Ode to a very old drum head - now 50% "poll"-ier!!

blackdiscoball · Post by **blackdiscoball** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 8:10 am

geeezzz, more people have voted for "throw it out" than any other... tough crowd.

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 1:02 pm

Hey, I voted for throw it out myself, so that's gotta count for something.

So, in continuance, I think I'll have to write the original saying on the new floor tom head. We were in the studio this morning and a tune of mine just wasn't working. We'd been playing and practicing it all week and it really felt like it was going where I wanted it to go, culminating in yesterday's rehearsal version, which just made me so happy. Well, today we tried it out and it just was no longer going where it had been. Since I had already heard it do a certain thing I liked, I kept on pushing everyone to take it there, but for some reason everything I said or tried just made it worse and farther away from that. After the session, I was told by the bass player that he thought the last take we did was amazing, in a totally different (and better, IHO) way than we'd ever played it. So, of course, after the fact, I wish I was paying more attention to what was actually going on instead of what I was trying to project and impose on this situation. I'm hoping that upon listening to the track again (whenever we get roughs), I'll be able to hear the great stuff the bass player heard. It wouldn't be the first time a take I hated ended up being the best shit of all. Either way, if I had had that most valuable bit of personal wisdom stamped on my floor tom head, I might have taken a second to loosen the fuck up about the whole thing.

Also...

The floor tom sounded like shit in the studio. Uuuuuggggghhhhh. It was fine, fantastic even, in rehearsal yesterday, but something about how it sat over night, or the sound of a different room. I don't know what it was. I set up my kit late(*) and just kind of started rolling with my cans on because we had a limited amount of time. So, we do the first take then go in to the CR to check out the sounds and such. Well, I hear myself hit this timpani-type roll on the floor tom and all I hear is overtone. It sounded like a low tuned 10" rack tom, not bad sounding if that's what it was supposed to be, but not what I expect from a floor tom, not MY floor tom (how arrogant is that!).

At first, I'm thinking about being a dick and finding out if it wasn't being mic'ed well or if that side of the mic setup (Glyn Johns, I might add) wasn't up in the mix, anything to put the blame on someone else, right? Luckily, I caught myself before saying anything obnoxious, remembered that this particular engineer is VERY good/skilled/talented, and went into the tracking room to check the drum itself. Not surprisingly, I hit it and it sounded exactly like it did in the control room. Weirdly overtone-y and kind of dead. I started to fuck with tuning, but then the rest of the band was filing in and ready to play. I did a couple quick turns of the drum key to no real avail, then put the drum back in it's place for the next take. After that was done there was a short break so I was able to mess with it a little more. It took me most of that short break to get it even sounding OK. It sounded almost as if the batter head was being choked by the little damper felt inside, but I checked and checked again, and it was totally clear of the head.

Now, I generally pride myself on being a fairly quick and good tuner of drums, I don't have a particularly technical method to it, I just take whatever knowledge I've gained and jumbled together over the years and do a kind of "drum whisperer" thing where I just listen, turn keys wherever it feels like I should, and usually the drum sound just kind of comes together for me. Never really been an issue. Well, today, none of that shit was working. I even dug into my memory to try and pull up some approved standard tuning approaches. Nope. I accepted "good enough" and moved on because we had a lot of music to get through in a short period of time, and the quality of this recording didn't hinge on how awesome my floor tom sounded (There are plenty of situations where, I believe, that WOULD be the case. This just wasn't one of them). So, c'est la vie... maybe the drum was rebelling and expressing it's own objection to being parted with it's long time friend.

*oh yeah, I was late setting everything up because after we loaded in at 8am and started setting up, we realized that we didn't have my hardware bag (or the keyboardist's sheet music), so I ran back to his place to find the hardware sitting in the middle of his driveway. That's why they call it an Idiot Check, methinks.

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 2:52 pm

Woah. Dude. I think you've let that head get inside your head. You've gotta get back to fundamentals.

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 3:28 pm

Tell me about it. I'm on the road with not a whole lot going on between gigs, rehearsals and recording (not that that doesn't fill up some time) and just LOOKING for things to overanalyze in my down time. It'll be nice to get home and focus on the little wife and little toddler, and the composing work waiting for me. No joke, that sounds just right about now.

ott0bot · Post by **ott0bot** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 4:39 pm

..they made Aqua Teen Hunger Force, so I can't see a drum head for a character as a stretch.

