only the start. When it comes to the top level the word now is customization. Manufacturers have gradually been pressured to offer a much greater range of choice. Sonor started the ball rolling with its Designer Series a decade ago: the idea being that you, the drummer, would be your own kit designer.
This is now the pattern and increasingly customers are given the opportunity to plan their own kit from a multiplicity of choices. The prospective DW buyer, for example, can go on-line and devise the ideal set-up using DW’s eKit Builder’ software: a bit like those kitchen design templates down at your local furniture store. With the designer concept, choice of shell sizes is almost unlimited. You make up your own kit from however many toms, with sizes ranging in diameter from 8” to 18”, plus bass drums ranging from 18” to 24”. Not only that but all the shells are offered in a choice of two, three or even four depths. These may be given names like Standard/Regular/Traditional, Universal/Accel, Power/Deep/X-tra, Square and n for super deep bass drums n Turbo.
You can also choose the type of shell material. Buy a Yamaha Absolute kit and you can specify any drum in maple, birch, beech or oak, because they all have the same price and finishes. Pearl goes further with its Masters Custom Series, allowing you to mix individual plies of maple, birch or mahogany in each single drum. Then there’s shell construction. Some companies, including Premier and Tama, offer you the choice of esupported’ or eunsupported’ shells. Supported shells have a smaller number of plies and are extremely thin but have reinforcing rings. Unsupported shells are a little thicker but have no supporting rings.
So, for example, with Premier’s Series drums you can have a four-ply with support rings or six-ply without, constructed in birch, maple or the Gen-X mix of 50/50 maple and birch. Tama does a similar thing with its supported Starclassic shell with eSound Focus Rings’. Sonor offers the choice of two thickness of unsupported shell in its Designer series, Maple Light (6.5mm) and Maple Heavy (9.5mm). Whatever you choose, with a company’s top line kit you can be sure that special care has been taken with the bearing edges of the drums. This is a skilled and labor-intensive task, but is crucial to the sound and projection of the drums.
The same huge range of choice applies even more in the area of finish. Walk into any large drum store today and you’re overwhelmed by the dazzling display of new kits. Drums have never been this beautiful. The manufacturers are falling over themselves to come up with ever more gorgeous finishes. And this tells us a lot. Looks sell. Today you can have a tasteful 1980s-style natural lacquer, or you can have a 1970s-style psychedelic emoirE’ wrap. You can have a 1960s-style classic pearl or glitter, or you can have a new millennium environmentally friendly water nbased custom paint job. Many top companies offer several dozen off-the-peg choices and some of them unlimited custom finishes. Yet even beyond these professional lines, manufacturers occasionally come up with truly magnificent specials.
Tama’s Starclassic Exotix II Materials is a limited edition kit made from African quilted sapele veneered over eight plies of African bubinga. Tama says it will only ever make 100 of these unique kits, each accompanied by its own authentication certificate. Drums like these are very expensive and are aimed as much at wealthy collectors as they are at regular players. Some of them are so beautiful it’s hard to imagine the average drummer would risk taking them out on everyday gigs. The veneering materials and expertise are adapted from high-end furniture industry, and it’s as glorified furniture that some of these kits are destined to spend their lives.
DW has Exotic Wood finish kits in such materials Quilted Cherry, Claro Walnut, Tamo Ash and Zebrawood. The mere names make your mouth water. Anniversaries also provide good excuses for a touch of excess. Yamaha celebrated its centenary in 1977 (that’s a 100 years of pianos, not drums), with extraordinary, RC-9000-style kits in Birdseye Maple, Sapele, Curicote (a rich, extravagantly patterned chocolate brown in case you’re wondering) plus hi-tech Carbon. Pearl gave us a 50th anniversary, gold plated, vintage style, solid shell snare drum in 1996, complete with its own presentation case. And as I write, Gretsch is celebrating its 120th anniversary (1883-2003) with a limited reissue tribute to its 1950s Round Badge drums, for long the studio drummer’s favorite weapon.
