Prof.Sound's Drum Tuning Bible v3
Acoustics/Placement
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Placement

People ask about the best mics, dynamic processing and in general, how to get great ("best") drum sounds all the time. It's a very hard question to give a distinct answer to, and could get very lengthy because so much is at work when acoustics enters the picture. But I'll give you some short thoughts on what's at work so you can work on things that may very well enhance your sound.

Seasoned engineers know, an absolutely huge part of getting a good drum sound is the room acoustics. Drums (and cymbals) have their way of really bringing these characteristics out of a room. Moreover, the room can absolutely make you hate the most (otherwise) magnificent drum set.

So you need to understand the basics. Almost every room that has not been acoustically treated has a frequency that is more pronounced than others. This is referred to as a node, or standing wave.

Further, this “node” in the response will occur at even multiples of that frequency again and again. Studio designers know this and go to great lengths to create things called bass traps to suck up these “spikes” in the waveform, treat the surface to further absorb and diffuse frequencies to help eliminate these problem node frequencies or "fluttering" echoes you may hear as you clap your hands together (i.e stick hitting drumhead surface).

Rooms that have walls parallel to each other are much worse than are those where every wall is a different length or angle. All materials have a point where the material itself gets excited based upon the power of the source and its physical shape. Acoustic designers know how to manipulate these materials to accommodate frequency problems or cancel them out as the case may be.

Drummers (as well as many other forms of musicians and engineer hopefuls) often don't realize how much this can wreak havoc with the sound, and in this case, specifically, drum sounds.

Bass traps actually enhance the bottom end of a frequency response by allow the dips to reappear in the spectrum.

Here’s how drums shake out:

·         Bass drum: 50Hz to 5.5 kHz, thump in chest boost a few dB between 60-85Hz, punch or slap 2.5 kHz to 5 kHz, hollow sound cut out around 250-500Hz by a few dB, based upon tuning. Note: Its suggested that you have more control over sound with a drum that’s a little “hollow” sounding rather than very dry and heavily muffled, or not muffled at all.

·         Cymbals: 300Hz to 17 kHz; Presence 10 kHz to 14 kHz. Typically boosted a few dB at 10 kHz and cut some between 50-450 Hz.

·         Key Jingles: 1.5 kHz to 17 kHz (for perspective).

·         Snare Drum: 100 Hz to 12 kHz, center frequency at 1 kHz, tight at 5-6 kHz (typical boost frequency), crack at 8 to 10 kHz, bottom at 100 to 300 Hz and resonance between 800 Hz and 2 kHz.

·         Toms: Typically boosted a few dB around 4-5.5 kHz and again at 9-10 kHz, cut around 500-750 on high to mid toms with low toms treated the same, but in the lower portion of the values given, based upon drum tuning.

Now, if you study the above, you would realize that these very frequencies that give a drum the round bottom end and depth of tone are many times right in the same problem nodes rooms can create.

So the very first thing to do when you do not like your drum sound is to try repositioning the kit in the room. Sometimes just a movement of a foot or two in one direction is all that’s required to be out of the node area enough to allow the warmth to develop.

In large open studios, good engineers will walk around the room with a tom and strike it repeatedly until they find the sweet spot and that’s where the kit will get set up.

You will also find that many times, loading a drum kit into a corner can make a dramatic improvement in the bass content of the kit (or make it worse if it’s too muddy sounding).

As for the "heads" question, the absolute warmest sounding heads are any of the REMO coated heads. The coating does not last as long as Aquarian or Evans (in that order) but the sound of the stick hitting the surface will be much less pronounced with REMO coated heads.

Room Size

The size of the room plays a huge part in how frequency waves develop and to what extent a frequency will develop. Small rooms do not allow the deep bass waves to develop because they simply cannot fit in the room without a huge amount of power to reinforce it.

Surfaces that surround you, coupled with their respective distance will either stop transmission past the barrier, get excited based upon their physical dimension and density, bounce the wave(s) back in the opposite direction (based upon angle) or absorb certain waves.

So do not underestimate the importance of the room and placement of the kit.

Audio Terms Explained

 As generally used at the professional audio/studio level:

 

"wet" a term used to describe a reverberant sound, something with decay.

 

"dry" a term used to describe a sound which has no decay or reverberant quality.

 

"fat" a term used to explain something which takes up space in the mix.  As an example, a loose snare drum, which has a longer sound burst in the mix. Hence the waveform curve is "fatter"

 

"tight" a term used to describe a sound which has a short duration within the mix.

 

"open" a term used to describe something which has a natural hollow tone with lingering overtones such as that of and very resonant drum that also exhibits high pitched overtones.

 

"muffled" a term used to describe a sound which has the higher frequencies attenuated or lessened by another device or structure.

 

“focused” a term which combines the elements of muffled and tight, has a very defined tone to it with less overtones.

 

"warm" a term to define the quality of the sound as being "round" with “sibilant” qualities to it or specifically with less of a sharp edge or "presence" to the sound.

 

“cold” a total opposite of “warm” meaning it has an edge to it and is very midrange present, without body.

 

“dark” a term which is used often to describe a tone that is somewhat distant and has a tonal qualities in between that of “warm” and “cold”, not quit as much resonance or body to the tone as one that is warm, but also more than a colder tone, still having an edge to the sound without being sibilant.

 

"presence" a term which is typically used to describe a sound which can have a more nasal quality to it.  More specifically, a boost in the upper midrange frequencies.

 

“punch” a term used to describe that of a drum, which has both a “presence” and a “dry” quality to it.

 

“round” a term used to describe a quality of tone that has a longer bump to the lower frequencies and is usually upper bass heavy.

 

“Sibilants” These are high frequency sounds such as that of a hissing effect. The letters S, Z, C and H in combination are typical examples (such as SH, ZH and CH) and often describe the bright end of the cymbal and Hi-hat sound.  In a distorted form they are unwanted, but in a clear form on drums they are required for accurate reproduction of the snare and cymbal sounds and enable an airy structure or quality to the music.

 

All rights reserved - J. Scott Johnson, Indianapois - "c" 1999