But bassically I don't care, i just liked the creativity of your poll and felt the need to respond with a complimentary "ha!"

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 4:24 pm

I used to do the old school thing of cutting out the middle and mounting the new head on top of the old head, so the middle part rings free, but the outer part of the head is damped by the contact with teh old head. This only works with lugs that are pretty long.

centurymantra · Post by **centurymantra** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:41 am

Well...I did see this legendary drum head in person at the Yuganaut/Roscoe Mitchell gig in Ann Arbor (very fine show BTW) and, given the back story, am not even sure if I know how I should vote. The point about Aqua Teen Hunger Force should be noted...and can easily imagine some crafty stop motion film featuring characters based around a drum head, guitar string, pick, and a reed. I might have to vote "other" and simply declare that it should be left on the street so that it may impart it's sonic wisdom upon the one who may pick it up.

That being said...did it travel back home with you?

centurymantra · Post by **centurymantra** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:43 am

calaverasgrandes wrote:I used to do the old school thing of cutting out the middle and mounting the new head on top of the old head, so the middle part rings free, but the outer part of the head is damped by the contact with teh old head. This only works with lugs that are pretty long.

This is actually a pretty good idea...may be worth trying? If it's a clear head, those old nuggets of wisdom scrawled on the edge may even still be visible.

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 11:18 am

its one of the ways to get the classic dead 70-80s drum sound.
That or put tshirts under the heads when you put them on.
I actually used to do that as well when I was obsessed with the clicky drum sound. Then I learned how to tune. Then I didnt have a drum set.

alarmo · Post by **alarmo** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:54 pm

For what it's worth, I have a kit of '70s slingerlands that everyone who comes over absolutely loves. The tom heads - remo coated emperor batter heads, top and bottom - are at least 10 years old that I can vouch for, and knowing the drummer I bought the kit from, are guaranteed to be older than that. Those toms magically respond well to various visiting drummers tuning them to their own tastes, high pitched or low pitched, and sound nice and wallop-y no matter what.

In theory a new set of the same type of heads should sound fine - but I'm not about to touch them. I never clean my cymbals, either...

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 2:14 pm

That's why I always come back to Remo. They usually sound good all the way to the grave, other heads start going down hill after a couple weeks in my experience.

casey campbell · Post by **casey campbell** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:40 pm

my clock idea is winning... woo hoo! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ya hoooooooooo! ow ow ow... get back!

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 7:32 pm

casey campbell wrote:my clock idea is winning... woo hoo! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ya hoooooooooo! ow ow ow... get back!

How many times did you vote?

casey campbell · Post by **casey campbell** » Wed Oct 21, 2009 7:39 am

Snarl 12/8 wrote:
casey campbell wrote:my clock idea is winning... woo hoo! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ya hoooooooooo! ow ow ow... get back!
How many times did you vote?

once.

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Wed Oct 21, 2009 12:47 pm

calaverasgrandes wrote:I used to do the old school thing of cutting out the middle and mounting the new head on top of the old head, so the middle part rings free, but the outer part of the head is damped by the contact with teh old head. This only works with lugs that are pretty long.

Isn't this the basic old school idea behind the powerstroke line?

Anyway, to finish things off...

Yes, centurymantra showed up to the show (way to represent

[though he said he was going to come to the festival anyway]). Afterwards he gave me the "leave it on the street" idea and I liked it so much I decided that I was just going to do that. Well, I passed on the good news to our bass player (as if he'd really care), and all of a sudden he was like, "Well, if you're going to do THAT, then you should just give it to me so I can hang it up at work, and it can inspire me and other folks who come through!", or something along those lines. He works at/runs a decent sized (for free jazz) label, and he'd been complaining a bunch about the bareness of the walls, so it seemed appropriate. Last I saw the drum head was 5 am on Sunday morning as I dropped him off at his home in Brooklyn after doing the all night drive from Ann Arbor. I'm assuming it'll make it up to the wall, but you never know how long it will take or if it will just get forgotten about all together, and I'm not planning on bugging him about it. Though if any of you are ever at the office of ESP-disk, keep an eye out for it.

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