When it comes to money-no-object kits, the big boys don’t have it all their own way. There is always a place for the individual craftsman to produce small numbers of custom designs. Over the past decade this has been a growth industry n albeit on a cottage scale n particularly in North America. And following the remarkable success of DW there encouraging signs for smaller emerging American companies like Orange County, Spaun, GMS, Pork Pie and Taye.
These and several others are gaining recognition and picking up occasional big name endorsees, which is essential to credibility. Over here in Britain, interest in American Orange County drums, for example, has been awakened entirely because Travis Barker of Blink 182 was spotted playing them. There is also a loyal market for Australian-made drums by Brady and Sleishman, which utilize extremely hard native timbers like Wandoo and Jarrah. And in Britain we have a number of specialist custom drum makers, including Noonan, Jalapeno and Richmo.
In order to make them thinner, though, they must use the best quality, densest hardwoods. In recent decades that has generally meant birch or maple, but there are signs the companies are exploring other timbers such as beech, oak, walnut and ereal’ mahogany: woods which, by the way, have all been used previously in the history of drum making. By the time you’re ready to move up to a top class kit you may well have opinions about the sound of particular woods which will dictate whether you plump for a maple, birch, or other kit. As with some middle bracket kits, the drum makers sell top-line eshell packs’ rather than traditional complete kits. The shell pack concept recognizes that, whereas at the lower levels it’s handy to buy a complete package, maybe even including cymbals, by the time the drummers are ready to buy a first-rate kit they have a pretty exact idea of what they want.
So there has to be flexibility in the layout and sizes, etc. A shell pack is just a convenient deal on a set of drums incorporating the toms and a bass drum, together with the mounting hardware but excluding stands and pedals. Often, minus a snare drum too. The reason for this is that when you upgrade your kit you may not want a complete hardware package. A lot of drummers have a favorite bass drum pedal that they want to hang on to. Or they may actually have set their sights on a particular pedal by another manufacturer.
As for the snare drum, there are now so many types and varieties the companies leave that for you to decide. You might even have a lovely old vintage snare that you always play and you really don’t want the standard model that comes with the toms you’ve chosen. In short, drum companies realize they are far more likely to sell you a top end kit if you’re free to choose the items you really want and not have to buy loads of bits you don’t need. So shell packs are a liberation. But they’re only the start. When it comes to the top level the word now is customization. Manufacturers have gradually been pressured to offer a much greater range of choice. Sonor started the ball rolling with its Designer Series a decade ago: the idea being that you, the drummer, would be your own kit designer.
This is now the pattern and increasingly customers are given the opportunity to plan their own kit from a multiplicity of choices. The prospective DW buyer, for example, can go on-line and devise the ideal set-up using DW’s eKit Builder’ software: a bit like those kitchen design templates down at your local furniture store. With the designer concept, choice of shell sizes is almost unlimited. You make up your own kit from however many toms, with sizes ranging in diameter from 8” to 18”, plus bass drums ranging from 18” to 24”. Not only that but all the shells are offered in a choice of two, three or even four depths. These may be given names like Standard/Regular/Traditional, Universal/Accel, Power/Deep/X-tra, Square and n for super deep bass drums n Turbo.
You can also choose the type of shell material. Buy a Yamaha Absolute kit and you can specify any drum in maple, birch, beech or oak, because they all have the same price and finishes. Pearl goes further with its Masters Custom Series, allowing you to mix individual plies of maple, birch or mahogany in each single drum. Then there’s shell construction. Some companies, including Premier and Tama, offer you the choice of esupported’ or eunsupported’ shells. Supported shells have a smaller number of plies and are extremely thin but have reinforcing rings. Unsupported shells are a little thicker but have no supporting rings.
