Ah, we try not to assume but yes, we took a leap of faith here. We also understand that some would rather purchase a bespoke, hand-woven, purpose built cloth of the finest Turkish fabrics for this instead. And to that we must declare, "to each, their own!"
Diffusion of sound waves inside the bass drum is a great way to break up waves that would otherwise cause the basketball sound. The T-shirt works well, but it also absorbs high-frequencies (like foam on studio walls). It would be interesting to hear the drum with a diffusor that's not soft. Something like a pie tin (suspended by 2-3 strings tied onto shell screws). It'd not be touching the maple shell, so it wouldn't have that crinkly sound like when you lined the bass drum with aluminum foil. It's great you're tackling these sonic issues; drum interiors are like studio live rooms, and treating them can be beneficial.
I kill the ping on my floor tom with a strip of felt taped to the inside of the shell the length of the drum in the space between two lugs. Works great. Also the only muffling in the bass drum is a few bits of picknpluck foam scattered on the bottom. The same sort of idea as DrumKubes. I figure the internal reflection causes the ping and adding some resistance to the resonance of the air shortens the note length. Also recently been enjoying a fourth interval between heads ask find it gives a nice clear note with minimal dissonance, no pitch bend, and for jazz the batter head higher has nice articulation and with the batter head down a fourth you get that nice aggressive attack. Can leave the resos in optimal tension for sustain
I recently acquired my first drum kit, & tbh more guitar player originally. Now I'd like to also figure out how to play the rhythms I hear in my music. I'll have to try out these tips, & some of the other comments sound like good experiments as well. Thanks for the drum hacks!
LOVE ALL your episodes. There's ALWAYS knowledge to gain from them. I just recently joined a band. And as great as some of your experiments have been in "dampening, slight muffling, and so on. This time around, I had to let ALL my drums RING like the Hunchback of Notre Dame going stir-crazy on his bells, lol. 22" bass with an Evans emad, foam ring dampener out. REMO pinstripes on top, REMO clear single ply on bottom. Tuned for maximum ring tone. Man oh man, played along with a very loud band.......CUTS RIGHT THROUGH with POWER. Without losing dynamic control. As is though, ALL drummers have their own preference. It's what makes drumming so unique. DRUM STRONG......DRUM PROUD!!! WE ARE THE BACKBONE OF ALL MUSIC!!! 🤘🏼❤🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁❤😉
Thanks! Yep- competing for sound is a tough one. Always nice when you can strike the right balance of energy and volume with a band and still get a great sound. Cheers!
@@SoundsLikeADrum So very true. Specially when using a snare drum vertically setup on a SIDEKICK DRUMS snare mount. As like Rick Allen from Def Leppard, I am a one arm drummer. Using only acoustic drums, no triggers or electronic pads. My floor snares are a 14X8 LUDWIG SUPRALITE. No muffling at all. I use a wooden beater that TAMA specifically makes for their SPEED COBRA 910 pedals. Along with a click pad in the center of a ECI REVERSE SILVER DOT EVENS LEVEL 360 head. Giving me a strike that sounds very much like a drumstick. 🤘🏻🥁
Used a pillow casing which worked perfectly for size. My huge 22x20 truth kick thanks you!! One the best hacks to get rid of that tennis ball sound, sounds absolutely lush now and was easy to do.
I tried everything to achieve a bass drum sound which is big and free of echoing resonance but to no avail. What I would like to hear is " bog, bog, bog" sounds which is big and powerful. Finally I tried your T-shirt and to my surprise, the sound becomes remarkably louder! But with the resonance still present, I tried putting in a beach towel resting lightly on the batter side and, wow, I finally achieved that big, resonant-free bass sound, Thank you very much !
As a long time conga player I am very familiar with this hack but surprised that it works for this kind of shells too. The basketball sound is a well known problem among conguero's. Conga's that are made from solid wood staves - like old Gon Bops - do not have this ringy sound but those that are made from staves that consist of two or three layers of wood glued together - like wooden LP conga's - all have it and conga's with fiberglass shells too. Attaching a old sock - preferably washed - to the inside of the shell solves the problem. The basketball sound in conga's is probably due to the greater stiffnes of shells that have a lot of glue in them so it might be interesting to compare drumshells with six or seven layers to shells that are build with only a few layers.
Wasn’t aware of that with congas! Makes so much sense for a perfectly round interior and even a bit with stave though maybe to varied degrees. Thanks so much for sharing that info! Now I need to try this in my congas too! -Ben
Wow! That is just the sound I want out of my kick. I’m gonna have to watch the one on floor tom. I think that may work well for a nice controlled snare sound too :). Great hack!
I love seeing things like this- you get the desired result without sacrificing...anything. I've got to get a shot of the inside of my 18" floor tom, took a 2" wide strip of that stretchy medical wrap on the bottom set of lugs, both screws do it was 'vertical' or parallel with the shell. Skipped every other lug and only then (after trying everything) did I have the girth I'd been after, without the basketball or pipe noise. 💦
Great idea, Over the years I've been using about 25 cotton balls strung together with string. Then I tape the string ends and middle to the shell an inch from the batter head. Works well, it muffles but still has a bit of tone. But I think your t shirt hack may work even better. Do you feel there is still some tone using the tshirt? And do you finger tighten both the batter and resonant head to "Keep the Deep" Thump ? Thanks
Man, oh manischewitz... you guys really have that bass drum dialed in. Sounding pretty much like the quintessential rock bass drum there, I don’t think you can get much better than that. This is another one to run with! Different materials? Different mounting heights? Vertical ‘curtain’? How bout some fringe, like a car wash vibe with the big noodles hanging down? Endless variations! Thank you sirs. And hey, we miss Ben... we need some face time with the man behind the scenes.
Haha, thanks! We're excited to experiment with this one further. And thanks for the kind words! I host the weekly livestreams on Instagram (12pm EST on the day of a new release) and will be hosting a video coming out shortly... Cheers! -Ben
the hack tone is "more focused". This should be great for small settings. Might match the "more focused" tone of die cast rims. sounded quieter to me, not louder.
