Do Quiet Drums Exist?

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Dani Pace

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This may sound odd but I am looking for a set of "quiet drums." I know the volume of drums is largely a matter of control by the drummer, what I am trying to find out is does anyone know of a brand of drums or heads or something which will make drums quieter? My reason for asking is when playing smaller venues (I mean some really small cramped places) the drums are often just too loud. I don't want to muffle them, just lower the overall volume. I am a guitarist so when I need less volume all I have to do is turn my amp down, but our drummer needs help. We all want him to play with the same intensity, just not as loud. Any tips or ideas will be appreciated.
 
As you indicated, the main thing that controls volume is technique.

Often when drummers need to control volume they will change sticks (say use a 7A rather than a 5B) or use things like Hot Rods or even brushes. Using smaller sized shells can also be a way to reduce some volume.

Natually there is the option of drum shields, but these are costly and take up space (which may be a concern in a small venue). I've never been a fan of the shileds, but they can "redirect" some of the drum volume.

However, if the drummer insists on hitting hard, the drums will be loud regardless of the suggested options.
 
mikeh said:
As you indicated, the main thing that controls volume is technique.

Often when drummers need to control volume they will change sticks (say use a 7A rather than a 5B) or use things like Hot Rods or even brushes. Using smaller sized shells can also be a way to reduce some volume.

Natually there is the option of drum shields, but these are costly and take up space (which may be a concern in a small venue). I've never been a fan of the shileds, but they can "redirect" some of the drum volume.

However, if the drummer insists on hitting hard, the drums will be loud regardless of the suggested options.
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disagree

yamaha 9000 is the deadest & quietest kit I've ever played. Perfect for micing & ace for studio & you can give it a good pelt without killing the other band members

I'm not disagreeing about control & technique but the answer to the original question is yes. Especially if you use evans hydraulic heads
 
Yes, they do! The church I play at has the worst possible accoustic room for drums, so I'm a master at the quiet drum kit. To be honest, it's not just about getting the drums "quiet". It's bringing lower frequencies out of each instrument to make it appear "quiet".

Sticks:
Hot-rods are a must. I use the smallest kind. I can't remember the name of them, but I have a set of nylon "rods". These work great in my left had on a snare, but not as well on cymbals. If all of that is over kill you can move down from 7A's to even smaller sticks. But be careful, they break easily.

Cymbals:
If it says "Medium", "Heavy" or "Rock" on the cymbal, don't even think about it. "Thin" or "Studio" is a must. And the older the better. Older cymbals have had a chance to cure and warm up. Newer cymbals are a little more harsh. On my kit right now I have a set of vintage 14" Zildjian A hats, an older 14" Sabian HH thin crash, an 16" Sabian AAXplosion crash, and a vintage 20" Zildjian ride. Thinner cymbals are better for low volume because you don't have to hit them as hard to get a "cymbal" sound out of them. The AAXplosion series from Sabian is great because you barely have to touch them to get a perfect shimmering sound.

Drums:
Small is good. Thin is good. I built a kit specifically for the church I'm at. 10" rack tom, 13" floor tom, and 18" kick. The 18" has a good punch at low volume and sounds like a recorded kick. The toms are both 6ply maple, which is thin for a drum shell. Thinner shells bring out a lower fundamental pitch that make the drums appear quiet. All heads (tom & bottom) on the toms are coated single ply. I have Evans G1, but Remo Ambassadors work just fine. The coating warms the sound, but doesn't kill it like a Pinstripe head does.

Snare:
I use a 5x14" maple snare with wood hoops. I use a Remo Fibreskyn head on the top and a standard snare side head on the bottom. This head is a little thicker which takes away some of the "crack" of the snare. The wood heads warm the sound. Tuning is probably more important on the snare than anything else. I usually tune the snare in the low-medium range to keep some of the high frequencies away.

Hopefully you can pull some information out of that and put it to use on your own kit. I've been collecting different drums, cymbals and sticks for a few years now, so I have some specific pieces that work for me in that situation. I'm currently building a deeper 12" snare to see how that works at my church. Good luck with the quiet drums!
 
slidey said:
I'm not disagreeing about control & technique but the answer to the original question is yes. Especially if you use evans hydraulic heads
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In my experience Evans Hydraulic heads take too much sound away from the drum. They're dead. The sonic equivalent to playing telephone books.
 