So, for example, with Premier’s Series drums you can have a four-ply with support rings or six-ply without, constructed in birch, maple or the Gen-X mix of 50/50 maple and birch. Tama does a similar thing with its supported Starclassic shell with eSound Focus Rings’. Sonor offers the choice of two thickness of unsupported shell in its Designer series, Maple Light (6.5mm) and Maple Heavy (9.5mm). Whatever you choose, with a company’s top line kit you can be sure that special care has been taken with the bearing edges of the drums. This is a skilled and labor-intensive task, but is crucial to the sound and projection of the drums.
The same huge range of choice applies even more in the area of finish. Walk into any large drum store today and you’re overwhelmed by the dazzling display of new kits. Drums have never been this beautiful. The manufacturers are falling over themselves to come up with ever more gorgeous finishes. And this tells us a lot. Looks sell. Today you can have a tasteful 1980s-style natural lacquer, or you can have a 1970s-style psychedelic emoirE’ wrap. You can have a 1960s-style classic pearl or glitter, or you can have a new millennium environmentally friendly water nbased custom paint job. Many top companies offer several dozen off-the-peg choices and some of them unlimited custom finishes. Yet even beyond these professional lines, manufacturers occasionally come up with truly magnificent specials.
Tama’s Starclassic Exotix II Materials is a limited edition kit made from African quilted sapele veneered over eight plies of African bubinga. Tama says it will only ever make 100 of these unique kits, each accompanied by its own authentication certificate. Drums like these are very expensive and are aimed as much at wealthy collectors as they are at regular players. Some of them are so beautiful it’s hard to imagine the average drummer would risk taking them out on everyday gigs. The veneering materials and expertise are adapted from high-end furniture industry, and it’s as glorified furniture that some of these kits are destined to spend their lives.
DW has Exotic Wood finish kits in such materials Quilted Cherry, Claro Walnut, Tamo Ash and Zebrawood. The mere names make your mouth water. Anniversaries also provide good excuses for a touch of excess. Yamaha celebrated its centenary in 1977 (that’s a 100 years of pianos, not drums), with extraordinary, RC-9000-style kits in Birdseye Maple, Sapele, Curicote (a rich, extravagantly patterned chocolate brown in case you’re wondering) plus hi-tech Carbon. Pearl gave us a 50th anniversary, gold plated, vintage style, solid shell snare drum in 1996, complete with its own presentation case. And as I write, Gretsch is celebrating its 120th anniversary (1883-2003) with a limited reissue tribute to its 1950s Round Badge drums, for long the studio drummer’s favorite weapon.
When it comes to money-no-object kits, the big boys don’t have it all their own way. There is always a place for the individual craftsman to produce small numbers of custom designs. Over the past decade this has been a growth industry n albeit on a cottage scale n particularly in North America. And following the remarkable success of DW there encouraging signs for smaller emerging American companies like Orange County, Spaun, GMS, Pork Pie and Taye.
These and several others are gaining recognition and picking up occasional big name endorsees, which is essential to credibility. Over here in Britain, interest in American Orange County drums, for example, has been awakened entirely because Travis Barker of Blink 182 was spotted playing them. There is also a loyal market for Australian-made drums by Brady and Sleishman, which utilize extremely hard native timbers like Wandoo and Jarrah. And in Britain we have a number of specialist custom drum makers, including Noonan, Jalapeno and Richmo.
High-End Drum Kits
Some while ago I was at a major drum manufacturer’s annual dealer day. The star endorsees line up and too it in turns to blast us with the new products. Endorsee eA’ played the budget kit and endorsee eB’ played the expensive one. A dealer sitting next to me leaned over and said, iThey’ve shot themselves in the foot thereOe” Why’s that, I asked? iWell, the cheaper kit sounds better than the expensive one.” Oh dear.
This is a peculiar thing about drums, and a puzzle for many drummers. The sound of a kit relies on many variables, not least the expertise and touch of the player. I’ve always felt that, whit it’s possible to recognize a clear difference between, say, the sound of a Fender Stratocaster guitar and a Gibson Les Paul, it’s impossible to listen to a record and say that’s a Gretsch drum kit, or that’s a Mapex drum kit. But it is possible to say, with some certainty, that’s Max Roach, Ginger Baker, Stewart Copeland or Tony Williams.
