Introduction
When I say that every little thing contributes to the overall drum tone, I mean EVERY. LITTLE. THING. Does any one thing contribute more to the sound than any other? The answer is yes, the drummer. A pro will sound better on an entry-level kit than a brand new student on a $20,000 kit. It’s more about dynamics, control, striking pattern, and just flat out experience than it is about shell material, beater angle, or $10,000 analogue to digital converters. That being said, it doesn’t hurt to be intentional about every decision that goes into your drum recordings to get the most out of them. Every little decision adds up to a big result.
The Player
How you hit your drums completely changes the sound of the drum itself. For example, tapping around the edge of a snare drum head is a world of difference from a pro drummer striking the rim and head together in the perfect rim shot. Same goes for the toms on your drum kit. A well-placed and powerful hit on the dead center of your tom head will yield a significantly different result than a glancing blow. And speaking of glancing blows, your drums were meant to be struck in a downward motion from a perpendicular stick on the head. If you’re snare and toms aren’t completely flat, you’re striking your drums with a glancing blow and you’ll never achieve that thundering sound that you love on your favorite albums. Take it from me and start to flatten out your drums a little at a time every time you sit down on your kit.
The Stick
Seems simple right? Just pick a stick, get comfortable with it, and get to playing. Wrong. Picking the correct tip material can dramatically change the tone of your recordings. A lot of drummers don’t love the sound of vinyl coated drum sticks striking their drums and cymbals. I, on the other hand, prefer it. The vinyl tip has a more definitive sound when striking and therefore cuts through the mix easier. Weight comes into play when it comes to speed, accuracy, and power. A lighter stick may be faster but yields a less powerful sound. On the other hand, a heavier stick will be slower but can be louder. And last but not least, length. It’s a bit of a stretch but if you have to lean out to get to your cymbals and toms due to a shorter stick, your posture, positioning, and body mechanics all start to suffer.
The Heads
To coat or not to coat? When it comes to snare heads, I always choose coated. I like the louder, snappier sound that coated heads produce over the softer, less-focused sound of an uncoated head. On the other hand, I can’t stand coated heads on kick drums. They just sound like paper being slapped. I’m on the fence when it comes to tom heads. I like the louder attack you get from coated head but it takes more work when mixing to get that “paper” sound out of the tom sound. When in doubt, use your ears. The head that sounds better to your ears while sitting in the room is likely the right head.
The Rims
Can’t believe we’re talking about rims for our drums? I can’t either. But once I heard the difference between an old 70’s style rim vs a die cast rim on my favorite snare drum, I was a believer. Those die cast rims have a much more focused attack and controlled overtones. Exactly the wrong choice for smooth jazz or older classic rock. But for metal, there’s nothing better. Even if you can’t choose your drumset, perhaps choosing your rims can help you get closer to the sound in your head without starting over from scratch. Just remember that certain rims hold their tuning better than others due to their rigidity.
The Tuning
Of all the disciplines in drumming that I put off way too long, this is the one that bit me in the ass the most. Learn to tune your damn drums! TODAY! It’s not that hard to learn, it just takes time and practice. First learn how to tune via a friend or YouTube and then get to practicing. The single greatest piece of advice I got was this:
“Once you’ve installed a new head and tuned it up, loosen the head all the way up and start again.”
At first your ears can’t tell the difference between a tin can and a battleship but after a few tries you can start to get a better feel for what sounds right or wrong. And keep trying until you can actually start to hear the drum sing when it’s properly in tune. I refuse to apologize for unleashing a brand new torture on you which is the ability to recognize poorly tuned drums by both ear and feel. It’s for your own good. And I can’t recommend enough the use of lug locks on snares near where the left hand lands a rimshot. This will save you from a drifting tuning from one song to the next when recording albums.
The Muffling
This part of the signal chain is also entirely dependent on both genre as well as the drum itself. For example, you probably don’t want a big ringy and boomy rack tom on your Deathcore album but you probably would on a big band record. Muffling can make or break your drum sound if done incorrectly. Before adding any type of muffling ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve. Are you trying to kill a ring that could be resolved using tuning? Are you trying to kill sustain that could be solved by head choice, rim choice, or shell choice? As you can see, muffling isn’t always the correct answer. If you’re using muffling to cover up your laziness, you’ll regret it more times than you can count. But if muffling is needed, as it sometimes is, I highly recommend moon gel cut into smaller squares and evenly distributed around the drum head in a symmetric pattern. This is the most natural muffling I’ve ever come across. Long gone are the days of the tea towels used in old Beatles records.
The Shells
This is more common sense than the majority of this list. The species of wood, the number of layers involved, and the construction technique is a gigantic part of the sound of a drum. Dig into what kinds of drums were used to achieve the sounds on your favorite records. Some species are more dry, and others have a robust ring. Some species have more attack, and others have more decay. Picking the right species for the genre you’re working with is one of the most important decisions you can make. For example, a big boomy and ringy tom drum would perform terribly on a super fast technical death metal album. On the other hand, a super tight and focused sound on a smooth jazz record would sound ridiculous. Even the thickness, number of plys, and the dimension of the drums themselves will help you shape your tone. And since we’re talking about shells, don’t forget about the bearing edge. Similar to choosing the right species for the genre, the same goes for bearing edges. Not all edges are up to the task. Some are designed to minimize attack and increase sustain but others are the exact opposite. Again, dig into which bearing edges yield the results you’re trying to achieve.
