Dampening a Drumkit

S

StrandedLegion

New member
The drummer in our band has been trying to improve his sound, mostly by getting rid of the overtones from his kit. He bought some drum rings, which have worked pretty well.

I talked to him a few days ago, and he mentioned that he has glued the drum rings to the drumheads. He said he did this to prevent the rings from falling off when he transports his kit to practice (which happened last week).

My question is, does gluing the drum rings to the drumheads reduce the effectiveness of the rings? It seems to me like if the rings are glued on, they are essentially part of the head, and thus wouldn't reduce the overtones as well (or at all). I was hoping to get some clarification on this issue before mentioning anything to the drummer.
 
If a drum needs anything more than an occasional moon gel, then there is a bigger issue or just complete misunderstanding of how to tune drums and what they are supposed to sound like IMO.

I have never heard of anyone gluing anything to a drum head. That doesn't mean it is not the coolest new thing. :eek:
 
Tell your buddy to buy all new heads and some moon gel and start over.

Drums are room sensitive so what might have sounded good in lets say a small room probably wont sound as good in a much bigger room .

Tune the drums so they sound good but do not worry too much about overtones you can fine tune those out with the moon gel at the end, if needed.
 
It really bums me out when people inexplicably murder their drums with over-dampening. And make no mistake - literally gluing muffle rings to the heads is extreme over-dampening. Those heads are ruined forever. Muffle rings fall off in transport? Oh the horror. Here's an idea - just take them off when transporting the drums. :facepalm:

Anyway, if that's the dead kind of sound you want for recording, then fine, no problem. But live? Do you play live? Those overtones you are trying to kill are what make drums pop out through a mix. Those overtones are musical. Those overtones are depth, and dimension, and sound presence. Tell your drummer to get his shit together.
 
Greg_L said:
Muffle rings fall off in transport? Oh the horror. Here's an idea - just take them off when transporting the drums. :facepalm:
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My crappy kit came with these plastic donut things that just take the edge off the sound quite nicely. They fit just perfectly in the cymbal case.
 
jonny deep said:
My crappy kit came with these plastic donut things that just take the edge off the sound quite nicely. They fit just perfectly in the cymbal case.
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They fit damn near anywhere. Just pop them off and stick them wherever. Gluing them down so they don't fall off is like gluing a coffee to the top of your car so it doesn't slide off as you drive away.
 
Are you talking about overtones, or excessive ringing?

If it is ringing badly, it isn't tuned properly. There are plenty of videos on youtube to show you how.

Glueing the rings to the head is the height of laziness and has ruined the heads.
 
Farview said:
Are you talking about overtones, or excessive ringing?

If it is ringing badly, it isn't tuned properly. There are plenty of videos on youtube to show you how.

Glueing the rings to the head is the height of laziness and has ruined the heads.
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Overtones.

What we are trying to do get rid of some of the excess noise. We can't turn up too loud, because of neighbors and such, so we got the drum rings to get rid of some of the muddy frequencies. It cleared out some space for the other instruments, so we could keep our overall volume lower, but still get a good mix.

My question really isn't about how to fix the sound. The drum rings have worked and achieved the desired result.

See, we haven't practiced since the drummer did this glue job. He just did this a few days ago, and we don't practice until this weekend. If the sound still stays the same, then good enough. No problem.

My concern is whether gluing the drum rings will reduce their effectiveness. If it does affect the sound, I just wanted some information as to how likely the gluing would be the culprit, before mentioning anything to the drummer.
 
The rings work by vibrating against the head as it bounces around. If he just put a couple.drops.of glue on it to keep it from falling off, it could be fine. If he smeared it with glue so that it can't move freely, he effectively made his head thicker at the edges and impossible to tune. More than likely it will sound like crap.

Proper tuning still would have been the answer to the problem.
 
StrandedLegion said:
... he has glued the drum rings to the drumheads. He said he did this to prevent the rings from falling off when he transports his kit to practice.
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:D

That was really a problem for him?
Heck...he has to remove all the cymbals from their stands for transport, so how hard can it be to remove a few plastic rings...
...or did he also glue the cymbals to the stands? :p ;)
 
miroslav said:
:D

That was really a problem for him?
Heck...he has to remove all the cymbals from their stands for transport, so how hard can it be to remove a few plastic rings...
...or did he also glue the cymbals to the stands? :p ;)
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You might be surprised at how many people just chuck their drums and hardware into the back of a truck or car without breaking anything down. Then they wonder why everything breaks and generally sounds like shit, or worse, they don't even know that their dented heads and cracked cymbals sound like shit.
 
Farview said:
The rings work by vibrating against the head as it bounces around.
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Like Jay said....the rings need to vibrate around the rim of the head...gluing them down defeats their purpose.

I have a full set of rings in almost every drum size, and a bunch of moon gel packs. They are there for emergency use...like you've got a great drum sound, but then you get that one drum that is just not willing to play nice on a given day. You tune up, you tune down...etc...and then you just reach for a ring or moon gel and see what works best.

I dunno if anyone always plays with rings on every drum...I guess it's possible, but I don't think it's necessary, unless you just want a quick way to deaden the overtones and you don't give a shit about the rest.

I think we've (my drummer and I) used only one ring on a Snare drum occasionally (depends on the Snare we used)....but all the other rings just sit in their bag. I think I got like a whole set from MF a few years back, it was on sale or something, and I needed to hit a certain amount for free shipping or something like that...so I just grabbed the first thing I saw that took me over the limit. :D
 
There's a guy around here that occasionally goes to to a high end jam (where a lot of the local a list pros go) where he gets to play great vintage kits (20's through the 70's Yamaha, Gretsch, Eames and Rogers) and he always brings those rings. And he always manages to make these incredible sounding kits sound like ass. Other drummers (of his caliber) always sound better. Now, some of it is his god awful technique but I just can't understand what he's listening to when he thinks those things sound good.

Just my $.02
 
Aww, cut the guy a little slack.... He IS a DRUMMER after all! lol. (btw, In case any drummers are offended by that comment, I'm also a drummer. ;) )
 
miroslav said:
Like Jay said....the rings need to vibrate around the rim of the head...gluing them down defeats their purpose.

Aquarian Studio X heads have the damping ring glued to the underside of the head. They are the only head I will put on a drum anymore. Just the right amount of damping for studio work and they sound great live.

By the way, the term is damping, not dampening, unless you want to mist your drums with Evian.
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If you're problem is volume, why not get mutes?

(Or tell your drummer to learn to play his instrument correctly and use dynamics, but we all know how drummers are! :D)
 
cafehonda said:
miroslav said:
Like Jay said....the rings need to vibrate around the rim of the head...gluing them down defeats their purpose.

Aquarian Studio X heads have the damping ring glued to the underside of the head. They are the only head I will put on a drum anymore. Just the right amount of damping for studio work and they sound great live.

By the way, the term is damping, not dampening, unless you want to mist your drums with Evian.
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Those rings aren't glued to the head. It is basically another head ply with a giant hole in it.
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