Aminul said:
In my experience Evans Hydraulic heads take too much sound away from the drum. They're dead. The sonic equivalent to playing telephone books.
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hmmmm I've been using them for years & must disagree

if you're after the dead non ring sound they're great, that's after all what they're designed for with the oil fill as well. I also have my hydro headed drums single headed but double headed they are quiet, REAL quiet
 
Not sure what your experience is with your drummer, but I would imagine that careful tunging could help here. lots of "loud" is actually probabaly "harsh" as mentinoed above regarding cymbals etc.

i know crap about drumming (but i am enthusiastic at least) but when i went from a general tune-by-my-crappy-ear to using one of those tension gauges to help me get the heads to the same tension and improve tuning, my set sounded, if not quieter exactly, more controlled. I also was able to find some problem spots after that still gave big overtones and ringing that i didn't like, and set them a bit differently, added some of theose evans muffling velcro strappy things, and got it to the point where it sounds much more musical and refined.

I also use the hot rods type of specialty sticks for quieter practicing, but i agree that the nylon ones sound like crap on cymbals and hats.

Daav
 
The drumkits that many of us who grew up in the 70's and 80's learned to play on, were not as loud as modern drums.

The economy drums of Asia (brands such as Stewart, or "Star" - Star is now known as TAMA) were made from very thin plies (usually 3-plies) cheap, soft woods, and usually had Pine reinforcement rings in them. These drums had a much softer, sound.

Since the bearing edges are harder, sharper, and made on higher quality drums - and the drums are actually ROUND - so they are quite a bit louder; older drums were rarely "in true" - meaning they were usually warped a little.:)




Tim
 
Dani Pace said:
We all want him to play with the same intensity, just not as loud. Any tips or ideas will be appreciated.
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I'm sure alot will dissagree, but I don't believe that you can have both......You guy's playing smaller venues or something?.....what kind of music?
 
Thanks for the replies, I admitt that while I can sit behind a set of drums and keep a fairly consistent beat, I'm no drummer and I don't have a very good understanding of the principals of what makes drums do what they do other than poorly tuned drums (no matter how good they are) sound like crap. You guys brought out some good points, like thinner wall drums being quieter, I had never thought of that, thanks. Presently the drums being used are old Slingerland (probably 70 something) which sound good overall, they are just a bit loud sometimes. We are all "older" guys who don't play out on a regular basis and when we do it is usualy in some "hole in the wall" place or a small blues bar, more laid back than where a heavy rock drummer fits in well. Our style music is mostly southern rock/blues so maybe that explains why we don't want to muffle the drums, just find a way to soften them.
Anyway thanks again, any more thoughts on this quieting down drums are more than welcome. I figure if you guys want to know something about guitar you will ask us guitar players so since I'm trying to learn something about drums, I'll ask you drummers.
 
Dani Pace said:
You guys brought out some good points, like thinner wall drums being quieter, I had never thought of that, thanks.
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Err, not quite. Thinner shells are actually MORE resonant than thick shells. The DEPTH of the drum has much more to do with the volume. That is why you see all those ear splitting metal bands from the 80s using drums that are extremely deep. Deep = more volume. You will often see deep drums called power toms by some manufacturors. Note the word "power" in the name. Also look at some of the jazz cats... many of them use shallow toms. The pitch of the drum is determined by the diameter.
 
I've just got a shot of my buddie's 60s sonor set & it has evans G2clears on it with coated power stroke on the kick & it has punch without being deafening & the snare is emmense

gawd it's noice................
 
bubbagump said:
Err, not quite. Thinner shells are actually MORE resonant than thick shells. The DEPTH of the drum has much more to do with the volume. That is why you see all those ear splitting metal bands from the 80s using drums that are extremely deep. Deep = more volume. You will often see deep drums called power toms by some manufacturors. Note the word "power" in the name. Also look at some of the jazz cats... many of them use shallow toms. The pitch of the drum is determined by the diameter.
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Actually - it doesn't make it louder.
The loudest drum in the kit is almost universally the snare drum, and that is because of the depth of the drum combined with the pitch and the snap of the snares.

