Okay, you're working on a music degree - I applaud your effort. I turned down a scholarship to a major University to be a line drummer. Why? Because I was involved in a band that had label interest - I should have gone to college instead on the scholarship, but I chose to take a stab at being the next Tommy Lee - and it didn't happen.
I was a line drummer from the time I was 13 through 18, and I was the Tympanist in our School's Symphonic band. Unlike most rock drummers, I am trained. I also worked in a recording studio, owned a Live sound company, and I began repairing drums for drummers when I was just a little younger than you.
It is my musical training that has caused me to promote things like - lowering your kick's mallet, because the center of the kick is a dead spot. Unless all you want is a completely dead kick sound - you need to lower the mallet, because the drum is exactly like a Tympani. Your kick mallet really needs to play in the same playing zone that a tympani mallet would strike a Tympani - which would typically be between 2" and 6" from the bearing edge of the drum. (try it, it will change the sound of your kick immensely.
)
But, let me ask a question or two of you:
For 60 years or so now, it has been "claimed"/"rumored" that Paiste cymbals are made by taking a very thin piece of wire, and "spinning" it into a circle, then they heat that disc of wire and it bonds together, becoming one solid piece of metal. (hence the term "Euro-spun" cymbals.)
The claim is that they attach it to a bolt in the middle of a big spinning disc, and then slowly feed it onto the turning disc. Then it's heated to a temperature that is just before the metal will turn liquid, and the metal rings of the spun wire bond to the rings next to them, forming a disc.
It's claimed that this is why the "Euro-spun" cymbals have those "rings" in them.
I have met many many professional drummer who believed this, even some metalworkers/machinists - also including an instructor at the college level - who was a drummer from the 1940's - who believed this little piece of information - and he taught it in class, and even worked out this diagram on a large artist's' portrait pad on an easel as to how it was done.
But, it's misinformation that he was passing on, while he thought it was knowledge.
Paiste cymbals are made by pouring th metal into thin sheets ,and then cutting the discs out of the sheets of metal. The "rings" he was talking about were the sound grooves cut into the cymbal with a hand-held metal lathe cutting tool (it looks kind of like a chisel.) It's actually one continuous groove cut into the cymbal. It's like the question we used to always ask about records- "
How many grooves are there on a 7" single?" There's 1. It is one continuous groove cut in a single.
So again, I'll re-state, a thicker shell is not louder than a thinner shelled drum,
it is just perceived that way. Here is why you are misunderstanding me, and where John Wyre is wrong.
The Human ear hears things better that have more midrange - that's why a telephone has a frequency range of 300hz to 3,000hz. It's within that range that human conversation takes place. Since the thicker shell has a higher natural pitch, the human ear perceives it as being "louder", yet if tested with a decibel meter using the same force to strike each drum - the thick shell is not louder than a thin shelled drum - it just SOUNDS like it is to the human ear because it's higher in pitch.
Also ask yourself this question, since you claim thin shells cost more than thick shells:
If thick shelled drums are so cheap? How come an Orange County 40-ply Snare costs so much more than a standard 6-ply?
Their 6-ply is $637 while the 40-ply is $1,139. The difference is the thickness of the drum.
Of course a thicker shelled drum costs more, there is more wood involved, and their is more labor involved in making the drum.