The Stands
Believe it or not, your stands matter. How your drums are held in position plays a big part on the sound. For example, overtightening a snare stand without rubber grips will yield a completely different sound from a properly tightened snare stand with rubber grips. The former is choked and even potentially hard to tune whereas the latter is given enough freedom to breathe and really shine. Same goes for your tom mounts. A solid tom arm through your shell is less desirable than a suspension mount not penetrating your shell. And even quality rubber cushioned feet on your floor toms and kicks will have an improvement on your tone. Will it be a night and day difference? No, of course not. But every single one of these little decisions all add up to a god-tier drum tone in the end.
Cymbals
We’ll discuss microphones in a bit but I will warn you that picking out cymbals requires the use of microphones to achieve pro results. Before we even talk about cymbal selection I have to cover cymbal placement. If you want your drums loud and in your face, you not only have to hit them like they owe you money but you have to go easy on the cymbals. And those cymbals need to be located as far away from the drums as you can comfortably get them. I know it sucks to put some space between you and the cymbals but the goal is to physically move them as far away from the microphones on your snare, toms, and kick. The more space between them, the more your engineer can crank up the drums without also cranking up the cymbal bleed. Now that we’ve covered placement, let's talk about picking the right cymbals. You can narrow down which cymbals to use by ear but you’ll want to make your final decisions based on how the microphones react to them. If you’re using a bright mic then pairing up darker cymbals might be the move. Or maybe they sound good to the ear but they sound cheap through the mics. Just keep experimenting and A/B testing combinations of microphones and cymbals until you find the right vibe for your song.
The Room
Even if you’re not using room microphones, the sound of the room will be in your overheads and direct mics so picking the right room is important to get right. The smaller the room, the shorter the decay time of the drumset and the larger the room the longer the decay time right? Kind of. It really depends on the room treatment because a medium room with no treatment might actually sound larger than a big room with a healthy amount of treatment. You should pick the room based on genre and tempo. For example, a lighting speed thrash band might like a larger room for a bigger and fatter snare reminiscent of the 80’s but once they pick up the tempo that big room with a longer decay time will just sound like a heavy wall of mud. Also, a big band drummer tucked into a bedroom sized room decked out with heavy treatment will be so dry it’s hard to listen too. Really dig deep into picking the correct room for the job.
The Microphones
If there were a second most important part of your drum sound it would be the right microphone choice and placement. Same with the cymbal analogy of pairing up bright mics with dark cymbals, pairing up the right mic with the right drum is even more important. Step one is picking the right kind of mic. There’s a reason we use dynamic mics on snare drums and condenser mics on cymbals. Because they work! Believe me, it’s all been tried and there’s a top 10 when it comes to each microphone choice from shells to cymbals to rooms. Don’t overthink it, just buy the right mic for the job and spend more of your time working on mic placement, playing technique, and the drums themselves. As for placement, this is going to be 1000% subjective. Genre, shell material, rim, head choice, technique… all of these will drastically change where to place your mic. Best starting spot on shells is to point the mic at the center of the head and out of the way of the cymbals. If you don’t like how it sounds, move it. Best starting spot for cymbals is both mics 48” from the center of your snare spaced out over your cymbals and pointing down. If you can, have one person move the mic while another person plays so you can easily hear the differences between different placements and choose the one that sounds best.
The Mic Stands
Do these really matter? YES! Having a mic slip and fall on the drummer in the middle of a performance because you bought cheap stands is super embarrassing. Buy high quality stands and they’ll last you a lifetime and not embarrass you in front of your friends. Also, quality stands have better sound isolation from vibrations and actually impact your overall sound in a negative way. Securely held microphones in a quality stand with great isolation is just a small but very important part of your total drum sound.
The Cables
Really? Cables? Yup, cables. I don’t go crazy buying the gold-plated highest quality cables for drums for a couple reasons. The first reason is that XLR cables don’t nearly have the degradation of signal over long distances the way guitar cables do. And, they’re not nearly as prone to signal interference from outside sources as guitar cables. But I also don’t purchase the cheapest cables I can find either. If a single cable can cost between $10 and $100 I choose the one around $70. It's a quality cable that’s going to last and I didn’t overspend on bells and whistles I don’t need. Just don’t cheap out or you’ll be chasing down broken and dead cables the rest of your life.
The Preamps
As a drummer, choose a studio that has quality preamps. I know it doesn’t seem like this would make a difference but I assure you that preamp selection is more important for drummers than any other member of the band. Most members only use one preamp at a time but drummers use anywhere from 3-24 preamps at a time. That’s where the sound of the preamps can really be heard is when you stack multiple tracks going through multiple preamps. If you don’t know what you’re looking or listening for, just consult your engineer or check out some forums or groups on the subject. Again, there’s a top 10 when it comes to these things so just pick a tried and true option and move on.
The Converters
This is the exact same advice as the preamps. It matters to drummers more than anyone in the band for the exact same reason. Every single time you need to convert a mic signal into a digital track in your computer or out of your computer back into audio for your monitors, your converters are affecting the signal. Choosing higher quality converters will always be a better choice for drummers. Again, pick a top 10 and move on to more important things.
Conclusion
The single most important thing I hope you leave with is this: every decision matters. Not every decision will have a massive impact on the overall drum sound but every decision added up will. If you spend the time to really dig in and make quality, educated decisions, there’s nothing stopping you from the ultimate drum tone of your dreams. Experiment. Fail. Repeat.
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