Drumshell aging

OK, it seems that almost everyone is in general agreement that the older wood becomes, the better it sounds, right? More resonance, correct? SO I was thinking....What's to say you can't age your wood instrument faster by baking it? Right? We're just talking a loss of moisture right? Who cares if it's speeded up? It's not like the wood molecules change. Of course it may take a month at 200 degrees, but I'm just pulling random numbers, more research would have to be done....If it's valid it should probably be done before finishing. Do companies already do this?

I'd be surprised if a loss of moisture is all that needs to happen.

But if the process is really that simple, people could do it themselves. I've started "baking" my sticks to make them lighter and to change the way they resonate with the drum.

I still would like to have some more proof that the sound changes significatly after 2-4 years.

Would two identical drums age differently if one just sat and the other was played regularly ?I would think vibration over a period of time would have some
influence

I don't think that its as simple as the wood drying out. Humidity levels from the environment constantly changes within the shell of a drum.
The wood that drums are made from is in constant tension because it was glued and pressed together and then bowed to a round shape. Over time the wood plies get used to being this way and they relax a bit so to speak. I don't believe that this process takes a great number of years. Probably just a few months!

I believe that this drying out theory is mostly myth and legend.

Everyone wants to believe that a drum mellows with age like wine and the like.
I have never seen any scientific test that prove this theory.

Of course it may take a month at 200 degrees

WOOHOO!
So just leaving my drums in the garage over summer will age them and make them sound better? I KNEW there was a good reason for moving to Arizona!

I remember being in a violin makers shop when I was in Europe and they had lumber hanging from the ceiling that was already 100 years old. There must be something to the aging process or they would be baking lumber to speed up the process.

I don't see what aging does that baking can't. But what do I know?

I found this. Check out the part about kiln drying.


CUTTING and SEASONING. Violin makers prefer wood cut from old growth trees, grown at high altitudes on northern slopes. The wood must be cut during the cold dormant months and stored (seasoned) in controlled conditions for several years. Most of the wood used in violin making is split or cut "on the quarter" for greatest strength.

Immediately after the tree is felled, the trunk is bucked into rounds (cut up into cylindrically shaped lengths) only slightly longer than that needed for the finished pieces. Like slicing a pie, these rounds are split or sawn radially into wedge shaped pieces called billets. The billets are sealed on their ends with hot glue, stacked in such a manner that air can circulate all around them, and stored in a cool area away from direct sunlight.

Each piece of wood dries throughout at an equally slow rate. The drying or seasoning time for a piece of violin wood is generally ten years or more, depending on its size and thickness. Fifty year old wood is even better! Kiln drying of commercial lumber destroys the cell structure of the wood and thus its physical and acoustic properties.

Shown below are backs of Stardivari model violin made for Alasdair Fraser, viola in the style of Amati made for Joseph Genualdi and Guarneri model, demonstrating the use of different woods and grain patterns
Click on the image for a detailed view.

It's not just the moisture content - the sap / resin composition also changes as it ages.

Also we need to consider that trees from 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago were probably bigger, stronger, healthier than the regrowth or younger trees that are used nowadays (what's left of them anyway).....

I was thinking that if I bake a potato for two hours at 180C trying to save time by cooking for half an hour at 720C would not be a great idea. I sometimes left my drums in the car after coming home exhausted at some crazy hour after gigs. I felt even more paranoid about it than usual in summer because I (rightly or wrongly) instinctively felt that the morning sun in summer wouldn't do the gear any favours. I guess because preservation is always associated with cool temps.

GD's Stradivarius quote seems convincing. Here's some more detail on the effect of heat on cell membranes:


Simple, isn't it?

James, it would be interesting to know how your drums shape up after a summer in your Arizona garage.

I don't think that it is an equal comparison, Violin vs Drum.
A violin resinates at a much wider spectrum of frequencies than a drum.
A violin also has a sound bridge that supports the strings and vibrates the body.
A violin has wooden baffles that are placed inside of the body to help it resonate.
The unique shape of the violin plays an important roll in the sound response generated from the body of the instrument.

Drums are the most primitive of instruments. Drums are not even close to the complexity of a violin.
The aging of the wood in a drum will not play as much of a roll as it does with a violin.