A player’s sound is his or her trademark and is as distinctive as a singer’s voice. This is true of all good instrumentalists. So if a cheap kit can sound as good as an expensive kit, is there any point in shelling out all that extra money? Quite definitely, yes. There is a difference in sound between a good budget kit and a massively expensive kit, although it’s actually quite small. (It’s not just drums: how many classical music buffs can really tell the difference between a Stradivarius and a modern good quality violin?) Great musicians have their own sound; irrespective of what brand instrument they play.
But buying the best possible instrument enables that performer to realize his or her own sound to its fullest. Like driving a car, it’s when you get behind the wheel that you really appreciate the difference. I would humbly suggest that today’s professional drums are characterized more by the similarities in their sound than the differences. This is meant as a compliment. What I’m really saying is that they’ve all got their acts together and there are no real duds.
They all make accurately rounded shells with decent bearing edges and they all use birch or maple. You can argue that one make is a little better than the next, but frankly no one is going to know except, possible, you the player, and only when you’ve been on intimate terms with the drums for a while. Certainly if you go to a concert it won’t make the slightest difference whether the drummer’s playing Sonor, Pearl, Brady or Brady or Orange County. What will make a difference is whether the drummer’s any good. (And whether you can hear him through the wall of PA gear.) So what are you spending your money on?
How do you make a choice? And crucially, how does each manufacturer go about persuading you their product is, after all, the best? Well, lest I appear too cynical, I certainly do think sound comes into the equation when we’re making our decision. The problem is that until you’ve taken the drums out on half a dozen gigs in different rooms it’s very difficult to make a valid assessment, to know whether you’re going to be happy with them in the long term. Which is not to say that you can’t infer from the design and build quality, which make has the best chance of sounding good, of being easy to tune, of being reliable and of offering maximum resonance with a convivial timbre.
This is a peculiar thing about drums, and a puzzle for many drummers. The sound of a kit relies on many variables, not least the expertise and touch of the player. I’ve always felt that, whit it’s possible to recognize a clear difference between, say, the sound of a Fender Stratocaster guitar and a Gibson Les Paul, it’s impossible to listen to a record and say that’s a Gretsch drum kit, or that’s a Mapex drum kit. But it is possible to say, with some certainty, that’s Max Roach, Ginger Baker, Stewart Copeland or Tony Williams.
A player’s sound is his or her trademark and is as distinctive as a singer’s voice. This is true of all good instrumentalists. So if a cheap kit can sound as good as an expensive kit, is there any point in shelling out all that extra money? Quite definitely, yes. There is a difference in sound between a good budget kit and a massively expensive kit, although it’s actually quite small. (It’s not just drums: how many classical music buffs can really tell the difference between a Stradivarius and a modern good quality violin?) Great musicians have their own sound; irrespective of what brand instrument they play.
But buying the best possible instrument enables that performer to realize his or her own sound to its fullest. Like driving a car, it’s when you get behind the wheel that you really appreciate the difference. I would humbly suggest that today’s professional drums are characterized more by the similarities in their sound than the differences. This is meant as a compliment. What I’m really saying is that they’ve all got their acts together and there are no real duds.
They all make accurately rounded shells with decent bearing edges and they all use birch or maple. You can argue that one make is a little better than the next, but frankly no one is going to know except, possible, you the player, and only when you’ve been on intimate terms with the drums for a while. Certainly if you go to a concert it won’t make the slightest difference whether the drummer’s playing Sonor, Pearl, Brady or Brady or Orange County. What will make a difference is whether the drummer’s any good. (And whether you can hear him through the wall of PA gear.) So what are you spending your money on?
