Where did your drums sound their best?

Just curious...

I was playing outside a few months ago at a backyard barbeque and was starting to tune up my snare drum (Pacific CX). There was a certain sound I always have in my head that I try to achieve when tuning. So I hit the drum to see how far off I was and - POW! It was perfect. It was exactly like I like a snare drum to sound. I've since brought that thing to rehearsal studios and my basement and nothing has come even close. Remember, this is from the perspective of sitting over the drum and not the audience so I don't know that it projected very well. But it was just beautiful. The rest of the drums weren't so hot, but the snare drum made me forget about the rest. I almost didn't even set up the toms because I though I might just stay on the snare.

anywhere but the basement. i think they hate it down here. (they like to go out and see people) always sounded alright in the garage, but really good at any open space, like a hall or church.

Most snares that I've owned were tempermental. Sometimes they sound sweet, sometimes, not so hot. It mainly depends on the alignment of the planets and the collective auras of all the people within a 4 miles radius.

However, my LM400 always sounds the same. Good sound in all situations. That's why it is my primary snare, although I've got a Yamaha snare that I use when it is in the mood to sound good.

The big difference in playing outdoors is that you don't have any room reflections. But everything, including the humidity, impacts the sound of your drums and everything else in the band. So you can go to the same venue the very next night and the sound may be different, indoors or outdoors.

When I shop for a drum or a cymbal, I always ask someone else to play it for me and stand back and listen from a distance. It is the sound out front that counts unless you are miked. That is the last thing I check before I buy. The sound out front is what you should be tuning for when not miked.

This little coffee shop called the True Love coffee house. It was in an old Victorian house, wood floors and apparently a basement or something. Really tiny room, but god damn, my kit has never sounded so punchy.

A few weeks ago, my band volunteered to help our friend do a live sound class. He needed a band to use, so he asked if we wouldn't mind getting mic'd up and running through a few songs. We got to do it in this church auditorium with all sorts of high quality equipment. I even got to use in-ear monitors for the first time in my life. Anyways, when I finally got my drums all set up, I just started messing around and my drums sounded unlike anything I had ever heard before. They're really nice custom drums and I tune them well, but I never would have imagined they could sound that good. Maybe it was the size of the auditorium that made the difference. Or maybe it was the power of god. Who knows?

usually in the hands of someone else

Thats the joy of an acoustic instrument. I remember once playing an outdoor festival on a big stage and my monitors weren't working and no matter how hard I hit, I got no volume at all out of my kit, which was the strangest feeling, like all the mids and bass were turned off, just this tat- tat sound. There was nothing for the sound to bounce off. Alternately, last month I played in a big indoor venue with a massive pa, and I soundchecked for about half an hour and didn't want to get off my kit, the sound was immense. The best place to get a great sound for me is in the front of my house, were the sound bounces of the wood floors and the walls. NATURAL REVERB!!

I want to track my drums for our new album in the woods........ or outside for that matter.... Id be interested to see what we'd come up with....