My gig friday night...

[Aaron]

Friday night I played a gig [about 350 people] and got asked whether my kit was a Pearl Masters or Reference by the sound guy [he saw the front head]. I told him it was a Target Series, to which he replied "sounds ten times better than most kits I have to work with." He was a drummer himself so I felt quite pleased.

Moral of the story; take the time to get to know your drums and learn to tune them how they want to be tuned naturally.

You can have a $10,000 kit, but if you go into the gig with old heads that aren't tuned up, it'll sound awful to the listener. Tune for the room you're playing in as well, not for your practice room at home.

[sLarkin20]

*braces for argument of expensive vs cheap kits*

[Sponer]

My Tama Rockstars sound better than 90% of the drummers I've played with, and I don't even really mess with the tuning much. Most drummers (in my experience) just have no clue how to tune a drum. Snares are always too tight, toms are always too dead, and bass drums are always too muffled.

[Mr Pink]

The problem with most drummers and their tuning is that they tune kits to what sounds best to them, behind the kit, and never think what the kit will sound like live when being played with a band and coming through a PA. That is something you have to learn....just because it sounds good to you behind the kit does not mean it sounds good.
And a great kit tuned right will smoke a monkey kit tuned right every day of the week. And twice of Fridays.:thumb:
A high end kit will have better shells, and that is the soul of any drum. Best thing to do when looking for a kit, and you want to save $ is look for a middle priced kit with high end shells. The hardware may not be the best, but they will tun up 90% as nice as the kit with the better hardware.

[ace76543]

oh this should be good

[dairyairman]

tuning definitely makes a difference, to state the obvious. i was in the studio last week and the engineer spent a whole evening tuning my drums. he was super fussy! way fussier than i am about it. but when he was finally done my drums sounded a lot better! that was a big lesson for me. i thought i was pretty good about tuning, but he showed me how much of a difference careful tuning can make.

[Drummer Matt]

I have played on many drummers kits in my city, and I've noticed that practically ALL of them crank up the snares as tight as they will go, duct tape paper towels and other stuff on the toms, and just stuff a bunch of crap in the bass drum! This one drummer who played on my kit, the first thing he did was to crank the snares. My drum teacher and myself are so far the only drummers in this city who do not do all of this.

[ant_182]

This is rather good thread! I just switched to an acrylic kit, bass drum is amazingly loud and "ringy" I have no muffling except it came with one of those new Remo heads (powersonic??) I do want to try it with a Powerstroke 3/4 though :) My "high" tom sounds fantastic too! It really rings and sounds like a tom should (to me). However, I've had some trouble with my floor tom. It sounds rubish! I've tried it with and without dampening and just cant get a good sound, let alone the sound I want! I know about the tuning bible and various ways to tune, but I can't find its sweet spot! It sounded great in my living room, but then at the studio BOOOOWWWWW. And it was awful!

It's a struggle to get the kit sounding good from the audiences perspective too. There's no-one that will come and hit them while I spend a day tuning them lol. My snare sounds Godly!! (Now I've got the Emperor X off - BLEH)

Any advice for my floor tom? Acrylic 16x14 Clear Emps over Clear Ambs

[Mr Pink]

Any advice for my floor tom? Acrylic 16x14 Clear Emps over Clear Ambs

This is the head combo I have always used withacrylic. Try tuning heads exactly until it has a nice pure note. Then mess with top head to drop the tone if you want. These drums really have a way of tell you where they want to be tuned.

[dairyairman]

I have played on many drummers kits in my city, and I've noticed that practically ALL of them crank up the snares as tight as they will go, duct tape paper towels and other stuff on the toms, and just stuff a bunch of crap in the bass drum! This one drummer who played on my kit, the first thing he did was to crank the snares. My drum teacher and myself are so far the only drummers in this city who do not do all of this.

haha! so true! at this metal club where we used to play they have a house kit and i swear it's exactly like you describe. the snare is cranked to the point where it sounds like a timbale. it's so tight it makes almost no snare sound. the toms have wrinkles in the batter heads and are covered with duct tape. the reso heads are removed from everything except the snare, and the bass drum has an entire load of laundry in it!

[ant_182]

This is the head combo I have always used withacrylic. Try tuning heads exactly until it has a nice pure note. Then mess with top head to drop the tone if you want. These drums really have a way of tell you where they want to be tuned.

What do you mean a nice pure note? Like a sound that's "right"?

Thanks though

[Mr Pink]

When the shell "sings".....has a nice tone when hit with a stick. When it sounds good. We the angels sing. When your nipples dance with delight, when your boner will not go away even after thing of your grand mother naked, when it does not sound like a Pearl or Tama drum.

[DrummerJonny]

...

[ant_182]

lol. Ok Pink. But how can I tune to the audience? There's no way of telling what it's like for them!?

[oliv_da_skinmasher]

Get someone you trust to play them in turn as you stand about half way down the room you're playing and then see how it sounds.

[ant_182]

...thats the problem :lol:

[Damo]

Friday night I played a gig [about 350 people] and got asked whether my kit was a Pearl Masters or Reference by the sound guy [he saw the front head]. I told him it was a Target Series, to which he replied "sounds ten times better than most kits I have to work with." He was a drummer himself so I felt quite pleased.

Moral of the story; take the time to get to know your drums and learn to tune them how they want to be tuned naturally.

You can have a $10,000 kit, but if you go into the gig with old heads that aren't tuned up, it'll sound awful to the listener. Tune for the room you're playing in as well, not for your practice room at home.
Actually, I think its even simpler than that. Sound guys hate natural resonance because theyre all bound by/obsessed with close micing onstage.