Great hack! Would it matter if you attached the shirt exactly like you have it (horizontal)and attach with gaff tape instead of the screw? Thanks and rock on!
@@SoundsLikeADrum Thanks for the reply-I am getting back to drumming after 30+ years for personal enjoyment-you have provided me the pathway to get going again…lots has changed over the years. Thanks again, Mark
I did velcro strips and cut up 2 thick strips of memory foam, stuck them to the inside of my bass drum vertically with the velcro adhesive in the middle of my bass drum... It's this hack on steroids.
Am I strange? I liked the empty drum more, and I wonder if you would compare micing an unported reso head and just changing the batter heads. Some of the new batter heads are very damped, but those go a bit too far for me. Anyway, I think the sound produced out front by an intact single ply reso head is the ideal bass drum sound. We are not supposed to be listening to inside the drum.
Not at all strange- these are just tools for the gig. The greater the understanding of the instrument and the means of modifying the sound, the more prepared one can be for anything.
@@EddySchmidt25 You can definitely get quite far with tuning but this is still an acoustic phenomena (the basketball sound) that is inherent to drum shell design. Luckily, simple hacks like this aren't permanent/don't require drilling holes, and are cheap/easy to install if you like your overall sound but need to fine tune certain frequencies. We demonstrate most of these at the extreme to illustrate the effect but they can (and should!) be used sparingly as needed (just as one would use an equalizer) in order to achieve the desired sound. Cheers!
Wow! Such a big difference with so little effort, love it! Is the difference as noticeable in the room too? Wondering if it helps as much when relying on the ambient sound with no mics involved? Can't wait to try this on my kick and 16" floor tom!
Definitely! Of course, if you’re playing with a band and it’s all acoustic, subtlety and nuance for tuning and drum sounds in general will often be sacrificed as the volume increases.
Have you ever done a mic shootout episode? I think a lot of your basketball sound is coming from the D112. Would be interested to hear a different micup like a Beta 91a
Haven’t done a mic shoot out (not really our focus as we’re producing episodes specifically around acoustic drum sounds) but I can tell you that this sound is present inside the drum and something that just about any mic will capture.
Excellent hack. Thanks Excuse me but I have a suggestion. Try centering the mic (take it out of the hole) in front of the resonant head. Low tune and it sounds even better. Prof Bruze
Thanks, we already have a mic out in front of the drum. The D112 is capture more attack from just inside. We use this setup as it yields a sound that most closely matches what we're hearing in the room. Cheers!
Sounds Like A Drum Cool. I have Gretsch Renown Kit. The reso head can be tuned super low. Gives me a sound like a 808 techno only much better Thanks again for this excellent hack Prof Bruze
I tried this out recently after watching this video on a 60’s Ludwig club date bass drum (22x14) I finished rebuilding and didn’t really notice a difference but I think it’s because the piece of shirt was only ≈ 4 inches wide since the drum only has the 10 center lugs… do you think the width of the piece of material plays much of a role in how much it affects the sound? It’s a rad mod though!
Cody, this is slightly off topic. But my question is: Have you or any sound engineers that you know ever expressed a preference for which side the position of the port on the resonant side is? Yours obviously is at 4 o'clock thereabouts. I've always preferred mine at the 7 o'clock position, my rationale being that it keeps the bass drum mic a little further away from the snare. I've never done an A/B comparison, but I'd be curious to know your thoughts. Cheers on another great video.
Hey there! I honestly don’t have a preference and have never heard one expressed - I just use whatever side the porter heads are firm the factory. I can say that listening back to internal kick mic’s solo in the studio the snare has never been a problem but I reckon it could depend on the player and their personal style (snare volume vs kick volume etc.) Hope that helps! Fwiw most of my hard hitting friends prefer a center port anyway so who knows 😂 -Cody
We've used it from time to time when the issue was present but not right now (because we haven't encountered the issue with the bass drum sound we're currently creating).
Ooh wow, something so simple to make a big change. Awesome. But however my cat likes the pillow once I didn’t look and she was in there and started playing 😳I’ve never seen her run so fast. I felt so bad and as a pay back to me she shit in my bass drum 🥺 I found a new home for her shortly after.
i tried it diffently,, i hung "tapestries" at the 11 ish and 1 ish lug positions instead of doing the more logical paralell to the ground thing. it worked
Nice! We stayed away from hanging material so as to minimize the disruption of air flow between the batter and reso heads. Glad to hear that your approach worked as well!
@@SoundsLikeADrum i tried the bohnam foil thing in the early days of the internet when i was a teen. I remember it making the bd sound great but it made the microphone tweak out. caused a lot of feedback. (i mean i was like 16 at the time in the early 200s and our pa SUCKED but i remember that. also .. ever hear of the quarter trick?
@@SoundsLikeADrum the quarter trick is 100% for metal and has no use in any other genre, but i'm sure you got a few metal drummers subscribed. try the quarters, some sort of thick plastic, wood beaters ... etc
Awesome. I'm curious which method between the shirt, tin foil, or sandbag you guys think works best for eliminating the basketball zing? I'm very excited to try this one out!
Definitely lots of options! This one seems the simplest though I might tweak the dimensions of the fabric to get a bit more attack back. It's certainly worth a comparison and maybe something we'll do on our Patreon with an in-depth demo. -Ben
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I love your videos. I love what it does for the floor tom, but for the bass drum, it sounds a little too thuddy for me. Maybe I have to hear in person to appreciate it more.
Thanks so much! It really depends entirely on the context. I think a lot of drummers would be truly shocked to hear the raw, solo'd drum sounds from more recordings that they enjoy. Quite a few would be surprised to see/hear "how the sausage is made". 😂
Would love to see / hear what happens if you put it parallel to the head... not touching, just a thin layer of t shirt cotton spanned parallel to the heads...
I could still hear the basketball tone, albeit a bit muffled. Typically what I do is roll up a towel like a pre-cut cinnamon roll, tape the outer layer with masking tape, and lay it up against the batterhead. If the towel is light in weight, then I'll put some super lightweight magnets inside the towel on the outer wrap to can fasten themselves to the lugs screws to help muffle overtones without deadening the head completely.
