[HN Gopher] Rock and Roll Drums: All You Need to Know
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Rock and Roll Drums: All You Need to Know
Author : akbarnama
Score : 26 points
Date : 2023-06-19 07:39 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.schoolofrock.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.schoolofrock.com)
| zwieback wrote:
| One more thing you'll need to know: you'll need a big car. Also,
| your garage will probably be the band's practice space.
| cardy31 wrote:
| I played professionally while driving a Camry! A 20" kick drum
| and a mic for it is all you need, and that fits in the back
| seat of a Camry. Everything else can go in the trunk, at least
| with a reasonably-sized kit.
| jerpint wrote:
| Lugging drums around is the biggest pain of playing drums - set
| up, tear down, etc. Don't forget packing a carpet too!
| skrrtww wrote:
| I'd like to see some more science behind the claims about
| frequency responses of different types of wood. While they must
| resonate differently, I'm very skeptical of the claim that this
| leads to a qualitatively different sound.
|
| edit: I will say there is an obvious influence of the wood type
| on the drums' response to temperature changes, and thus their
| tuning, so to the extent that that influences things, yes, there
| will be a difference. I'd like to see experiments controlling for
| all except wood type, however.
| cardy31 wrote:
| I am a former pro drummer (now a programmer which is why I hang
| out here)
|
| The wood definitely matters. Beginner kits are usually made out
| of poplar and even with good heads and tuning they just sound
| bad compared to a kit made with a wood known to sound better.
| Maple and birch are quite popular, oak, bubinga, and ash all
| make appearances on high-end drum sets. I used to work in a
| music store and saw a lot of drum kits come through, and high-
| end kits even with the same heads and tuning as low end kits do
| just sound better.
|
| Also, in the rest of musical instruments, particular woods are
| valued for their acoustic properties especially on string
| instruments. So I don't think it is that far-fetched to say
| that it makes a difference in drums too, unless you also want
| to argue that an acoustic guitar made of particle board vs one
| made of maple are the same. (They do not sound the same at all)
| jrsdav wrote:
| I'm not a drummer, but the ones that I know (some professional
| session musicians and audio engineers) seem to agree with you.
| It all comes down to heads and tension (and the person playing,
| of course).
|
| However, I do wonder about snare drums. I've heard a few
| different Noble & Cooley snares in studio settings, and the
| wood vs metal definitely sounded a lot different. But they
| _did_ have different heads on them...
| cardy31 wrote:
| Wood vs Metal snare drums sound way different even with the
| same heads on them. There is definitely a difference from the
| construction of the shell. (I left a comment higher up too
| but snare drums are just so obviously different based on the
| material)
| debatem1 wrote:
| Would be nice to see something about amplifying and recording
| drums.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Do a search for "drum miking", there's a lot of material out
| there along with articles about experimenting various
| techniques.
| cardy31 wrote:
| I swear by the Glyn Johns technique if you need something
| relatively simple!
|
| https://musictech.com/tutorials/technique-of-the-week-glyn-j...
| analog31 wrote:
| >>>> How much do drums cost?
|
| Not much, until you get to the cymbals.
|
| Most of the drummers I've worked with are willing to put up with
| pretty much any drums, but always bring their own bag of cymbals.
| I don't think it's just a portability issue.
| cardy31 wrote:
| The drums themselves get to a point where it is diminishing
| returns on sound as you get more expensive. But you can always
| get another cymbal to fill a niche!
| sharksauce wrote:
| Turning up the volume a whole lot can help a mediocre guitar
| player sound somewhat competent.
|
| This does not apply to drums.
|
| (source: crappy drummer me)
| doytch wrote:
| Really? I feel the opposite. All the poor string muting really
| shines through :(
|
| (source: crappy guitarist me)
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Drums really fascinated me since the first day I got to sit
| behind a kit that one saturday morning in october 2002 and ended
| changing my life.
|
| It's a "meta-instrument" instrument that has a level of
| customization to the individual that no other instrument goes
| near - in many cases you can tell a famous drummer just by
| looking at the disposition of their set! In many other
| instruments it's the player who has to adapt to said instrument,
| but with drums it happens quite the opposite.
|
| Despite its avant-garde and ever-evolving nature, sometimes it
| baffles me that it's us players who sometimes haven't kept "in
| time" (no pun intended) with the instrument. I find it weird that
| the main reason people play hi hats cross-handed it's because a
| limitation in the hardware, namely the hi hat stand. Granted,
| there are now remote stands and you could place it almost
| anywhere, but they are still quite rare (and apparently even more
| expensive) and people just got along with the idea of having to
| play one of the most used pieces in the kit, precisely in rock
| styles, in a counter-intuitive place.
|
| I think Bill Bruford could solve that drum layout issue
| perfectly, having his hats exactly on front on him and allowing
| him to be easily reachable with both hands without something else
| getting in the way (like Danny Carey). Alas it hasn't catched on
| because, again, people got so used to have their hi hats in a
| weird place that I bet many think that _it's the way we are
| intended to set our drums_.
|
| Other of the head-scratching issues that even a century later is
| still alive is the stick grip thing. For many years they taught
| people traditional grip and told them that's the intended way to
| play drums (there's a funny rant from Buddy Rich around youtube
| about that matter), but as with the rise of rock styles people
| found that playing with a matched grip allowed them to play with
| more power, now they are telling people that playing matched is
| _the superior way_ to play drums (people of the likes of Thomas
| Lang, Matt Gartska and even the youtuber "the 80/20 drummer" are
| behind that idea).
|
| But in reality even that comes down to the individual. I for one
| played with matched grip for 16 years and despite how much I did
| for my weak hand at the end I found my body is just not
| symmetrical. There's some tension in the tendons of my left hand
| it won't ever let me go anywhere near the flexibility of my right
| hand and feeling tension even when playing double strokes, no
| matter how relaxed. Re-discovering traditional grip was a moment
| of enlightenment for me and now I can't understand why people try
| to impose things as a grip as some sort of universal condition in
| the world of one of the most (if not the most) customizable
| musical instruments.
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