what's that freakin buzz??

[michael.butler]

Here goes:

I've one year old pearl masters. 3 toms.

In the drum room, everything sounds great. No buzzes or strange vibrations can my ears detect from the toms. Back in the control room, everything sounds great too, EXCEPT for the middle tom. I mic the 3 toms w/ 2 57's close, so 1st and middle tom share a mic, and middle and last share one. I've always gotten nice results w/ these toms & 2 mics b4,

But now... here's this. A very obvious buzz/vibration coming only from the middle tom that's very obvious recording, but can't be detected next to the drum.

I have tried:

-switching out mics/changing mic positions
-adjusting any/all signal settings
- tuning retuning ALL of the drums
-lotsa different deadenings on each drum (o rings, moon gels etc)
-REMOVING each drum from the room should the noise be a head phasing problem
-tightened all hardware

With some of these adjustments, the noise seemed less noticeable but there all the time.

Now, granted, the heads aren't new, but they're all smooth and clean.

I'm completely stumped and somewhat irritated. And IT"S JUST THE MIDDLE TOM....AND IT'S ONLY PICKED UP BY THE MIC>>!

Any thoughts??

michael.butler

 

[jitteringjim]

Maybe your mic has a good buzz goin' on.

It's obvious of course, that you're missing something. Perhaps a vibration along the mounting hardware or something. It could happen... I recently had to mount a rack tom with a RIMS mount even though I had good OEM mounting hardware, because the tom was picking up vibes from the kick drum along the tubing.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

I had the same experience at this remote session, described --> here

 

[zbert]

If nothing else works you can try this but is very time consuming. The buzz may be comming from the lugs. What you have to do is take the drum apart. Remove the lugs and pack them with cotton. That should remove any buzz that would be from the drum it's self. This was a common problem with old Ludwigs. Most of the lugs have a spring in the for the rod female end. These do make nosie. Good luck with it.