@@SoundsLikeADrum Not really. The ends are usually laid down facing the reso head, creating a U-shape with the thickest part gently laying against the bottom of the head, and I never tape the towel to the head. It allows for a fatter boom to the stroke. The magnets, as far as I can tell, don't change the sound either, they just help to hold the towel in place against the screws of the bass drum lugs so the taped up towel doesn't go off walking.
The EMAD features all external muffling and has a very different overall effect. This means that the hack demonstrated here isn't really redundant- try it out and see what you think!
Huey, everything you try, or use, or combine is okay. There are no mistakes in art, as a wise old teacher once told me. There is no right or wrong, it’s about finding YOUR sound, by any means. (excepting St. Anger, that was so wrong) That’s why we have these hacks to try, because someone got crafty and tried something that stuck. All these little tricks of the trade started in someone’s head. Try whatever occurs to you, and maybe we’ll end up using a hack that you came up with!
You should at this moment just use all methods in bass drum at the same time and show us how it would sound. It should be absolute perfect kick sound. Or not, what I know?
Absolutely! Proving that there certainly is a difference and a potentially beneficial one, we're very curious about and will explore modifications to this via our Patreon. Cheers! -Ben
Great, as always! So many ways to muffle overtones. I've got bits of foam from an old damping (dampening?) system taped to the kick batter head. Ugly, but it works. Bits of foam fly off as it slips and the sound changes consequently. Just reminds me of an old Rick Beato vid. about robotic recording sounds and the need for more improvised production. Off the beaten track, but can you do something on click and the 'need' for perfect timing, as opposed to groove slipping in and out of time. Really appreciate all that you do. Unexpected financial burden has prevented me from backing you but it is 'on the cards' asap. X
Thanks, Sid! Always fun to experiment with this stuff. We're all about discovering new approaches and improving the understanding of the instrument. Thanks for the kind words- we really appreciate it and hope things are on the upswing for you soon! -Ben
Did you also try lowering the tension of the reso head? Just asking…. I find it incredibly amusing that drummers will lay out a few grand on the most resonant maple shell drums they can afford…. and will then proceed to muffle out much of that resonance. Folks, the sound you want comes from Yamaha Stage Custom drums. Combo of birch and mahogany plies. The wood is less resonant, so you get less of this ‘basketbally’ after effect. I’m sure other brands make similar drums of similar ply construction that give you the modern sound you want. My set uses no muffling whatsoever, and gets none of that undesired sound…. and cost me 25% of the cost of maple shells.
@@SoundsLikeADrum nice! i just got an anchor for a bass drum that doesn't have any legs and found out i don't need em! the anchor and my foot pedal make sure it doesn't creep, and i kinda feel like it's a bit more resonant.
You guys have done a ton of small single isolated hacks, I want to see the difference between a open drum and the whole kit and cabootle! Throw everything at one drum until it is beaten like a dead horse. Similes aside that'd be very interesting.
I don't know about you guys doing all these hacks. I think you should make videos about how tune drums and the effects of different tuning schemes before you start talking about muffling and tricks.
I just got a $X,000 drum kit and you suggest I put a t-shirt on it to make it sound better! Does this sound rational? For the best tone both the head and wood must vibrate as equally as possible around the whole drum! Using plastic or felt zero rings is usually the best way to accomplish this. Don't use a freaking t-shirt! Much less a blanket or a pillow! They mainly did it in the 50s and 60s and some stil today because they didn't know better. Think about it,..The wood is more important to the sound than the head. And the wood must be free to vibrate. Putting anything on the wood is defeating the whole purpose of creating a proper drum sound.
@@SoundsLikeADrum The sound of a cylinder is produced by the shape of the cylinder, Any membrane is only to enhance the tone of the cylinder not to change it!
@@SoundsLikeADrum if the wood is not vibrating properly there's no possible way you can get the proper tone from that cylinder, same thing with the membrane if it is not equally vibrating on all sides. Putting a t-shirt on it prevents this. You might as well buy a $100 piece of crap drum kit if you're going to put a t-shirt on it what's the sense in having quality wood
@@SoundsLikeADrum the trick consists in doing it quickly, before you feel some love, and over all, don't look him in the eye. Otherwise you'll be lost, you'll have to move and buy a house by the country side... Ps: you know I'm joking, don't you...? 🙄😋
I'm on a crusade to get drummers to stop using port holes and mufiling in the base drum it runs the tone and low end of the drum, for some reasons everyone is petrified of "ringy drums" it kills me when I see drummers putting tape on the Tom's and snare and a pillow in the base drum, the best way way to demonstrate my argument is put your hand over your mouth and speak then take it away and which one sounds louder and clearer?, so while trying to make your base drum more punchy you end up make it quieter, port holes.....oh god why do people do this these days you can mike the base inside the drum or at the front without the hole, John Bonhams drums sounded powerful because he used little or no muffling and tuned high another thing people are catching on to nowadays. if you really need to muffle a base drum just use pre muffled heads or external adjustments but please unless your on the studio please stop putting pillows in the base drum and port holes and taping up the Tom's just tune your drums well and you wont need to
I'm genuinely concerned with how angry this video seems to be making you. No one is forcing you to use this hack. Plenty can be learned without employing it. There's a bigger picture here but I'm sorry that the it's getting lost in the hack here.
