Where's YOUR kit standing on?

Mine's on a rubber mat, and it SUCKS. It's like ice skating sometimes.

I was thinking about getting something better, maybe two mats on top of each other. The bottom one that blocks the low frequencies to the floor and the top one with a rough texture to keep my kit from slipping away. But I am not sure what materials I should use.

Or maybe my two-mat-theory isn't great and someone has a better idea?

I bought a rug at walmart about 4 yrs. ago that has rubber on the bottom. It's kind of like a bathroom rug, but large enough to fit a set on. I would go for something like that.

Rubber isolaties the low frequencies well?

There are two things I want to prevent:

- a sliding kit (especially the kick and hihatstand)

- low frequencies travelling to the lower floors of the house (the kit is in the attic).

That reminds me, I need to go get one of those rugs over at Ross or Target or something like that...

My kit sits on a 6'x8' platform that's 4" high. I highly recommend a riser for anyone who keeps their kit in a basement. If I ever get a flood, I've got time to get the drums the hell out before they get wrecked!!!

On top of the riser, I've got crappy old carpet that was once in my living room.

Carpet will keep things from sliding. Keeping the sound from going through the floor is tough to do. You need something dense and you need to get the drums off the floor somehow.

i play on carpet that's in my house, work's nicely

I use one of those carpets you can buy at home depot.. I play on an approx 5x7 ft grey carpet, it slides on the wood floor but the drumset doesn't change shape on it. cheap too.. only about 10-30 dollars depending on the size. another good thing is that with the size home depot sells, you cut your main mat to the size you want and you're left with spare carpet, enough for small jazz gigs where you play a 2-4 pc kit.

Mine's on extra carpet leftover from my parents' new house. I never did like those specially made mats. My favorite rugs are those big industrial strength rugs you find at intranceways to schools to dry your feet on from the rain. Those work great.

i'm using a crappy oriental rug i got from Kmart that was half price.

but why is your stuff moving around? your hihat stand, bass drum, bass pedal, and most of all, your throne, should all be on the same rug, mat, carpet, animal skin, what have you.

your own body weight keeps things from slipping away.

The mat I use is just big enough for my kick and hihat. But even when my throne is on the mat, the kick would still move.

Maybe I will put more than just a mat under it. A platform like the one Old Steve's talking about sounds like a good idea, because the low freqs travel to the lower floors of the house. Does anyone know a howto or some online guide to build something like that?

Mine is 3/4" plywood on top built over a frame of 2x4's. The whole thing is 6'x8'. The frame is as follows: two 8 foot 2x4's running along the front and back ends, and 69" long 2x4's spaced 16 inches apart stuck between the 8 footers. Imagine the studs inside a wall, except it's laying flat on the floor.

Two things to consider, however:

1.) putting the drums on the riser can actuall INCREASE the sound of your kit because the riser itself resonates. My basement floor is cement, and there's a significant difference in how the drums sound on the riser vs. how they sound on the cement (which doesn't resonate).

2.) Unless you isolate the riser from the floor beneath you, most of the sound will still go straight through the floor into rooms below. Obviously in a basement this isn't an issue, but upstairs it would be. They do make acoustic materials that you can build on (some kind of heavy rubber blocks or something) but I have no idea where to get them or what the cost would be.

As a cheaper (and probably less effective) alternative, I'd make sure the riser was sitting on a layer or two of carpet, and I'd try to fill in the area underneath the riser (in the gaps between the "studs") with something to help muffle the sound and keep the riser from resonating. Then make sure you have a layer or two of carpet on the riser itself. Overall, it's pretty tough to keep something as heavy as a drumset from transmitting energy into a floor.

One advantage of risers is that you can modify them to keep your stuff from slipping. You can attach blocks of wood in front of your bass drum and hi-hats to prevent slipping, or even drill holes big enough for you to insert your bass drum's spurs. If you do it right, your kick won't move EVER!!

Another "anti slip" trick is to run a small chain or rope around the base of your throne, and around the kick drum to hold it in place. As your kick tries to creep away, you stay right with it (actually, the kick just can't go anywhere in most cases).

Good luck.

I use nothing. A normal drumset is always so loud, that people living under you will always hear NOISE.

I just put VERY small pinns underneath my bassdrum legs and the 2 stands with toms on them. They work 10x more effective then only a carpet because you force the resonating to a very small surface.