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Reinforcement Rings


snaresmacker

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Reinforcement rings help prevent thin shells from going out of round. They also slightly increase the high pitched overtones and slightly decrease resonance. Drums with reinforcement rings aren't better or worse than drums without - it's just personal preference. Those companies you refer to are just trying to sell more drums.

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Originally posted by Snake

Reinforcement rings help prevent thin shells from going out of round. They also slightly increase the high pitched overtones and slightly decrease resonance. Drums with reinforcement rings aren't better or worse than drums without - it's just personal preference. Those companies you refer to are just trying to sell more drums.

 

 

Back in the day, before modern drum-making techniques, rings were required to keep shells from going out of round. With modern technology applied to plywood shells, they are (generally) not needed anymore. However, once they started taking them out, it was noticed that a shell would lose some of its high pitch, especially in maple and mahogany shells, therefore most companies offer it as an option just for such purposes. From my experience, I've found they're not so necessary for birch shells but they do help define the sound for maple shells somewhat (while also slighly decreasing overall resonance.) Mahogany I can't speak to as I've never really heard, but based on what I know about that wood, I would guess rings would help it out even more than with maple. Of course, everything's in the ear of the beholder, so go listen for yourself.

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ok get this....i just went to the gms website, and they make their drums with 8 ply shells and without re-enforcement rings. they say that re-enforcement rings are bad because the "rings" don't resonate at the same frequency as the rest of the shell. they also say that thinner shells (such as dw's standard 4 ply) can't handle high volumes because they are so thin.

 

has anyone had experience with this? is it true or is it just a marketing campaign?

 

thanks,

ss

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First of all, it's not necessarily the number of plies that matters, but the overall thickness of the shell. DW's 4 ply shell could be the same thickness as GMS's 8 ply shell. And I'm sure it could be proven that reinforcement rings don't resonant at the same frequency as the rest of the shell. But I'm also sure it could be proven that DW's thin shells can handle high volumes. Both GMS and DW make outstanding drums. What you read on the GMS website is just marketing, propaganda, etc. IMO (not that there's anything wrong with that).

My 2

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Originally posted by Snake

First of all, it's not necessarily the number of plies that matters, but the overall thickness of the shell. DW's 4 ply shell
could
be the same thickness as GMS's 8 ply shell. And I'm sure it could be proven that reinforcement rings don't resonant at the same frequency as the rest of the shell. But I'm also sure it could be proven that DW's thin shells
can
handle high volumes. Both GMS and DW make outstanding drums. What you read on the GMS website is just marketing, propaganda, etc. IMO (not that there's anything wrong with that).

My 2

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