@@SoundsLikeADrum Most here are probably musicians, but this is something you might want to also ask a scientist - Is the frequency of a cylinder subjective? if you have a cylinder in America and the same size cylinder in Japan it's going to make the same sound. The minor differences would come from moisture or altitude, but at the same altitude and moisture no matter where you play that cylinder in the world it sounds exactly the same. When I started playing in about 1969 I used to put a blanket in my bass drum. It was the thing to do, It sounded great back then. But now we've learned a lot about how drums sound, how they should sound and how to make them sound that way. If you have not learned about the physics of cylinders and sound why not check it out? If you are open to experimenting you will find that zero rings sound much better than t-shirts and blankets. And respectfully it doesn't take a scientist to figure this out. As far as me being angry, thanks for the evaluation doctor where should I send my bill please? Lol oy vey! The material and shape of the cylinder are the primary sources of the tone. Heads, hardware, sticks and anything else, as extremely important as they are, come second
@@scottedelman9382 Let's be clear- a drum produces far more than just one frequency and those frequencies beyond the fundamental (the overtones) providing the quality of tone that we recognize most commonly as a difference in drum sounds. Again, the phrase "how drums should sound" brings up an immediate issue because drum sounds are dependent on context and it doesn't matter how much a set of drums cost. Bring those drums to a session with them singing exactly as you believe they "should" sound and see how long it takes for producer and/or engineer to bring up the need for adjustments as necessary. Regarding your claims about the primary and secondary sources for tone- we don't disagree! What we question is a blind, unwilling attitude towards making choices when it comes to those secondary and tertiary factors in order to craft the sound based on context.
@@SoundsLikeADrum you'll find no blind unwilling attitudes here, just a bit of knowledge based on experience and education. I have learned through experimenting and mistakes, many mistakes. How does a drum make a sound? The stick hits the top head which vibrates and causes the drum to vibrate which causes the bottom head to vibrate. The vibration should go out equally on all sides of the head in order to equally vibrate the whole drum. Putting t-shirts on a drum head defeats the whole purpose of the sound and you are in essence not even hearing the drum itself but the t-shirt. When you put heads on a drum they are not to change the tone of the cylinder. They are to enhance the tone of the cylinder. How do we know this? Many drummers such as Keith Moon used the same drums and tuned them to different frequencies or notes. It's like having glasses all the same size and filling them with different amounts of water which will enable you to get different notes. However, after many years of experimenting what they found was instead of filling the glasses with different amounts of water, the tones sound much fuller when they get glasses that are different sizes and do not fill them with water. It's the same concept that is applied to the drums. It is the size and shape of the wood that makes the tone. The heads and hardware bring out this tone They are not used to make a different tone than what the size of the drum is meant for. And of course we are not talking about one frequency as a drum makes more than one note at a time. It is not melodic like a violin or piano. Anything on the drum including blankets t-shirts and even the holes in the drum that connect the hardware affect and diminish the quality of the sound. Consider the Arbiter snare drum which is a full maple shell that has only one hole for air, the rims are connected in a way that does not put any holes in the drum. This is ideally the perfect drum. Now they are you are drums go out and do anything you want to them. If you want to use them for fire they are yours You can do what you want. Experiment with everything all types of tuning and dampening Do what you want. Have fun but when it comes down to it there is a science behind music. Music and sound are a combination of science and art
You should do an episode of every mod youve ever done collectively together on each drum
We've actually been thinking about comparing a bunch on our Patreon!
@@TempoDrift1480 We have playlists of such things but I think Lazy Dobo is inquiring about all of these things included in one video.
@@SoundsLikeADrum it definitely begs to check if improvement from this stacks up with the sandbag hack.
Bold of you to assume i have 0$ just lying around
Ah, we try not to assume but yes, we took a leap of faith here. We also understand that some would rather purchase a bespoke, hand-woven, purpose built cloth of the finest Turkish fabrics for this instead. And to that we must declare, "to each, their own!"
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
No no, the joke is that he doesn’t even have zero dollars not that he wants to spend hundreds!!
@@xXxLax4LifexXx yeah we got it
@@abstractsoup3268 Man, the internet is a shitty place, isn't it? Having good jokes deconstructed and ruined by morons is just the norm the days.
Diffusion of sound waves inside the bass drum is a great way to break up waves that would otherwise cause the basketball sound. The T-shirt works well, but it also absorbs high-frequencies (like foam on studio walls). It would be interesting to hear the drum with a diffusor that's not soft. Something like a pie tin (suspended by 2-3 strings tied onto shell screws). It'd not be touching the maple shell, so it wouldn't have that crinkly sound like when you lined the bass drum with aluminum foil. It's great you're tackling these sonic issues; drum interiors are like studio live rooms, and treating them can be beneficial.
Wow. This on the kick and floor plus the sand bag trick are the best and most drastic hacks I've ever seen.
I kill the ping on my floor tom with a strip of felt taped to the inside of the shell the length of the drum in the space between two lugs. Works great. Also the only muffling in the bass drum is a few bits of picknpluck foam scattered on the bottom. The same sort of idea as DrumKubes. I figure the internal reflection causes the ping and adding some resistance to the resonance of the air shortens the note length. Also recently been enjoying a fourth interval between heads ask find it gives a nice clear note with minimal dissonance, no pitch bend, and for jazz the batter head higher has nice articulation and with the batter head down a fourth you get that nice aggressive attack. Can leave the resos in optimal tension for sustain
George Bird you are a much more sophisticated drum tuner than I! I’m glad you got good results.
Pic please?
I recently acquired my first drum kit, & tbh more guitar player originally. Now I'd like to also figure out how to play the rhythms I hear in my music. I'll have to try out these tips, & some of the other comments sound like good experiments as well. Thanks for the drum hacks!
LOVE ALL your episodes. There's ALWAYS knowledge to gain from them. I just recently joined a band. And as great as some of your experiments have been in "dampening, slight muffling, and so on. This time around, I had to let ALL my drums RING like the Hunchback of Notre Dame going stir-crazy on his bells, lol. 22" bass with an Evans emad, foam ring dampener out. REMO pinstripes on top, REMO clear single ply on bottom. Tuned for maximum ring tone. Man oh man, played along with a very loud band.......CUTS RIGHT THROUGH with POWER. Without losing dynamic control. As is though, ALL drummers have their own preference. It's what makes drumming so unique. DRUM STRONG......DRUM PROUD!!! WE ARE THE BACKBONE OF ALL MUSIC!!!
🤘🏼❤🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁❤😉
Thanks! Yep- competing for sound is a tough one. Always nice when you can strike the right balance of energy and volume with a band and still get a great sound. Cheers!
