drum muffling ? ? ?

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cubanorocker316

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hey i need some help with this, i like really muffled drums ,i bought the aquarian drum rings and i have double sided sticky tape on the nottome of the toms (3 strips) how else can i muffle them ? thanx
 
I would say get rid of any and all tape, and use moongel, if you have to muffle them.
 
Having all that tape weighs down the head and makes it hard (impossible) to tune. If you tune the heads correctly, they won't ring.

Another trick is to take an old towel and cut a 2 inch by 2 inch square out of it for each of the rack toms and 2 inch by 3 inch for the floor toms. Duct tape one side of the towel to the head so that it makes a flap. When you hit the drum, the towel flips up for a second, then comes back and dampens the head. Depending on your tom sizes, the size of the piece of towel will vary. You will have to play around with different sized pieces to get what you want.
 
Back in the old days they stuffed them with newspaper. Dave Garabaldi wrote about it. He hated it but the engineers and producers insisted. Listen to some of the tower of power tunes. If I remember correctly it was done on some of their stuff. I think it was an old mowtown trick.
 
Take the heads off and fill the ENTIRE drum with fiberglass insulation! Then put the heads back on.

That'll sound GREAT!!! Just like kleenex boxes! You know how drummers are always looking for that cardboard sound in the studio? That's how they get it!

Better yet, sell your drums and go to Box Brothers! You can get a 12 peice kit for around $50. :D :D :D
 
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PhilGood said:
Take the heads off and fill the ENTIRE drum with fiberglass insulation! Then put the heads back on.

That'll sound GREAT!!! Just like kleenex boxes! You know how drummers are always looking for that cardboard sound in the studio? That's how they get it!

Better yet, sell your drums and go to Box Brothers! You can get a 12 peice kit for around $50. :D :D :D
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yo it aint funny, i asked for advice if yo dont have anything useful to say keep it to yourself or go tell ur loser freinds idc
 
Dont take it personally

Why are you trying to muffle them?
For recording or for live?
Moongels work awesome because they don't Kill the tone!
 
cubanorocker316 said:
yo it aint funny, i asked for advice if yo dont have anything useful to say keep it to yourself or go tell ur loser freinds idc
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Sorry! I was just kidding! ;)

I'm just wondering what the influence is for the desire for muffled drums? I used to muffle my drums heavily when I started out, because I thought that was how my favorite recordings sounded. Granted, in the 70's that was the preferred sound. But after much experience in the real world in L.A. in the 80's and 90's, I came to discover that what I thought was the way to get the sound I heard on recordings was not how they got that sound. I have been in this biz for a long time.

The problem is: When you hear a track that sounds like the drums are heavily dampened, the reality is that there is only a slight amount of 'muffling'! Mics don't hear the sustain of a drum the way our ears hear it in an acoustic environment. They always cut the sustain, midrange, and overall resonance that we hear when we're behind the kit. Sometimes muffling can give a desired effect. The drummer for "The Cars" used to tape empty cigarette boxes to his heads. It's all what you're really after that matters.

I'm just saying that most drummers go after a specific sound without the experience of a pro studio signal chain and how it treats the sound. They don't understand what they are hearing on a track and try to treat the drum to get that sound, rather than knowing what happens between the drum, the mic, the preamp, and the recording medium (tape or HD).

My drums ring for days in the acoustic world, but when I put mics on all the drums and track them, the outcome is completely different! The sustain is shorter and the sound is duller than what I hear when I am playing them without any augmentation.

Rather than just saying "I love how muffled drums sound", you should list your favorite recordings and see if someone knows HOW they got that sound.

Those Rem-O muffl's are a gimmick! No one actually uses those in a studio. If you put a peice of tape on a drum and mic it, the dampened result is 10 fold. So trying to achieve a muffled sound by trusting what your ears hear is an exercise in futility!!! You will fight and fight and fight to get that sound to record well, but it just won't work!

Instead, trust the natural drum sound and make MINOR alterations to the dampening to get the final result in the recording instead of just muffling the hell out of it and expecting it to sound how you think it will. You will save yourself ALOT of headaches this way!

My very first demo is a prime example of this! I muffled the crap out of my drums thinking it would sound just like I heard when I played the kit. Boy, was I wrong! Sounded like kleenex boxes!! Hence my statement!!!
 
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back when i muffled my drums, i taped a piece of folded paper towel to the underside of the batter head with masking tape. also, i removed the resonant heads on the toms and kick. also, try remo ebony heads. they have a flat tone with a quick response
 
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