The Drum Gear Shop Talk Nerdy Nerdy Thread

(nope)

Here's a question: I sat a foot away from Jimmy Delgado the other night and he had what looked like red chunk of plastic attached to his timbales- what the heck could that have been?

Jordan, your question requires an answer from someone with a far higher gear nerd quotient than I have.

Ken, the red chunk of plastic was probably one of those plastic "wood" blocks often used in latin percussion. I don't know why people use them instead of wood.

what the heck could that have been?

JAM BLOCK

That's okay, Hurting. I kind of forgot about die cast hoops (never used them myself), and then I played a gig on someone else's snare and realized that they make the drum sooooo loud and cracky, it's awesome.

OK, that's what I figured it was, and I didn't know the name so thanks guys.

Ha, There is a picture of it on this site http://www.congahead.com/Musicians/Meet_Musicians/Delgado/delgado.html

where it is called "indispensable."

More like indefensible, although I guess a lot of timbale players use them, yeah.

Joe Tomin0 of Dub Trio is reclaiming the jam block too!

While searching for pictures of him I found this:

http://www.thedelimagazine.com/content/parties/thehook/nakedkeyboard.jpg

Yeah, jam blocks sound gross.

Jimmy Delgado barely played his when I saw him.

Never quite got the appeal of the Jam Block but I do have a soft spot for them ancient swing and big band kits, with all manner of accoutrements like temple blocks, whistles, finger bells, mini-gongs, etc. attached to them.

http://www.pas.org/Museum/Tour/images/knappset.jpg

teh awesome

I never did find die-cast hoops, which I think is so weird because they sound great.

Someone told me that die cast hoops preceded the flanged kind, and that most kits in the 50s & 60s had them. Maybe that's partly why the drums sounded so good?

Another burning question:

My band is going into the studio this weekend and I'm torn between putting new heads on my drum or not. On one hand, you're supposed to do that, it'll probably be more resonant, etc.. On the other hand, I always kind of wrestle with tuning and the heads I have on there have settled really nicely, and I don't want to fuck up the sound I have going.

?

I don't know about drums, but it seems like if you're happy with the sound you have, you shouldn't mess with it.

The room, the mix, the mics, the compression, and the EQ are going to make a lot more difference than the heads.

And, as n/a says: If you like your sound, keep it.

Also I'm not sure whether to mic the batter side or resonant side. Former = more attack and latter = less attack would be the main difference, right?

(bass drum btw)

Some engineers like to mic both, thus providing a choice at mixing time. Plus, again, gates and compression and EQ and the room and studio trickery are all going to be as deeply involved in shaping the sound--perhaps moreso.

Me, I think it'd have to be a pretty spacious mix, and a pretty persnickety ear, for anyone to tell the difference. (Setting aside the question of whether anyone will care about the difference.)

IME the batter side introduces the risk of capturing the squeaks and rattles of your pedal and other hardware.

I don't use a pedal ;)

The engineer that we're working with mic'd both sides and used a reverse-mic-speaker-whatever-you-call-it on the front.

You mean something like a Yamaha Subkick?

I actually tend to think you should worry a LOT about drum sound when recording, rather than relying on the idea that all the EQing and stuff will fix any problems. That's a drummer's view, not an engineer's, but I get much better results when the drums sound good to begin with, requiring less work in the booth. As for heads, I like to use new heads for recording, but not BRAND new, so I wouldn't put new heads on the day before I record because I like to give them time to settle and give myself time to get used to them.

As for micing, I prefer micing the batter heads on the snare and toms and relying heavily on room sound.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. The sound is the sound, everything that happens afterwards (EQ, effects, etc.) just colors it.

I mean you can take a shitty drum sound and flatten the hell out of it, but then you just wind up with a really flat drum sound - and I imagine that you especially don't want that for what you're doing.

You mean something like a Yamaha Subkick?

I don't know what a Yamaha Subkick is, but he used a normal speaker with an impedance-converter or somesuch.

a normal speaker with an impedance-converter or somesuch.