@@SoundsLikeADrum
So very true. Specially when using a snare drum vertically setup on a SIDEKICK DRUMS snare mount. As like Rick Allen from Def Leppard, I am a one arm drummer. Using only acoustic drums, no triggers or electronic pads. My floor snares are a 14X8 LUDWIG SUPRALITE. No muffling at all. I use a wooden beater that TAMA specifically makes for their SPEED COBRA 910 pedals. Along with a click pad in the center of a ECI REVERSE SILVER DOT EVENS LEVEL 360 head. Giving me a strike that sounds very much like a drumstick. 🤘🏻🥁
Used a pillow casing which worked perfectly for size. My huge 22x20 truth kick thanks you!! One the best hacks to get rid of that tennis ball sound, sounds absolutely lush now and was easy to do.
as soon as i saw this in the floor tom, i was waiting to see it in the kick drum as well. didn't disappoint.
I’ve been dealing with this for years. Thanks for helping!
I tried everything to achieve a bass drum sound which is big and free of echoing resonance but to no avail. What I would like to hear is " bog, bog, bog" sounds which is big and powerful. Finally I tried your T-shirt and to my surprise, the sound becomes remarkably louder! But with the resonance still present, I tried putting in a beach towel resting lightly on the batter side and, wow, I finally achieved that big, resonant-free bass sound, Thank you very much !
Love it....needed some new hains xl's anyhow and will see the difference between 100% cotton & 50/50.
As a long time conga player I am very familiar with this hack but surprised that it works for this kind of shells too. The basketball sound is a well known problem among conguero's. Conga's that are made from solid wood staves - like old Gon Bops - do not have this ringy sound but those that are made from staves that consist of two or three layers of wood glued together - like wooden LP conga's - all have it and conga's with fiberglass shells too. Attaching a old sock - preferably washed - to the inside of the shell solves the problem.
The basketball sound in conga's is probably due to the greater stiffnes of shells that have a lot of glue in them so it might be interesting to compare drumshells with six or seven layers to shells that are build with only a few layers.
Wasn’t aware of that with congas! Makes so much sense for a perfectly round interior and even a bit with stave though maybe to varied degrees. Thanks so much for sharing that info! Now I need to try this in my congas too! -Ben
@Kali Southpaw 🤮
Stunning result!
Incredible! Thanks for sharing this! Definitely gonna try it out!
You're quite welcome! Let us know how it works out for you and if you try different materials/sizes/placement.
Wow! That is just the sound I want out of my kick. I’m gonna have to watch the one on floor tom. I think that may work well for a nice controlled snare sound too :). Great hack!
Thanks for the hack. U guys are awesome
I love seeing things like this- you get the desired result without sacrificing...anything.
I've got to get a shot of the inside of my 18" floor tom, took a 2" wide strip of that stretchy medical wrap on the bottom set of lugs, both screws do it was 'vertical' or parallel with the shell. Skipped every other lug and only then (after trying everything) did I have the girth I'd been after, without the basketball or pipe noise.
💦
Ooooh that fill at the end of the intro demo was tasty!
Great idea, Over the years I've been using about 25 cotton balls strung together with string. Then I tape the string ends and middle to the shell an inch from the batter head. Works well, it muffles but still has a bit of tone. But I think your t shirt hack may work even better. Do you feel there is still some tone using the tshirt? And do you finger tighten both the batter and resonant head to "Keep the Deep" Thump ?
Thanks
Love these hacks guys..stay safe and drum on.
Another awesome video. You Cody are the best!
Man, oh manischewitz... you guys really have that bass drum dialed in. Sounding pretty much like the quintessential rock bass drum there, I don’t think you can get much better than that.
This is another one to run with! Different materials? Different mounting heights? Vertical ‘curtain’? How bout some fringe, like a car wash vibe with the big noodles hanging down? Endless variations!
Thank you sirs. And hey, we miss Ben... we need some face time with the man behind the scenes.
Haha, thanks! We're excited to experiment with this one further. And thanks for the kind words! I host the weekly livestreams on Instagram (12pm EST on the day of a new release) and will be hosting a video coming out shortly...
Cheers! -Ben
Wow, that’s amazing!
Very cool.
Im triying it and love it thanks for the tips👏👏👏🥁🥁🥁🤟🏻🤟🏻🤟🏻🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
the hack tone is "more focused". This should be great for small settings. Might match the "more focused" tone of die cast rims. sounded quieter to me, not louder.
Great hack! Would it matter if you attached the shirt exactly like you have it (horizontal)and attach with gaff tape instead of the screw? Thanks and rock on!
Gaffer’s tape probably wouldn’t keep it intact with all of the vibration. Using one of the lug screws makes for an easy, reliable solution.
@@SoundsLikeADrum Thanks for the reply-I am getting back to drumming after 30+ years for personal enjoyment-you have provided me the pathway to get going again…lots has changed over the years. Thanks again, Mark
I did velcro strips and cut up 2 thick strips of memory foam, stuck them to the inside of my bass drum vertically with the velcro adhesive in the middle of my bass drum... It's this hack on steroids.
Am I strange? I liked the empty drum more, and I wonder if you would compare micing an unported reso head and just changing the batter heads. Some of the new batter heads are very damped, but those go a bit too far for me. Anyway, I think the sound produced out front by an intact single ply reso head is the ideal bass drum sound. We are not supposed to be listening to inside the drum.
Not at all strange- these are just tools for the gig. The greater the understanding of the instrument and the means of modifying the sound, the more prepared one can be for anything.
@@EddySchmidt25 You can definitely get quite far with tuning but this is still an acoustic phenomena (the basketball sound) that is inherent to drum shell design. Luckily, simple hacks like this aren't permanent/don't require drilling holes, and are cheap/easy to install if you like your overall sound but need to fine tune certain frequencies. We demonstrate most of these at the extreme to illustrate the effect but they can (and should!) be used sparingly as needed (just as one would use an equalizer) in order to achieve the desired sound. Cheers!
Wow! Such a big difference with so little effort, love it!
Is the difference as noticeable in the room too? Wondering if it helps as much when relying on the ambient sound with no mics involved?