How do you make a choice? And crucially, how does each manufacturer go about persuading you their product is, after all, the best? Well, lest I appear too cynical, I certainly do think sound comes into the equation when we’re making our decision. The problem is that until you’ve taken the drums out on half a dozen gigs in different rooms it’s very difficult to make a valid assessment, to know whether you’re going to be happy with them in the long term. Which is not to say that you can’t infer from the design and build quality, which make has the best chance of sounding good, of being easy to tune, of being reliable and of offering maximum resonance with a convivial timbre.
Budget Kits
The first thing to say is that today’s starter kits are incredible bargains. It seems to be a feature of the Oriental way of doing business that each year the product gets better and has more features while the price is maintained or even reduced. This is something we see in Oriental goods from electronics to cars. Budget and starter kits today are almost all made in Taiwan or China, where labor costs are less.
This includes kits bearing the name of the famous American, European and Japanese drum companies. Leaving aside any political or moral considerations, the fact is that Oriental factories churn out drum kits that get better every year, at a fraction of the cost possible in North America, Europe or Japan. The budget market we have today started very early in the 1980s with the first Pearl Export drum kit.
Many current starter kits still have the same Pearl-style double-post tom-tom bracket and Pearl-style tension lugs. Pearl has kept the Export name and year-by-year improved its specification. And as Pearl’s model has improved so the benefits have passed down the line. Dozens of Export clones have been marketed with all sorts of names worldwide, like Active, Aria, Cannon, CB, DB, Diamond, Dixon, Groove Percussion, Hohner, Peace, Percussion Plus, Performance Percussion, Pulse, Session Pro, Sunlite, Stagg, Thunder and Virtuoso. Sometimes they bear the names of established musical instrument importers/distributors like Hohner; at other times the names are just made up to sound appealing.
The list can never be complete, as names have continually changed over the years and occasionally dealers have gone out of business. There is always this risk, so if you can locate a kit from an established company, so much the better. Pearl’s Export became the biggest selling drum kit in history while continually being upgraded. Thus it gradually moved away from the beginners’ market towards the middle, semi-professional, club bracket. This left the beginners’ market open to the generic kits that followed in the Export’s wake.
The problem for Pearl and the other dedicated drum manufacturers was that they were now losing their important introductory market. So in order to build brand loyalty they introduced starter kits again. At first some of these were simply generic kits emblazoned with the names of the illustrious drum companies. And a rather sad sight they made in some casesOe However, the big names soon started to get their act together, imposing their own characteristics and style on cheap kits made under license in Taiwan, etc.
In doing so they created a new upper end for the beginners’ market. Hence in the mi-1990s we welcomed Pearl’s Forum kit, which undercut its own Export and placed Pearl in the beginner market once again. The end result of all this activity is that we still have generic kits with various levels of sophistication, but on top of those are kits like the Forum, bearing the names of the dedicated drum companies. The Forum has, of course, been followed by equivalent kits from the other top names n thus the Gretsch Blackhawk, Ludwig Accent, Mapex V, Peavey Radial Pro 501, Premier Cabria, Remo Bravo, Sonor Force 1001, Tama Swingstar, Yamaha YD and Rydeen, and so on.
This includes kits bearing the name of the famous American, European and Japanese drum companies. Leaving aside any political or moral considerations, the fact is that Oriental factories churn out drum kits that get better every year, at a fraction of the cost possible in North America, Europe or Japan. The budget market we have today started very early in the 1980s with the first Pearl Export drum kit.
Many current starter kits still have the same Pearl-style double-post tom-tom bracket and Pearl-style tension lugs. Pearl has kept the Export name and year-by-year improved its specification. And as Pearl’s model has improved so the benefits have passed down the line. Dozens of Export clones have been marketed with all sorts of names worldwide, like Active, Aria, Cannon, CB, DB, Diamond, Dixon, Groove Percussion, Hohner, Peace, Percussion Plus, Performance Percussion, Pulse, Session Pro, Sunlite, Stagg, Thunder and Virtuoso. Sometimes they bear the names of established musical instrument importers/distributors like Hohner; at other times the names are just made up to sound appealing.