Basically that's what the Subkick is, except it's housed inside a small drum shell. Supposedly the shell helps focus the sound onto the speaker but it's probably more for show than anything.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1063/1433510562_849dbd8c3b.jpg

gah, they need to turn the lights down in there

Yeah, I guess. The nice part was that we were all in the same room, in a circle around the mics.

Btw, I thought having the mic on the resonant side sounded a little fucked up and boomy in the studio, so I switched it to the batter side - mistake #1. After listening to the takes on a few different systems it sounded way better on the other side. Oh well, next time.

I still think best is to rely heavily on room mics and use the batter-side mic for extra punch - that way you're getting the resonance from the resonant side and the snare wire and hearing the sound of the whole drum. Course that gets harder when you're all together in the room, I guess.

i'm learning to play left hand lead. it's my new year's resolution to be totally comfortable with it by '09.

i'm teaching myself to play pandeiro!

http://www.sultansound.com/pandeiro.jpg

pandeiro is hard :(

Getting the hang of the bodhran was pretty hard.

OK maybe not hard so much as just so very different from other drums. More in common with playing rhythm guitar than a drumkit.

How do I shot crayon marks from the top of kid's drum?

A pair of Remo Kid's Kongas. Maybe I should have asked on parenting thread.

they are his drums, let him do whatever he wants with them.

Ah, I wasn't thinking from the creative angle.

tempting

http://images.craigslist.org/3nb3of3l41fa12313691bd299b7feba011890.jpg

Looks like something Terry Bozzio played on "SpongeBob Squarepants."

Well, maybe not enough pieces for TB.

Do they blink in time?

(caveat: I don't actually play all that much anymore) 80s Tama kit: orig 24 kick 16 * 20 in toms for the math rock bannd I was in @ the time. A couple of years ago I found matching 22 in kick and a 14 in tom so I play 22 + 14 + the 16 on a stand as my floor tom. I use pin-stripes on the tops and regular clear on the bottoms. I tune the bottoms a bit lower than the tops which gives a little pitch drop in the resonance. I use foam rings on both kick heads, but all the drums are pretty deep so they still have a bit of boom. They sound really good in a big room, or through a PA.

Sold all my Zildjians for Paiste 2002s but I haven't been really feeling them except the Sound Edge hi hats that I craved ever since I saw Dejohnette play on then in the 70s. I was playing with timbale sticks but I recently switched to a regular wood head stick. I have an old Rogers snare, which is pretty deep. It has a really crisp top, like a classical snare, but also a lot of bottom to it. It is really hard to get it's actual sound recorded properly though.

What I crave is a set of Sonars w/ really deep shells: 20 + 14 + 18.

Re: tuning & recording (not necessarily as one subject) - if you want your drums to consistantly sound good, you need to learn to turne them. For some reason, drummers are he only instrumentalists that think it's normal not to tune their instruments. I used to be this way, so I know about that. it's like anything you do, practice makes you more adept at it.

Your drums are (uually), an acoustic instrument. They will sound different in different contexts. If they don't, you're not listening. When I used to regularly gig, I would tune my drums before I packed them up, then I would retune on stage. Virtually every sound-man I worked with commented on how good they sounded. All a PA does is amplify the existing sound.

This goes double for recording. Your engineer probably knows where to place the drums in his studio, from experience. It's not a random choice. Steve Fisk once told me about producing a session @ Reciprocal in Seattle (where the early Sub Pop stuff was recorded). He hadn't recorded there so he tried moving the drums around to find a sweet spot, and all of a sudden he figured out where Jack Endino stuck them. Voila... instant Sub Pop sound. It was the room, and placement, not any special miking technique.

I was converted to the tuning-before-recording concept when I recorded @ Albini's old house. I reheaded my drums when I got there, and tuned them (he's a closet drummer). He's also a miking geek, 3 mics on the snare, 2 on the kick (I don't need to have batter side miked, as I use a wooden beater w/a felt strip on it, and my foot's really loud anyway). His whole deal is to get the sound right when recording, so you don't have to fix it in the mix.

Aside to Jordan, how'd the left-hand lead go? I have done it a bit, but I never practiced it enough.

I just bought a practice pad, I might be doing some gigs in September, and I feel that I need to go back to the basics and get my grip right before I get all into it and find myself onstage wishing regretting.