Can't wait to try this on my kick and 16" floor tom!
Definitely! Of course, if you’re playing with a band and it’s all acoustic, subtlety and nuance for tuning and drum sounds in general will often be sacrificed as the volume increases.
Have you ever done a mic shootout episode? I think a lot of your basketball sound is coming from the D112. Would be interested to hear a different micup like a Beta 91a
Haven’t done a mic shoot out (not really our focus as we’re producing episodes specifically around acoustic drum sounds) but I can tell you that this sound is present inside the drum and something that just about any mic will capture.
Could you do a video about tuning a ported resonant head?
th-cam.com/video/oTCaIXNctAk/w-d-xo.html
Will this work on non-ported reso head.
Give it a shot and see!
I’m gonna check different height of the “t-shirt “. Gonna use a towel instead.
Excellent hack. Thanks Excuse me but I have a suggestion. Try centering the mic (take it out of the hole) in front of the resonant head. Low tune and it sounds even better. Prof Bruze
Thanks, we already have a mic out in front of the drum. The D112 is capture more attack from just inside. We use this setup as it yields a sound that most closely matches what we're hearing in the room. Cheers!
Sounds Like A Drum
Cool. I have Gretsch Renown Kit. The reso head can be tuned super low. Gives me a sound like a 808 techno only much better
Thanks again for this excellent hack
Prof Bruze
I tried this out recently after watching this video on a 60’s Ludwig club date bass drum (22x14) I finished rebuilding and didn’t really notice a difference but I think it’s because the piece of shirt was only ≈ 4 inches wide since the drum only has the 10 center lugs… do you think the width of the piece of material plays much of a role in how much it affects the sound? It’s a rad mod though!
Cody, this is slightly off topic. But my question is: Have you or any sound engineers that you know ever expressed a preference for which side the position of the port on the resonant side is? Yours obviously is at 4 o'clock thereabouts. I've always preferred mine at the 7 o'clock position, my rationale being that it keeps the bass drum mic a little further away from the snare. I've never done an A/B comparison, but I'd be curious to know your thoughts. Cheers on another great video.
Hey there! I honestly don’t have a preference and have never heard one expressed - I just use whatever side the porter heads are firm the factory. I can say that listening back to internal kick mic’s solo in the studio the snare has never been a problem but I reckon it could depend on the player and their personal style (snare volume vs kick volume etc.) Hope that helps! Fwiw most of my hard hitting friends prefer a center port anyway so who knows 😂 -Cody
Is this a hack that you left in place or did you go back to your normal setup after the video? I am wondering if this would help with my 24".
We've used it from time to time when the issue was present but not right now (because we haven't encountered the issue with the bass drum sound we're currently creating).
Ooh wow, something so simple to make a big change. Awesome. But however my cat likes the pillow once I didn’t look and she was in there and started playing 😳I’ve never seen her run so fast. I felt so bad and as a pay back to me she shit in my bass drum 🥺 I found a new home for her shortly after.
i tried it diffently,, i hung "tapestries" at the 11 ish and 1 ish lug positions instead of doing the more logical paralell to the ground thing. it worked
Nice! We stayed away from hanging material so as to minimize the disruption of air flow between the batter and reso heads. Glad to hear that your approach worked as well!
@@SoundsLikeADrum i tried the bohnam foil thing in the early days of the internet when i was a teen. I remember it making the bd sound great but it made the microphone tweak out. caused a lot of feedback. (i mean i was like 16 at the time in the early 200s and our pa SUCKED but i remember that. also .. ever hear of the quarter trick?
maybe a bd head patch shootout vs hacks. instead of the danmar click pad use quarters ... etc
@@DrummerJez86 Ah, yes! Taping the quarter as a patch. Definitely an interesting effect.
@@SoundsLikeADrum the quarter trick is 100% for metal and has no use in any other genre, but i'm sure you got a few metal drummers subscribed. try the quarters, some sort of thick plastic, wood beaters ... etc
Hi there! Are those the ProMark Michael Carvin?
Yep!
What hi-hat is this ???? Great Sound !!!
How about an episode on tuning for a six-lug snare?
Or just six-lug drums in general
Awesome. I'm curious which method between the shirt, tin foil, or sandbag you guys think works best for eliminating the basketball zing? I'm very excited to try this one out!
Definitely lots of options! This one seems the simplest though I might tweak the dimensions of the fabric to get a bit more attack back. It's certainly worth a comparison and maybe something we'll do on our Patreon with an in-depth demo. -Ben
I love your videos.
I love what it does for the floor tom, but for the bass drum, it sounds a little too thuddy for me. Maybe I have to hear in person to appreciate it more.
Thanks so much! It really depends entirely on the context. I think a lot of drummers would be truly shocked to hear the raw, solo'd drum sounds from more recordings that they enjoy. Quite a few would be surprised to see/hear "how the sausage is made". 😂
Unmuffled BD is always basketbally, but the akg D112 is the king of basketball sound ;)
For sure! All the better for demonstrating how effective this hack really is. Cheers!
@@SoundsLikeADrum yes, it s impressive how little absorbing is needed :O
You read my mind. I got to start using my tinfoil hat.
Would love to see / hear what happens if you put it parallel to the head... not touching, just a thin layer of t shirt cotton spanned parallel to the heads...
We may dive deeper into these variations on our Patreon!
I personally love the open sound to me the bass drum is a bass drum not a “muffled “ bass drum
Do you guys ever do cymbal hacks?
We've got a whole cymbal series launching soon exclusively on our Patreon and will most certainly be getting into hacks and mods over there.
What is the cymbal doing sitting there in the bsck. Pretty weird.
It's been a decorative part of our set, just like the djembe, snares, and lamps for the last six years. Welcome to the channel!
Weirdly Awesome that is.
I could still hear the basketball tone, albeit a bit muffled. Typically what I do is roll up a towel like a pre-cut cinnamon roll, tape the outer layer with masking tape, and lay it up against the batterhead. If the towel is light in weight, then I'll put some super lightweight magnets inside the towel on the outer wrap to can fasten themselves to the lugs screws to help muffle overtones without deadening the head completely.