The list can never be complete, as names have continually changed over the years and occasionally dealers have gone out of business. There is always this risk, so if you can locate a kit from an established company, so much the better. Pearl’s Export became the biggest selling drum kit in history while continually being upgraded. Thus it gradually moved away from the beginners’ market towards the middle, semi-professional, club bracket. This left the beginners’ market open to the generic kits that followed in the Export’s wake.
The problem for Pearl and the other dedicated drum manufacturers was that they were now losing their important introductory market. So in order to build brand loyalty they introduced starter kits again. At first some of these were simply generic kits emblazoned with the names of the illustrious drum companies. And a rather sad sight they made in some casesOe However, the big names soon started to get their act together, imposing their own characteristics and style on cheap kits made under license in Taiwan, etc.
In doing so they created a new upper end for the beginners’ market. Hence in the mi-1990s we welcomed Pearl’s Forum kit, which undercut its own Export and placed Pearl in the beginner market once again. The end result of all this activity is that we still have generic kits with various levels of sophistication, but on top of those are kits like the Forum, bearing the names of the dedicated drum companies. The Forum has, of course, been followed by equivalent kits from the other top names n thus the Gretsch Blackhawk, Ludwig Accent, Mapex V, Peavey Radial Pro 501, Premier Cabria, Remo Bravo, Sonor Force 1001, Tama Swingstar, Yamaha YD and Rydeen, and so on.
Beginner Cymbals
The cymbals thrown in with starter kits are crude. They’re there to make up a complete package and are just about adequate for getting going. But they won’t resonate or project much. They certainly won’t sing. And you can’t tune a cymbal n what you buy is what you get. Dealers will suggest an upgrade cymbal pack and if you can afford it you will be better off starting with that. Then your first cymbals will be more in keeping with the quality of your first kit.
Bearing Edges
Whichever type of construction is used to make the shell, the bearing edges are crucial to the sound, projection and tuning of the drum. Modern bearing edges are usually routed to an almost sharp point, typically cut to a 45 degree angle on the inside of the shell, while the outer cut will also be 45 degrees or rounded over so that the head transfers vibration to the shell when it’s tightened over the edge.
The inner cut will usually be deeper than the outer cut, thus maximizing the diameter of the drum. The fact the bearing edge is sharp means the attack and projection of the head are increased. This has not always been the case. Vintage drums often have much more rounded edges so that considerably more of the head is in contact with the shell. This gives a warmer, less attacking sound and theoretically imparts more of the character of the shell. Other shells have different routed angles. Gretsch toms, for example, have 30-degree inner edges for a warmer sound, while Gretsch snare drums have 60-degree edges for attack. Specialist manufacturers Pork Pie Percussion use a 60-degree inner cut with a rounded-over outer edge to achieve maximum vibration of the shell.
Spaun drums have an equal 45-degree cut both inside and outside, rising to a central, sharp epeak’. Spaun say this means the edge makes contact with the flat part of the head rather than the rounded collar, improving tuning and head resonance. Another way of ensuring the bearing edge contacts the flat of the head and not the collar is to make the shell slightly undersized. So although a shell may have a nominal diameter of, say, 12”, in fact the shell is slightly less than that.
The Premier Series shells, for example, are all 3mm undersized. This way a gap is opened up between the standard sized metal rim and the shell so that when the standard sized head is fitted it cannot be cramped between shell and metal rim. A sort of bridge is created which should aid the free resonance of the head n and shell. There’s always an opposing philosophy, though, and I remember once reading a handout from the Slingerland company claiming that the fact that its vintage Radio King shells were tight against the hoops was one factor in the unique sound of these sought after old drums. Whatever the shell size, the bearing edge must be perfectly true all round so that the head can be tensioned evenly, achieving the same pitch at each tension point.