We, I were talking aged wood in general. Only that the older the wood the better the sound. Not that a drum will sound as good or the same as a violin. Whiskey and wine are both aged to taste better not to taste the same. Wood vibrates or resonates more the dryer it is and the best way to dry out wood is to let it age naturally.

These are good points Grunt. There is so much that is discussed in the drum realm about shell construction, plies, wood type, and all combinations thereof.
From my experience, a great deal of it is nonsense!
I really don't think that the drum is sophisticated enough for it all to matter as much as we would like it to.
I also like to think that it does though!

Aren't the vintage drum sounds we like the result of the softer woods (poplar, mahogany) and the round bearing edges?

Also, we used "old growth" woods back then. Even if it was a softer wood, it was a better quality of wood compared to the same wood we're using now. However, the manufacturing processes are probably better today - better pressing and better epoxies.

Whatever the wood, it does have to be at the right humidity content both, at the time of making the drum and the time of playing.

In terms of baking the drum- that would destroy it. The glues would go to crap. Baking the veneers before making it would product a "rot proof" drum. Baked wood, done right, is rot resistant.

I remember watching one of the How they Make it shows and they were showing drumsticks. All of the sticks are kiln dried to I think 7 percent moisture content, and from what I'm reading in they wood articles natural drying is better so I wonder if drum sticks would last longer if they dried naturally.

I'm not sure about wood, but I work in an aluminum extrusion factory and our age ovens run a 6 hour cycle @ 350 degrees to take 6063 alloy from T1 (soft and can be bent by hand) to T6 (hard and if bent it will go back straight). I know this is like comparing apples to oranges but it works for aluminum.

I got my 1994 DW's new and 16 years later they have mellowed out quite a bit. They have opened up over the years (which I like). These are Keller shells too.

Stradivari were made from wood that had been floating in the river and bay for years and years. Martin guitars do that also, they keep logs floating in a pond for years before taking it out to dry. Even lumbermills put sprinklers on the logs to slow the initial drying process.

Kiln drying of lumber forces it to dry out and do whatever it's going to do, so you don't have all this warping and problems later on. But it's hard on the wood.

As I mentioned in the other thread, along with a natural drying out, I've experienced the differences when wood vibrates with musical tones. Some sort of coherent set of frequencies, not just random vibration.

This is one area where I think the process can be sped along.

I have an Epiphone archtop jazz guitar that was made in Korea of plywood and a molded, rather than carved top. When I got it, it sounded like the cheap instrument that it was. I had a luthier friend set it up and do what hand finish work he could to things like the bridge and frets. But it still sounded cheap. So it became a decoration. I had it in my living room in-between the TV and one stereo speaker. I almost always have music going in the house, unless the TV is on. After about 5 years, I took it out on a gig just because it looked right for the situation. Amazingly, it sounded like a whole different instrument. Warm and full in a way that belied what I paid for it. Several very proficient jazz guitarist friends have played it and can't believe how good it sounds compared to most of the ones they've seen.

Out of that, I realized that the worst thing you can do with a wooden instrument is pack it away in a case. The best thing you can do is play it. A compromise is leave it out and expose it to music, even if the music isn't coming from it. That is a lot of the magic of an older instrument. The difference in a drum shell may be more subtle that a violin, but what difference there is comes from the wood aging musically. Letting it dry out and obtain it's final character consistent with musical tones.

Stradivari were made from natural whole wood, not wood composite materials like plywood.

Drums are made of veneers glued and pressed together under heat - high-grade plywood. Plywood isn't wood - it's a composite wood product, like particle board or OSB, and a fair chunk of a drum shell's mass and sound is adhesive.

Nothing wrong with that at all, but if you want to consider how a drum's sound changes over time, you must consider what happens to glue over time, not just the wood. Drum companies don't like to talk about glue, how much they use, how it's made, what happens to it over time, etc., but it is a significant part of a drum.

In fact, if a stringed instrument has ply construction, it is considered inferior. I disagree with that, but that is the prejudice that other musicians have about the construction of their own instruments.

I have read somewhere that vintage cymbals mellow with age, so there really seems to be a sound difference in vintage drums and cymbals...

...or perhaps part of it is the illusion created by drums and cymbals that were made much differently to how they are now.