Similar to this? th-cam.com/video/77pRA-dNoR8/w-d-xo.html
@@SoundsLikeADrum Not really. The ends are usually laid down facing the reso head, creating a U-shape with the thickest part gently laying against the bottom of the head, and I never tape the towel to the head. It allows for a fatter boom to the stroke. The magnets, as far as I can tell, don't change the sound either, they just help to hold the towel in place against the screws of the bass drum lugs so the taped up towel doesn't go off walking.
@@ThDirtyCurfDrummer Sounds interesting!
I use EVANS EMAD2 so I slightly muffle the inside shell. Is that okay?
The EMAD features all external muffling and has a very different overall effect. This means that the hack demonstrated here isn't really redundant- try it out and see what you think!
The emad stop the flap sound of the head, not the basketball sound that is due of the waves reflecting on the hard surface of the shell ;)
@@Fab_Rice Precisely! The outer ring of the EMAD is muffling area of the drumhead that produces more overtones.
Huey, everything you try, or use, or combine is okay. There are no mistakes in art, as a wise old teacher once told me. There is no right or wrong, it’s about finding YOUR sound, by any means. (excepting St. Anger, that was so wrong)
That’s why we have these hacks to try, because someone got crafty and tried something that stuck. All these little tricks of the trade started in someone’s head. Try whatever occurs to you, and maybe we’ll end up using a hack that you came up with!
@@DZNTZ This! ☝🏻As long as it's not causing damage, experiment!
i wonder if it would help get the PING out of a snare
You should at this moment just use all methods in bass drum at the same time and show us how it would sound. It should be absolute perfect kick sound. Or not, what I know?
one again, i'd dial that back to about 50%, but that's a sick hack. maybe a swiss cheesified t-shirt
Absolutely! Proving that there certainly is a difference and a potentially beneficial one, we're very curious about and will explore modifications to this via our Patreon. Cheers! -Ben
The real question is if Cody and Ben are going to setup their personal kits with this hack? This sounds like a Big Fat Snare Drum product idea.
I’ve still got it in my kick and actually just did one to experiment with on my 18” kick. Curious to try it on my 16” conversion floor tom too. -Ben
Sounds Like A Drum love it. Gotta try it.
Great, as always! So many ways to muffle overtones. I've got bits of foam from an old damping (dampening?) system taped to the kick batter head. Ugly, but it works. Bits of foam fly off as it slips and the sound changes consequently. Just reminds me of an old Rick Beato vid. about robotic recording sounds and the need for more improvised production. Off the beaten track, but can you do something on click and the 'need' for perfect timing, as opposed to groove slipping in and out of time.
Really appreciate all that you do. Unexpected financial burden has prevented me from backing you but it is 'on the cards' asap. X
Thanks, Sid! Always fun to experiment with this stuff. We're all about discovering new approaches and improving the understanding of the instrument. Thanks for the kind words- we really appreciate it and hope things are on the upswing for you soon! -Ben
Did you also try lowering the tension of the reso head? Just asking…. I find it incredibly amusing that drummers will lay out a few grand on the most resonant maple shell drums they can afford…. and will then proceed to muffle out much of that resonance. Folks, the sound you want comes from Yamaha Stage Custom drums. Combo of birch and mahogany plies. The wood is less resonant, so you get less of this ‘basketbally’ after effect. I’m sure other brands make similar drums of similar ply construction that give you the modern sound you want. My set uses no muffling whatsoever, and gets none of that undesired sound…. and cost me 25% of the cost of maple shells.
my bass drum still sound a little bad even with a pillow so i will try this. maybe because my drum kit is a pdp lol
mabe try the pillow and a shirt
plz put a drum anchor on that bass drum
We use KBrakes now 😉
@@SoundsLikeADrum nice! i just got an anchor for a bass drum that doesn't have any legs and found out i don't need em! the anchor and my foot pedal make sure it doesn't creep, and i kinda feel like it's a bit more resonant.
I put a live rabbit in mine. Works good. Just stick a carrot through the port hole every few days.
You should've laid the mic on the t-shirt.
I'm not a fan. IMO the towel trick worked great, and the two news paper tricks also sounded great
So we take one of our unused canvas tote, suspend it via the lug screws, add pillow stuffing as desired. We'll call it the "Suspended Simon Phillips."
I put 1 jumbo cotton ball in my toms
Isn't it just the worst when your drum is fed up with your kicking, and wants to escape? 7:14
*the worst*
It's much darker in there now
Same lighting setup and brightness all throughout this season an most of season two.
Now. Wrap the inside with tinfoil, drop a 50 pound sandbag on the bottom, use an Evans Emad as batter & suspend a pillow on top of the t-shirt.🤪
What makes you think we won't... 😉
Still sounds like a drum
You guys have done a ton of small single isolated hacks, I want to see the difference between a open drum and the whole kit and cabootle! Throw everything at one drum until it is beaten like a dead horse. Similes aside that'd be very interesting.
Chuck a pillow from the sofa in ere, has worked for me for years!
Suspend aluminum foil like that. Then line the drum with foil and suspend the cloth across the lug screws..
First watching!
Thanks for being quick to new episodes!
Why has no one ever put rivets on drums heads? Worth exploring...
Definitely something that’s been experimented with. Unfortunately they’re not as interesting sounding as one might expect.
I don't know about you guys doing all these hacks. I think you should make videos about how tune drums and the effects of different tuning schemes before you start talking about muffling and tricks.
BTW, your bass drum lugs need cleaned. WOW!
You're 100% right! I actually took apart the drum and cleaned it shortly after filming this. Cheers!
I just got a $X,000 drum kit and you suggest I put a t-shirt on it to make it sound better! Does this sound rational?
For the best tone both the head and wood must vibrate as equally as possible around the whole drum! Using plastic or felt zero rings is usually the best way to accomplish this. Don't use a freaking t-shirt! Much less a blanket or a pillow! They mainly did it in the 50s and 60s and some stil today because they didn't know better.