This is one of the most crucial aspects of shell construction. Any slight dip or irregularity in the bearing edge will result in a dead spot in the head, which will have to be accommodated in tuning. This distorts the head and messes with the overtones. If you have a problem drum in your kit, which is always infuriatingly difficult to tune, then it might be worth inspecting the bearing edges for irregularities.
Note, however, that the bottom edge of your snare drum is an exception. It should have two slight dips n one on each side n where the snares are attached to the shell. These dips are known as snare beds and their purpose is to help the snares lie flat, reducing snare buzz. On old drums the beds may be quite pronounced while on modern drums they are more likely to be very gradual depressions spanning several inches.
The inner cut will usually be deeper than the outer cut, thus maximizing the diameter of the drum. The fact the bearing edge is sharp means the attack and projection of the head are increased. This has not always been the case. Vintage drums often have much more rounded edges so that considerably more of the head is in contact with the shell. This gives a warmer, less attacking sound and theoretically imparts more of the character of the shell. Other shells have different routed angles. Gretsch toms, for example, have 30-degree inner edges for a warmer sound, while Gretsch snare drums have 60-degree edges for attack. Specialist manufacturers Pork Pie Percussion use a 60-degree inner cut with a rounded-over outer edge to achieve maximum vibration of the shell.
Spaun drums have an equal 45-degree cut both inside and outside, rising to a central, sharp epeak’. Spaun say this means the edge makes contact with the flat part of the head rather than the rounded collar, improving tuning and head resonance. Another way of ensuring the bearing edge contacts the flat of the head and not the collar is to make the shell slightly undersized. So although a shell may have a nominal diameter of, say, 12”, in fact the shell is slightly less than that.
The Premier Series shells, for example, are all 3mm undersized. This way a gap is opened up between the standard sized metal rim and the shell so that when the standard sized head is fitted it cannot be cramped between shell and metal rim. A sort of bridge is created which should aid the free resonance of the head n and shell. There’s always an opposing philosophy, though, and I remember once reading a handout from the Slingerland company claiming that the fact that its vintage Radio King shells were tight against the hoops was one factor in the unique sound of these sought after old drums. Whatever the shell size, the bearing edge must be perfectly true all round so that the head can be tensioned evenly, achieving the same pitch at each tension point.
This is one of the most crucial aspects of shell construction. Any slight dip or irregularity in the bearing edge will result in a dead spot in the head, which will have to be accommodated in tuning. This distorts the head and messes with the overtones. If you have a problem drum in your kit, which is always infuriatingly difficult to tune, then it might be worth inspecting the bearing edges for irregularities.
Note, however, that the bottom edge of your snare drum is an exception. It should have two slight dips n one on each side n where the snares are attached to the shell. These dips are known as snare beds and their purpose is to help the snares lie flat, reducing snare buzz. On old drums the beds may be quite pronounced while on modern drums they are more likely to be very gradual depressions spanning several inches.
Metronome
The metronome is probably the most useful non-drum item that a drummer can own. After all, you need to learn to play good time and a metronome can help you do that. A metronome is simply a device that produces a click at regular intervals so that you know where the pulse is. Metronomes used to be mechanical, keeping time with a pendulum that rocked back and forth. Nowadays they’re electronic and come in a variety of styles that can range in price from about $10 to as much as $175 (retail). They all keep good time but vary in the amenities such as headphone jacks (a must-have for drummers) and the ability to subdivide the measure.
I recommend getting a metronome that has a headphone jack. If you can afford it, I also recommend getting a metronome that can subdivide the measure into eighth notes, triplets, and sixteenth notes as well as being able to produce a different tone on the first beat of a measure. I’ve been using a Boss Dr. Beat for 20 years and it still works perfectly, so a good metronome lasts a long time if you take care of it.
I recommend getting a metronome that has a headphone jack. If you can afford it, I also recommend getting a metronome that can subdivide the measure into eighth notes, triplets, and sixteenth notes as well as being able to produce a different tone on the first beat of a measure. I’ve been using a Boss Dr. Beat for 20 years and it still works perfectly, so a good metronome lasts a long time if you take care of it.
