overtone

[tubedlove]

recently my drummer bought a pacific maple drum with the maple hoops .. it was used when i heard him play on it fresh from the music store there was absolutely no overtone whatsoever i mean just a pure thick snare sound with absolutely 0 ring it had a beat up remo head on it .. later that night the other guitar player in my band was fooling with the head pushing on it to get different pitches the next day there the snare had developed a nasty ring.. of course i think no big deal just out of tune thats why we bought a drum dial..

changed the head and used the exact same type of head already on the drum tuned to the specs in the manual still had the ring tried a couple different tunings and could not get rid of the ring we calmed it down alot but it was still there.. i have considered contacting the music store to talk to the original owner of this snare to get that magic sound it first had back but first i thought i would try to resolve it here.. any suggestions would be great we are using a tama drum dial the snare is 5 1/2" x 14" any suggested tunings would be good to ... also we tuned the top and the bottom to 70 on the dial we did 70 top 60 bottom too none seemed to work

 

so any advice would be great thx in advance

[the DW]

Originally posted by tubedlove ....it had a beat up remo head on it .. ....changed the head and used the exact same type of head already on the drum tuned to the specs in the manual still had the ring ....

 

 

The key was the beat up old head. The more use a head gets, the less ring it will exhibit. New single ply heads will have a lot of ring compared to a used, beat up head.

 

Just slap some Moongel (or a small piece of duct tape) on the head near the edge and it should calm that ring down until you get the head "conditioned".

 

[WillyRay]

2 things:

 

Read this. http://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/ It's long but it's good.

 

Second... I'm sorry to do this, but I'm going to give you a sort of non-answer to your question. Remember that your drums sound very different depending on how far away you're standing. A drum with no ring at the throne is likely to sound like wet cardboard to an audience. A drum is supposed to ring, at least a little. If you haven't done so already, I'm going to suggest that you have somebody else play the drum while you get as far from it as possible and see if you're still offended by the ringing. Also, get somebody to play it while the guitars are playing. I would guess you stop noticing the ringing under those conditions, and the audience will, too.

 

/w

 

edit: oh yeah, and what he ^ said!

[mraia]

Originally posted by WillyRay 2 things: Read this. http://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/ It's long but it's good. Second... I'm sorry to do this, but I'm going to give you a sort of non-answer to your question. Remember that your drums sound very different depending on how far away you're standing. A drum with no ring at the throne is likely to sound like wet cardboard to an audience. A drum is supposed to ring, at least a little. If you haven't done so already, I'm going to suggest that you have somebody else play the drum while you get as far from it as possible and see if you're still offended by the ringing. Also, get somebody to play it while the guitars are playing. I would guess you stop noticing the ringing under those conditions, and the audience will, too. /w edit: oh yeah, and what he ^ said!

 

Ive always wanted to ask you about that. What are the mechanics, if you know, of why the drums sound different behind the kit than in front? Ive always kinda thought it had to do with the soundwaves and the resos and stuff

[WillyRay]

 

Originally posted by mraia Ive always wanted to ask you about that. What are the mechanics, if you know, of why the drums sound different behind the kit than in front? Ive always kinda thought it had to do with the soundwaves and the resos and stuff

 

 

I wouldn't say I totally know, but here's what I think:

 

The lower frequencies travel further and more efficiently than the higher frequencies. I even think there may be something about the relationship between highness of frequency and rate of decay being exponential. So... the further you are away, the more bass-sound in the mix?

 

/w

[mraia]

Originally posted by WillyRay I wouldn't say I totally know, but here's what I think: The lower frequencies travel further and more efficiently than the higher frequencies. I even think there may be something about the relationship between highness of frequency and rate of decay being exponential. So... the further you are away, the more bass-sound in the mix? /w

 

OK. Oddly enough, that makes sense:D I suppose thats why what sounds higher pitched and toney to me sounds perfect to my guitarist.

Not that he'd know...

[manoeuver]

your drum has caught a nasty infection: ringworm.

 

gold bond or tinactin may help.

 

learn to like it, drums are supposed to ring a bit.

[nklarow]

Tough actin' Tinactin. Or Preparation H.

[tripod trilogy]

preperation H doesn't work on ringworm, hopefully you haven't been smearing that on your drums.

[757]

the best head i have found to get rid of ring is the evans genera hd dry. I have one on my cheap ludwig snare and it helped a ton. the thing used to ring like a bell and now, nothing but pop with very very little ring.

[TimeKeeper310]

one mistake.....letting the 'other' guitarist get behind the kit, and poking around on that head.....next time he does it, wedge a drum stick between his strings, twisting, and ask him why they stretch so easily:thu: ...