A Deep drum has a lower fundamental tone to the shell, which makes it "sound" like it's louder - but it's not actually any louder, it's just perceived that way by the human ear.

The puitch of the drum is determined by the duiameter - if all the drums in the set are under the same tension. This is exactly how a guitar works - all the strings are under the same tension, but the diameter of the string causes the change in pitch.

The term "Power Tom" is a marketing ploy. A drum with a shallow depth will actually tune to a lower musical not, because the deep drum contains the drumsound longer because there is more shell for the sound to bounce around in. That's why Drumworkshop created the F.A.S.T. sereis (F.A.S.T. = Fundamentally Acccurate Sized Toms)

When I started building drums I did a lot of research on this.




Tim
 
Tim Brown said:
Actually - it doesn't make it louder.
The loudest drum in the kit is almost universally the snare drum, and that is because of the depth of the drum combined with the pitch and the snap of the snares.

A Deep drum has a lower fundamental tone to the shell, which makes it "sound" like it's louder - but it's not actually any louder, it's just perceived that way by the human ear.

The puitch of the drum is determined by the duiameter - if all the drums in the set are under the same tension. This is exactly how a guitar works - all the strings are under the same tension, but the diameter of the string causes the change in pitch.

The term "Power Tom" is a marketing ploy. A drum with a shallow depth will actually tune to a lower musical not, because the deep drum contains the drumsound longer because there is more shell for the sound to bounce around in. That's why Drumworkshop created the F.A.S.T. sereis (F.A.S.T. = Fundamentally Acccurate Sized Toms)

When I started building drums I did a lot of research on this.




Tim
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You build drums huh??
 
slidey said:
You build drums huh??
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Yeah - but you'll notice I can't type worth a shit. Hahahaha

I started repairing them 20 years ago, and then I built a few sets.

I went around to the local pawnshops and bought a bunch of crappy single drums so I could practice to learn how to cut bearing edges - now there was a learning experience. LOL :D



Tim
 
Thanks again guys. I had a discussion with the drummer last night and we both agree the set is due a new set of heads. If I understand correctly a lot of you guys recomend Evans Hydraulic heads, and it's fine if they have a less ringy sound. OK that gets us past the top heads, any suggestions for bottom heads? I was just wondering if thicker heads on the bottoms might help. Also these are the same drums we use for recording so I was also wondering if we will have to totally reconfigure our recording set up. Sorry if I sound like a dumb old fart, I'm tyring to understand a part of music that I had never given a lot of thought to in the past.
 
If the heads need changing, change them, but buy heads for the tone quality you want, the volume problem isn't the drums, it's the drummer. It'll just take him a bit of practice, but dynamics are the drummers best tool, he's gotta learn to use them. It is possible to play with high intensity at low volume and it is an important skill to learn. And yes, if you set up the kit to play dead in an overly lively room you'll need to reconfigure it to play an acoustically balanced room.
 
PS....evans hydraulics are about the deadest thing you'll find, like banging on wet cardboard.
 
Tim Brown said:
Actually - it doesn't make it louder.
The loudest drum in the kit is almost universally the snare drum, and that is because of the depth of the drum combined with the pitch and the snap of the snares.

A Deep drum has a lower fundamental tone to the shell, which makes it "sound" like it's louder - but it's not actually any louder, it's just perceived that way by the human ear.

The puitch of the drum is determined by the duiameter - if all the drums in the set are under the same tension. This is exactly how a guitar works - all the strings are under the same tension, but the diameter of the string causes the change in pitch.

The term "Power Tom" is a marketing ploy. A drum with a shallow depth will actually tune to a lower musical not, because the deep drum contains the drumsound longer because there is more shell for the sound to bounce around in. That's why Drumworkshop created the F.A.S.T. sereis (F.A.S.T. = Fundamentally Acccurate Sized Toms)

When I started building drums I did a lot of research on this.




Tim
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Hrm, I have read contradicting information, specifically the Drum Tunin gBible site. Maybe I am confuing pitch with fundamental tone? I would imagine the two would be hand in hand. Care to elaborate?
 
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