Double-stroke Roll
RRLL is all there is to the double-stroke roll, but as you play this rudiment, your technique varies depending on your tempo. At slower speeds, you can make two deliberate strokes, but when you get to a certain point (this speed is different for everyone) you need to start bouncing the stick once to get the second stroke. In order to get the second bounced stroke to sound the same as the first stroke, boost the bounce with the tips of your fingers by bringing your fingers into the stick as it strikes the drum the second time. One good exercise to play the double-stroke roll at a tempo where the bounces just start and try accenting the second note.
At the fastest speed, the double stroke roll will change again and turn into the buzz roll or press roll. The technique for the buzz roll is to press the sticks into the head, creating a ibzzzi sound.
One thing to keep in mind is that as the roll gets faster, your sticks get closer to the drumhead.
At the fastest speed, the double stroke roll will change again and turn into the buzz roll or press roll. The technique for the buzz roll is to press the sticks into the head, creating a ibzzzi sound.
One thing to keep in mind is that as the roll gets faster, your sticks get closer to the drumhead.
Drone Tone
Dampen your finger against your tongue and slide it (your finger) lightly against the head of your drum to make the drone tone. Like the open slap stroke, this tone is often elusive. You need just the right amount of moisture (how much varies depending on the head and the relative humidity in your environment) and a textured head (natural hide works better than plastic). A smooth plastic head won’t make this sound.
Beating the Bass Drum
Although some people play the bass drum with their heel down, the vast majority of drummers nowadays have their heel up. The heel-up position allows you to play faster, louder, and longer (don’t worry n you can still play softly with the heel up, too).
To make the bass drum stroke, lift your knee and drop your foot into the pedal. If you apply a little forward pressure as you push down on the pedal you get a solid sound. Most of the time, you want the pedal’s beater to bounce off the head of the drum so that it can ring freely.
As you get comfortable playing the bass drum and get a few grooves under your belt, you’ll probably want to play some double strokes. Here’s where the heel-up position comes in real handy. With it you can play double strokes with very little effort.
So, to play the double stroke, play the first stroke on your toes with your heel way up. Then drop your heel and move your foot forward slightly. Kick lightly into the drum. To do triple or quadruple strokes, repeat the first stroke position (heel stays up and foot stays back) for all but the last stroke (heel comes down and foot moves forward).
To make the bass drum stroke, lift your knee and drop your foot into the pedal. If you apply a little forward pressure as you push down on the pedal you get a solid sound. Most of the time, you want the pedal’s beater to bounce off the head of the drum so that it can ring freely.
As you get comfortable playing the bass drum and get a few grooves under your belt, you’ll probably want to play some double strokes. Here’s where the heel-up position comes in real handy. With it you can play double strokes with very little effort.
So, to play the double stroke, play the first stroke on your toes with your heel way up. Then drop your heel and move your foot forward slightly. Kick lightly into the drum. To do triple or quadruple strokes, repeat the first stroke position (heel stays up and foot stays back) for all but the last stroke (heel comes down and foot moves forward).
Bass Drum Pedals
Bass drum pedals come in a variety of styles. Some have leather or nylon straps, while others use chains to transfer the movement from the pedal to the beater. There are single and double pedals, and a whole host of innovations that each company uses in order to distinguish its pedal. Because bass drum pedals can range in price from under $100 to as much as $500, your best bet is to go into your local drum shop and try out a few pedals in your price range to determine the pedal that works best for you.
Adjusting the Ride Cymbal
Adjusting your cymbals properly allows you to get a variety of sounds from each of them and also lengthens the useful life of your sticks. With the ride cymbal, you want to hit it either with the tip or shoulder (the part that narrows) of your stick. You also want to reach the bell (the little icrowni at the center of the cymbal) easily. In addition to having one on the right side of the drumset, some people put a ride cymbal on the left side near the hi-hats.
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