Resonance Heads...Take 'em or Shake 'em?

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getuhgrip

getuhgrip

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Gigging in the 70's and 80's, I never ran bottom heads. I'd run them open and stick mics about mid-way up the shell. Huge live sound.

Anybody leave 'em off for recording? What do you feel is the significance of a "quality" resonance head?
 
i use 'em. madaudio had a kit at JF6 that had none and sounded good, too.
 
getuhgrip said:
Gigging in the 70's and 80's, I never ran bottom heads. I'd run them open and stick mics about mid-way up the shell. Huge live sound.

Anybody leave 'em off for recording? What do you feel is the significance of a "quality" resonance head?
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Drums sound dumb with no resonant head. Yeah, I know it's just my opinion, but dammit, it's fact.

Their significance lies in the fact that they give the drum tone and a musical quality instead of just thud. Tune the bottom heads tighter than the top and you get a cool BOOoooooowwww doppler effect that sounds great and records beautifully. Toms just sound better with resonant heads.

I use an Evans EC2 clear top and G1 bottom combo and I'm very happy with the tones.

Just cuz you look like you're stuck in 1975 doesn't mean you should sound that way.
 
Timbales sound funny with bottom heads, and cuicas are a bitch to play with them on.

I use bottom heads but to me it's just another flavor except for floor toms which aren't (to me) really floor toms without bottom heads.
 
I've tried that a few times but for some reason i always ending up putting the head back on. It didn't even sound too bad, but i just prefer both heads on. I guess 2 heads are better than 1 :p
 
I'm a guitarist so don't put too much stock in anything I say, my comments are purely from observation. The drummer I play with most puts top and bottom heads on his larger toms (13, 14 &16) and only top heads on smaller (10 &12) toms. I'm not saying this is good or bad but I like the way his set sounds. Drums without bottom heads sound louder (to me anyway) and this kind of helps him keep the toms on a more even volume.
 
drums without resonant heads do sound dumb and damnit its a fact. Would you eat a hotdog without the hotdog?!? No.
 
saads said:
I've tried that a few times but for some reason i always ending up putting the head back on. It didn't even sound too bad, but i just prefer both heads on. I guess 2 heads are better than 1 :p
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I suppose it's a personal choice for the sound that you want, but I prefer having resonance heads on my drums. Drums without resonance heads are open with a real ringing sound. The shell only acts as a megaphone for the top head and it doesn't give you that echoing full sound as the vibrations are bouncing around inside the drum shell.

That open ringing sound is exactly the kind of sound you want in timbales and not to my liking on toms or even the kick drum (I cut a small hole for the mic on my kick resonator).

Back in the 1960's and early 70's it was very popular to remove the resonator heads and a lot of good drummers did that, but I have noticed that most of them eventually came around and replaced the resonator heads. To my ears, it just sounds better.
 
Rimshot said:
That open ringing sound is exactly the kind of sound you want in timbales and not to my liking on toms or even the kick drum (I cut a small hole for the mic on my kick resonator).
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I keep the resonant head off the bass drum. Not because it sounds better, its just a lazier alternative for me. No cutting holes, no tuning the other head. I just muffle it with a couple of pillows.
 
It's easy to imagine that the first drums had no bottom heads.
When I started playing drums in 1868, make that 1968, if you had reso heads on your toms and especially your kick it would have been the same as using pocket pen protectors - total nerd out. Everyone I knew, with no exceptions, in the 1968-1972 period had a kick with no front head and a pillow in it.

The first drummer I saw using a front head (that I thought wasn't nerd) was Lenny White. And gradually, in the first part of the 70's, the front heads went back on.

Right now, my guess is that 99% of the drummers on this forum use kick resos. If this forum was in 1969 it would probably be something like 80% didn't and the 20% that did would be mostly bop/big band drummers, and even some hard core jazz drummers used no reso with a pillow back then.

I use all resos now, but I still like the sound of a kick with a pillow and a concrete block on the pillow inside the drum (the classic Geoff Emerick routine).
 
Resonant heads all the way. That's where your good tone comes from.
 
I too played without bottom heads in the 60's and 70's - it did help project the sound....in particular in the days before there were large boards and close micing drums. It certainly made hauling drums easier (I could fit several drums inside each other is a single case)

I've done many recordings with the resonant heads off (because that was the sound everyone wanted back in the day) and many recordings with the heads on. I prefer - by far - the sound of heads on.

It depends on what you want out of the drum sound....if you want the flat, dry sound of the 60's/70's then perhaps no bottom heads makes sense......however, I personally think the added tone of resonant heads adds to the charactetr of the drums......and unless ordered to remove the heads by a producer....I would never choose to record without resonant heads.
 
On my synth module there's a few sounds that sound usable with no effects on them, like muted guitar. But almost all the sounds are better with reverb, chorus, delay or some sort of effect on them.

When you put on a bottom head, it makes the sound of the drum way more complex, sort of like adding an effect. The bottom head in a way adds a reverb like sound, for sure resonance and probably some chorus like effect because the two heads are out of tune with each other. Complexity.

A single head tom is fine as long as the room or the pa adds nice reverb. Otherwise it has that dumb sound. It helps to have lots of toms when you take off the bottom heads. Double heads are fine with just a few toms.

I have a set of 4 old Ludwigs I was thinking of making into a set of concert toms for some songs.

I know they're fun for all the wipeout Hawaii 5-0 bullshit toms rolls, but I couldn't handle them on a regular basis.

There is this sick sound you can get when you tune a smaller (10" or so) single headed tom real loose and the pitch bends down every time you hit. That was popular in the 70's like using it on "4" in songs like Linda Ronstadt's "Blue Bayou" or like Hal Blaine did it the song "It Never Rains in Southern California".

Funny thing is, I had just thought of making some concert toms this last few months. And on this forum and a drum forum I frequent people have been talking about them. Up to this I hadn't heard concert toms mentioned in decades, so maybe something's brewing.
 
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