towels on toms?

D

drummer-man

New member
I was watching an amazing dvd with the band muse in the studio.I learned alot of stuff from it.One thing i have never seen is it looked like the drummer had towels on the drums for complete dampening i presume.Anyone do this kind of thing?
 
Yeah, drummers do a lot of stuff like that. It's quite common. Like ducttaping the drumhead and so on..
 
I have towels on my drums, and I use drum sticks to dry mysef with after a shower.

See what I did there? :D
 
I do it on some tracks because my room is still a bit too lively. I mainly do this with my snare.
 
Was he just damping the drums he was not using for that take to stop them ringing? I do that all the time.

Alan.
 
I much prefer properly tuned drums with reasonably new heads - But I'm not above putting a small-ish "flap" (just a couple square inches taped down in a way that it pops up when the drum is hit but rests lightly on the head when it's not). Especially for live use...
 
I was only talking about when the whole kit is set up and we move onto a ballad and don't need toms, so instead of moving anything we cover the unused toms with a towel and turn off the tom mics. I was asking if that was what was going on in the video.

Back in the 50's and 60's sometimes drummers would cover the drums with a piece of cloth if they were too loud for the other instruments, back in the days when they could not mic everything individually and were recording live, however drums seem to be less important back then LOL.

alan.
 
I just don't get the monkey-see-monkey-do attitude with some of the crazy ideas out there. I wonder how many people put fish in their floor toms because they saw Moon do it. A towel on a tom will sound exactly how you can imagine it would. If that's the sound you want or need, do it. But damn, why even use drums at all if you're just going to kill them? Use boxes or empty suitcases.
 
Greg_L said:
I just don't get the monkey-see-monkey-do attitude with some of the crazy ideas out there. I wonder how many people put fish in their floor toms because they saw Moon do it. A towel on a tom will sound exactly how you can imagine it would. If that's the sound you want or need, do it. But damn, why even use drums at all if you're just going to kill them? Use boxes or empty suitcases.
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Exactly. I put a big-ass blanket on my second kit when I'm recording my main kit. The only reason to cover a drum with something us if you don't want to hear it.
 
Well this dude used 'em. You can really hear it on some stuff (doesn't sound like just dead drums with tape). These pics look like they were from some of the later shots of the Beatles when they were nearing breakup (68-70?), seeing as his kit got bigger around that time with an added crash and rack tom (see rooftop concert in '69). Although I'm pretty sure you hear this effect on his drums coming in and out throughout their whole discography. Just whenever it needed/wanted it I guess. But in any regard, IT'S NOTHING NEW.

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