Think about it,..The wood is more important to the sound than the head. And the wood must be free to vibrate. Putting anything on the wood is defeating the whole purpose of creating a proper drum sound.
I honestly don't think it sounds irrational.You're going to play the drum with $8 drumsticks, right? The drum has
@@SoundsLikeADrum The sound of a cylinder is produced by the shape of the cylinder, Any membrane is only to enhance the tone of the cylinder not to change it!
@@SoundsLikeADrum the tone of a cylinder is not subjective
@@SoundsLikeADrum if the wood is not vibrating properly there's no possible way you can get the proper tone from that cylinder, same thing with the membrane if it is not equally vibrating on all sides. Putting a t-shirt on it prevents this. You might as well buy a $100 piece of crap drum kit if you're going to put a t-shirt on it what's the sense in having quality wood
Buy a sheep, shave the sheep and throw some wool in there, now you got a muffled base drum and you look cool.
But now I have a sheep in Brooklyn and no land for it to graze upon...
@@SoundsLikeADrum it's not a problem if you have an oven...
😳
@@SoundsLikeADrum the trick consists in doing it quickly, before you feel some love, and over all, don't look him in the eye. Otherwise you'll be lost, you'll have to move and buy a house by the country side...
Ps: you know I'm joking, don't you...? 🙄😋
@@isihernandez9752 You didn't think we were actually taking you seriously, did you? 😉
Step 1. take off (some) clothes. Step 2. Put in kick drum. Step 3. Convince band to play RHCP covers
I'm on a crusade to get drummers to stop using port holes and mufiling in the base drum it runs the tone and low end of the drum,
for some reasons everyone is petrified of "ringy drums" it kills me when I see drummers putting tape on the Tom's and snare and a pillow in the base drum, the best way way to demonstrate my argument is put your hand over your mouth and speak then take it away and which one sounds louder and clearer?, so while trying to make your base drum more punchy you end up make it quieter,
port holes.....oh god why do people do this these days you can mike the base inside the drum or at the front without the hole, John Bonhams drums sounded powerful because he used little or no muffling and tuned high another thing people are catching on to nowadays.
if you really need to muffle a base drum just use pre muffled heads or external adjustments but please unless your on the studio please stop putting pillows in the base drum and port holes and taping up the Tom's just tune your drums well and you wont need to
Throw some proper punctuation in and break it into paragraphs if you want people to read this.
I'm going to get my brand new drum kit and I'm going to put a t-shirt on the head to make it sound good! So stupid!
I'm genuinely concerned with how angry this video seems to be making you. No one is forcing you to use this hack. Plenty can be learned without employing it. There's a bigger picture here but I'm sorry that the it's getting lost in the hack here.
@@SoundsLikeADrum Most here are probably musicians, but this is something you might want to also ask a scientist - Is the frequency of a cylinder subjective?
if you have a cylinder in America and the same size cylinder in Japan it's going to make the same sound. The minor differences would come from moisture or altitude, but at the same altitude and moisture no matter where you play that cylinder in the world it sounds exactly the same.
When I started playing in about 1969 I used to put a blanket in my bass drum. It was the thing to do, It sounded great back then. But now we've learned a lot about how drums sound, how they should sound and how to make them sound that way.
If you have not learned about the physics of cylinders and sound why not check it out?
If you are open to experimenting you will find that zero rings sound much better than t-shirts and blankets. And respectfully it doesn't take a scientist to figure this out.
As far as me being angry, thanks for the evaluation doctor where should I send my bill please?
Lol oy vey!
The material and shape of the cylinder are the primary sources of the tone. Heads, hardware, sticks and anything else, as extremely important as they are, come second
@@scottedelman9382 Let's be clear- a drum produces far more than just one frequency and those frequencies beyond the fundamental (the overtones) providing the quality of tone that we recognize most commonly as a difference in drum sounds. Again, the phrase "how drums should sound" brings up an immediate issue because drum sounds are dependent on context and it doesn't matter how much a set of drums cost. Bring those drums to a session with them singing exactly as you believe they "should" sound and see how long it takes for producer and/or engineer to bring up the need for adjustments as necessary.
Regarding your claims about the primary and secondary sources for tone- we don't disagree! What we question is a blind, unwilling attitude towards making choices when it comes to those secondary and tertiary factors in order to craft the sound based on context.
@@SoundsLikeADrum you'll find no blind unwilling attitudes here, just a bit of knowledge based on experience and education. I have learned through experimenting and mistakes, many mistakes.
How does a drum make a sound? The stick hits the top head which vibrates and causes the drum to vibrate which causes the bottom head to vibrate.
The vibration should go out equally on all sides of the head in order to equally vibrate the whole drum. Putting t-shirts on a drum head defeats the whole purpose of the sound and you are in essence not even hearing the drum itself but the t-shirt.
When you put heads on a drum they are not to change the tone of the cylinder. They are to enhance the tone of the cylinder. How do we know this?
Many drummers such as Keith Moon used the same drums and tuned them to different frequencies or notes. It's like having glasses all the same size and filling them with different amounts of water which will enable you to get different notes. However, after many years of experimenting what they found was instead of filling the glasses with different amounts of water, the tones sound much fuller when they get glasses that are different sizes and do not fill them with water.
It's the same concept that is applied to the drums. It is the size and shape of the wood that makes the tone. The heads and hardware bring out this tone They are not used to make a different tone than what the size of the drum is meant for. And of course we are not talking about one frequency as a drum makes more than one note at a time. It is not melodic like a violin or piano.
Anything on the drum including blankets t-shirts and even the holes in the drum that connect the hardware affect and diminish the quality of the sound. Consider the Arbiter snare drum which is a full maple shell that has only one hole for air, the rims are connected in a way that does not put any holes in the drum.
This is ideally the perfect drum.
Now they are you are drums go out and do anything you want to them. If you want to use them for fire they are yours You can do what you want. Experiment with everything all types of tuning and dampening Do what you want. Have fun but when it comes down to it there is a science behind music. Music and sound are a combination of science and art