 

also...last trip to the music store, I was still undecided which snare head to buy...so, I picked up an Evans ST Dry (vented), along with a Remo coated Amb.....put the Evans on first, and I think I was hoping to not be so pleased with the sound, so that I could give the Amb. a try....but, I still can't get a bad tone from it...the tone/ring, doesn't even change, when I drop a wallet on it... ....don't know lots of 'technical' things about heads..but, I'm guessing the vents help for this head?

[Old Steve]

 

Originally posted by mraia Ive always wanted to ask you about that. What are the mechanics, if you know, of why the drums sound different behind the kit than in front? Ive always kinda thought it had to do with the soundwaves and the resos and stuff

 

 

First off, thank you to Willy Ray for posting the drum tuning bible link. Second, do a search on "ring" or "overtone" and I'm sure you'll come across one of my rants on the subject....bottom line, drums ring. It's more of a matter of getting the right ring (tone).

 

Ok, now for mraia's question:

To begin with, it's a fact that what you hear while playing sounds different than what you hear away from the kit. Even without knowing the "why", it's easy enough to prove that it happens...just have somebody play your kit while you stand far away.

 

Now for the "why"....

1.) from where the drummer sits, you've got all of the batter heads facing you, and the resonants are on the other side of the kit. So what you'll hear is a mix of the batter heads, and maybe a "mix" of everything else as it bounces around the room. So while you're hearing both heads, the batter head sound isn't directly in your face, so what you hear from your drums if very "batter heavy".

2.) kick sounds in particular are tough to hear properly. In most cases your kick reso is the thing furthest from your ears on the whole kit.

3.) cymbals: they're pretty much in your face, so as they decay and lose volume, that decay time will sound longer than it would if you were further away and the amount of time before the cymbal is too quiet to hear is shorter. For example, if you tap your ride with your finger and put your ear to it, it'll ring forever, but if you're a couple feet away it isn't making any noise at all.

 

Ok, these things assume that you're just playing drums and that nothing else is making any noise in the room. Now let's throw in the rest of the band, which covers quite a bit of the rest of the frequency specturm. Now things get a little more complex:

 

1.) in relative terms, the drums are quieter. In other words, if the volume of "everything else" goes up, the drums aren't that much higher in volume than the new "noise floor". With everything louder, and the drums relatively quieter as a result, the initial attack will still cut through the muck, but much of the "ring" that people complain about gets lost in the mix.

2.) As I just mentioned, when things get loud, certain things cut through the noise and certain things get lost. Higher pitched things tend to cut through the clutter better than lower pitched things, so cymbals and snare drums can usually hold their own. With lower pitched things like kicks and toms, the initial attack (which actually contains some higher frequencies) can usually cut thorugh, but the "overtones" are often lost in the mix.

3.) finally, everything in the band takes up a certain frequency range. So if your kick is tuned in the same register as the bass, it's going to be harder to hear. Same with toms...and unfortunately, many guitarists take up TONS of frequency range, not leaving many "holes" for drums to live in. If you're recording, it's often a good idea to identify certain frequencies and 'reserve' them for certain instruments...so it's not unusual to carve out a specific band for the kick drum and back the bass out of that range. Same with the snare, by accentuating certain frequencies, and keeping the vocal and guitar out of that range, it'll cut through better without having to jack up the volume.

 

Final thing that I read once: the human ear is actually "tuned" to certain frequencies. One of these "tuned" frequencies is in the same range as a baby's crying. The theory is that as man evolved, we adapted our hearing to hear "important" things. As a result, if you go to a crowded shopping mall or stadium and there's a high "noise floor" covering all frequencies, and a baby starts to cry, you'll hear it even if it's not actually louder (as measuered by decibels) than the surrounding noise. If you keep this in mind while you're mixing a band, you'll realize that you can bring out similarly pitched instruments by adjusting their equalization, and not by raising the volume.

 

So what does all this mean? It means that Old Steve hasn't gotten motivated enough to dive into his work e-mails yet. It also means that if you're playing in a band in a loud room, more ring is actually a good thing. From the audience's perspective, the 'attack' of the drum will cut through no matter what, but if there's no "ring" on the drum, the attack is all that will get out. Unfortunately, the "attack" happens so quickly that there's really no "pitch" attached to it, so your 10" tom will likely sound just like your 18" tom. If that's what you're going for, great...you can bring just one tom to gigs. On the other hand, if you want to use multiple toms, and have them actually have a "pitch" difference, you need to tune them so that they ring a little bit. That way, that millisecond of pitchless "attack" will be followed by a split second of "ring" (and only a split second, because the ring decays below the noise floor so quickly) and that "ring" is the only thing that will actually allow the listener to hear "pitch". Oh yeah, one other final thing: if you do a big tom run in an empty room on "ringy" drums, many of the overtones will run into each other, essentially accomplishing the same thing as bringing in the rest of the band. By the time you get to the end of the tom run, all the toms will be ringing in an underlying "rumble", and the pitchless attack will be followed by a quickly decaying (decaying below the noise floor, that is) "tone".

