D
DevilDrummer
New member
All right...
I'm a pretty experienced player and have recorded a decent amount. I am pretty precise about my tuning on my toms and I had a problem last night in the studio. The room I was in was pretty small really (maybe 8X12?). I was playing my DW 5 piece kit (set up classic Bonham style, 1 up and 2 mounted down and nothing mounted on the kick). I had a slightly used bass head (22X20, meaning I'd played a couple of live gigs with it, but it was still in great shape), I had a slightly used 15" G2 and I changed the G2s on my 10" and 14" tom. Snare was a slightly used reverse power dot. I had them tuned VERY well (fourths) and usually run them wide open (no dampening). We mic'd the kick about 2" in into the hole in the head and tunneled it. We had Sennheiser 604's on the toms and a trusty 57 on the snare. A condenser on the hat and a pair of sweet matched X/Y condenser's overhead. Now the problem. When I smacked the kick I was getting so much vibration on the new tom heads that it was washing into the mics and sounded like the sustained motor of a jet plane. If we held the top heads on toms 1 and 2 (new heads) all was OK.
Now I think it had a lot to do with my kick facing a flat wall (maybe 4' from it) and bouncing the pressure wave off of the parallel wall behind me. Mind you we had a blanket covering the front kick head and mic. We had some bass traps in some corners that didn't really seem to help.
I wound up playing for like 30 minutes to stretch the heads some and that helped.
Any thoughts as to what was causing this? I tried both nylon and felt beaters and had no effect. Were the heads just too live for the room? I tried moon gelling the toms and it helped a little but not much really. I couldn't go with too much dampening or there was no sustain at all. It would be a sin to keep those drums from singing. Was the room at fault at all? I think the answer is 'yes' but I wanted more opinions for next time in. BTW, this is the first time I've ever experienced this problem. Someone with more experience than I may have some great ideas.
-Sam
www.devilstomp.net
I'm a pretty experienced player and have recorded a decent amount. I am pretty precise about my tuning on my toms and I had a problem last night in the studio. The room I was in was pretty small really (maybe 8X12?). I was playing my DW 5 piece kit (set up classic Bonham style, 1 up and 2 mounted down and nothing mounted on the kick). I had a slightly used bass head (22X20, meaning I'd played a couple of live gigs with it, but it was still in great shape), I had a slightly used 15" G2 and I changed the G2s on my 10" and 14" tom. Snare was a slightly used reverse power dot. I had them tuned VERY well (fourths) and usually run them wide open (no dampening). We mic'd the kick about 2" in into the hole in the head and tunneled it. We had Sennheiser 604's on the toms and a trusty 57 on the snare. A condenser on the hat and a pair of sweet matched X/Y condenser's overhead. Now the problem. When I smacked the kick I was getting so much vibration on the new tom heads that it was washing into the mics and sounded like the sustained motor of a jet plane. If we held the top heads on toms 1 and 2 (new heads) all was OK.
Now I think it had a lot to do with my kick facing a flat wall (maybe 4' from it) and bouncing the pressure wave off of the parallel wall behind me. Mind you we had a blanket covering the front kick head and mic. We had some bass traps in some corners that didn't really seem to help.
I wound up playing for like 30 minutes to stretch the heads some and that helped.
Any thoughts as to what was causing this? I tried both nylon and felt beaters and had no effect. Were the heads just too live for the room? I tried moon gelling the toms and it helped a little but not much really. I couldn't go with too much dampening or there was no sustain at all. It would be a sin to keep those drums from singing. Was the room at fault at all? I think the answer is 'yes' but I wanted more opinions for next time in. BTW, this is the first time I've ever experienced this problem. Someone with more experience than I may have some great ideas.
-Sam
www.devilstomp.net