Whenever I take my Designer out I keep getting the same comment.
"Is there anything you can do to stop the booming of the bass drum?"
"Uh, yeah... But I paid a lot of money so I could get that sound..."

Ive just learnt to realise that sound guys and drummers differ in what they consider a good drum sound.

[lewisniven]

always get compliments on my kit sound, studios engineers, stage engineers, the lot.

as stated by others, its just cuz my kit is tuned reasonably well, and i havent got a king size double matress in the bass drum. from expereince, nearly all the drummers who's kits ive used in the past dont have a clue.

apparently learning to tune ur instrument is no longer important.

[Aaron]

Actually, I think its even simpler than that. Sound guys hate natural resonance because theyre all bound by/obsessed with close micing onstage.

Whenever I take my Designer out I keep getting the same comment.
"Is there anything you can do to stop the booming of the bass drum?"
"Uh, yeah... But I paid a lot of money so I could get that sound..."

Ive just learnt to realise that sound guys and drummers differ in what they consider a good drum sound.
Well I only had a pair of overheads so it wasn't that at all. What the audience hears is more important than how us drummers think a bass-drum should sound...

[Damo]

What the audience hears is more important than how us drummers think a bass-drum should sound...
True, but the audience should be able to hear it the way it was intended, not muffled, muted and gated.

[Seafroggys]

I wish to throw in another argument....how you tune your drum to sound live, un miced, and how you tune your drum to sound mic can be potentially two different ways.

While having our drums open and resonant may be great if out drums aren't miced (and unless its like a 200 person club, you don't really need them micced to begin with), it may not fly with sound engineers.

Then again, if you have good sound engineers, they wouldn't be a problem.

[Motleyguy]

Actually, I think its even simpler than that. Sound guys hate natural resonance because theyre all bound by/obsessed with close micing onstage.

Whenever I take my Designer out I keep getting the same comment.
"Is there anything you can do to stop the booming of the bass drum?"
"Uh, yeah... But I paid a lot of money so I could get that sound..."

Ive just learnt to realise that sound guys and drummers differ in what they consider a good drum sound.

Pretty much... my toms are muffled to death, simply because that's how I could make them sound good... crappy poplar shells on the Pearl Forums. Sound guys love me, 'cause they can add their own reverb if they want it. Me, I'm not a big fan of my drums, and have tried various head combos, still... nasty overtones, so muffling was the route I took.

[Aaron]

True, but the audience should be able to hear it the way it was intended, not muffled, muted and gated.

Well it wasn't at all in this case. I had no internal muffling, just a singlet rolled up and leaning against the batter. Drums are intended to be tuned in different manners, depending on need remember. I don't buy into the "shipped tuned and ready to gig" attitude.

The key thing is knowing how your drums tune in different conditions AND [and this probably just or more important] assessing the room you were in.

If you're in a cafe or a wine bar, say 8m by 8m, but still need volume, a big open tuning will sound terrible, especially when there's lots of people moving around and lots of flat surfaces [ie glass windows]. Do you need to treat the room pre-gig? Should you put some curtains over those big windows? Should your kit be set up in the middle of the room? If there's not a stage, which most gigs don't have, then you don't need to plonk it down in the middle of the room at the back, and you have a lot to work with. Investing in some big heavy curtains for gigging drummers is on the same priority of having a rug that you have in your gig set up, in my opinion. Plenty of gigs have been ruined by feedback and slapback of sounds from odd shaped rooms, and it's not just the miced gear that's at fault.

There shouldn't be a separation between drummer and engineer in terms of technique for drum setup and tuning, you're both working towards the same goals. You need a drum sound that suits the music being played, in the room you're playing in, for the audience you're playing to. The drummer's personal opinion of how drums should be tuned should ALWAYS be the same as whatever is needed for the situation at hand, and if it differs it should be sacrificed.

[Damo]

The drummer's personal opinion of how drums should be tuned should ALWAYS be the same as whatever is needed for the situation at hand, and if it differs it should be sacrificed.
I agree to an extent, but if the resulting sacrifice means you cant hear or feel comfortable with your playing to the point where its distracting, then you need to tread far more cautiously.

In reality, Im the kind of player that gets up and does his thing, regardless of the conditions, because Ive done it for so long. If the soundguy wants a more muffled bass drum and I can accomodate, then it really isnt a problem. We as drummers tend to approach our mix from a drummers viewpoint, whereas soundguys view it from an audio engineers role. Both have their advantages and bias's.

[Mr Pink]

Keep the sound man happy or he will screw with you, your monitor mix, you fan speed, your mom, your car, and your dog will go missing. They are an unstable lot.

[Seafroggys]

yep, always buy them drinks and say thank you :)

[Damo]

The guys we hired last night didnt deserve to have drinks bought for them. In fact, I was in two minds about paying them at all!

[rohbit]

I once had to get rid of the wonderful ring on my pretty Maple Snare for a sound guy... I was mildly annoyed by this.

[Aaron]

I was a soundguy before I was a drummer so I think I'm a bit unique; I'm slow and fussy haha.

[Obelisk]

"It was an honour to play your kit"

/quote from drummer who showed up with 4-piece Pearl Masters he paid 1200 for used, in Halifax, NS.

[The Feeding]

i have nothing in my bass drum...my only problem i run into is my floor tom. I don't like the EC2 head on it, i think i would rather have a G2...

[Mr Pink]

The guys we hired last night didnt deserve to have drinks bought for them. In fact, I was in two minds about paying them at all!

Don't you have a regular guy that you don't want to kill?? Was he already booked?