 

Whew.

[nklarow]

Holy crap.

[RumStik]

That's a good explanation of the effect, Steve. Thanks for taking the time.

 

I think many drummers spend way too much time, effort and worry over dampening their kit sound, waiting to hear their ideal target from the throne. I've heard so many cover bands with over-dampened drums that sound exactly as you said...wet cardboard. Of course, there are so many factors...room acoustics, head choice, tuning, mic'd/unmic'd, style of music, playing technique, band volume, stage volume, etc., that we'll always be "chasing" a good sound, but the fact is, when you hear a rich, lively drum sound coming from a live band, it's always the result of LESS dampening as opposed to more.

[manoeuver]

everbody here owes Old Steve a beer.

[Old Steve]

Originally posted by T Hofmann everbody here owes Old Steve a beer.

 

PM me for the delivery address, and list of approved brands.

[TimeKeeper310]

Originally posted by T Hofmann everbody here owes Old Steve a beer.

 

Awesome post.....best I've read in months!....Maybe along with that beer, we can send a spare 'secretary', to help with the e-mails that got pushed back, so he could provide all that info!!

Well worth reading!!

[manoeuver]

Originally posted by Old Steve PM me for the delivery address, and list of approved brands.

 

Next time I'm in the city perhaps we'll tip a pint or two...

[Old Steve]

Originally posted by T Hofmann Next time I'm in the city perhaps we'll tip a pint or two...

 

I don't generally turn that kind of thing down!

[tripod trilogy]

homebrew alright with you, Ol' Steve?

[Old Steve]

 

Originally posted by tripod trilogy homebrew alright with you, Ol' Steve?

 

 

Absolutely. I used to make my own "Steveweiser IPA". In fact, I planted some hops vines in my back yard last year.

[manoeuver]

somehow I knew there'd be other homebrewers on here. just took a while for it to come out.

 

I was brewing obsessively until I got involved with my current band. Last year I brewed 5 batches at once for christmas presents.

I'll NEVER do that again.

[Old Steve]

 

Originally posted by T Hofmann somehow I knew there'd be other homebrewers on here. just took a while for it to come out. I was brewing obsessively until I got involved with my current band. Last year I brewed 5 batches at once for christmas presents. I'll NEVER do that again.

 

 

I haven't done it in a few years, but hopefully I'll get enough hops next year to inspire me to get back into it. Right now, I scratch my brewing itch at the local brewery. While I'm not directly involved with the operation outside of the consumption side, I've gotten to know the guy who owns it (not a brewpub, not a resturaunt...he just makes beer), and it's cool to have somebody to hang out and talk beer with.

[iDrum4ever]

All this beer talk is making me thirsty, but before I hit the fridge:

 

A lot of great points were made here. What you hear from the throne is not excatly what the audience hears. And yes, ring/resonance is a good thing. It is what actually makes drums musical.

 

Years ago I lived in an apartment and played w/ dead heads. They cut the volumn and sounded ok to me. But I never would have played out with those heads. Wet cardboard.

 

A good example of what WillyRay said about bass carrying further. When you approach a club from the street and a band is playing, what do you hear? Yep - wump wump of the bass. Same thing here.

[Old Steve]

 

Originally posted by iDrum4ever A good example of what WillyRay said about bass carrying further. When you approach a club from the street and a band is playing, what do you hear? Yep - wump wump of the bass. Same thing here.

 

 

Exactly. Higher freqs tend to be directional...in other words, they're what your brain uses to determine location of noise. Bass frequencies radiate all over the place, and your grey matter can't easily figure out where the noise is coming from. That's why your home theater subwoofer can be put pretty much anywhere in the room, but the speakers that carry the high end need to be put in specific locations. Go have that beer now.

 

One other thing: I went to the Drum Tuning Bible site yesterday for the first time in a while. I'm going to have to print out a new copy as the good Professor Sound has added a lot of info since my last visit. Advice to anybody who hasn't been there in a while: go check out the new info! He also goes into the "what you hear from the throne vs. what they hear out front" topic and does a FANTASTIC job of explaining it.