Why aren't more people playing BIG bass drums?

mikei

Gold Member
Hello,

I am hardly and expert, so feel free to slam me back to reality.

However, I do not understand why more people do not play 26 inch bass drums

If tuned right (Thanks Karl!!!!), they just sound amazing. Even for bluesy stuff it sounds great. Rock and Metal it sound fantastic.

I was playing "Since I've Been Loving You" from Zep the other day with my guitarist and it sounded good even when just "tapping" the bass drum.

I can see not wanting to play one because of two reasons. One, it is big and harder to more around than a smaller kick. Also, tom height can be an issue. I have a 13 x 9 tom over the kick and have it about 4 inches above the bass drum, so I believe there is plenty of room for shallower toms.

I have owned many kits, and really, a 26 sounds special and cannot be duplicated with a 22.

But, other than that, why don't more people play them? I am just curious as to why.
 
I don't think alot of manufacturers offer them with a standard kit. I am sure you could probably special order them and pay twice as much but who wants to do that?. I know if Mapex offered a 26 with the saturns I would have thought about it.

By the way whats the width of yours?
 
I have owned many kits, and really, a 26 sounds special and cannot be duplicated with a 22.
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Same here...

I use whatever I like . Don't give a - - - - what's popular or not.
I find a 26 more versatile than smaller B/drums.
Fashion? Many drummers follow fashion trends (sad) or copy other drummers maybe, & they don't get a chance to hear a 26 often.
 
There is a word that I would use to say why they're not used more often:

Compromise.

That is to say that the 26" size, whilst potentially highly rewarding from a playing and from a sonic perspective does not necessarily lend itself to certain players' technique, sound or transportation requirements. Obviously the first two are probably self-replicating in that because of the sheer ubiquity of smaller sizes, tastes tend to move away from non-standard sizes in favour of what is more mainstream, but in all seriousness I think that transport really is probably the biggest factor. What you've also got to remember is why smaller bass drums were popular in jazz - partly due to the fact that early drummers had to use public transport and therefore the smaller the bass drum, the better. After this realisation the sound developed and became the 'standard' size even when there was no obvious reason for it to be so.

Also, 22" is what I would call a 'happy medium' of sizes. Most kits offer the standard 22" and they probably are the most versatile in terms of compromise between sound and transport for all applications. I'd prefer a smaller bass drum personally, just as you prefer a larger one and we can see the standard 22" as covering both sides evenly. It really is as simple as that.
 
Sounds like you are loving the new kit, very cool

to answer your question, it's personal preference, for most. The big bass drums were very "in" in the 70s, I think Bonham had a lot to do with that. Then the bass drums started getting deeper and were delivering a great tone from the smaller diameter. The big kick is not as versatile as the smaller kick. It is a very cool sound for the right styles of music

I used to play 24s but went to 22 with my first DW kit. For me it was more about getting the toms lower, I am only 5' 6". With my TAMA Artstars I had 2 24 kicks and power toms.
I found it much easier to play with the DW fast toms over a 22.

In your case with a 4 piece kit you will not have a problem getting the tom down low but it you use that 26 with 3 mounted toms it might be a different story.
 
I think people are more concerned with having a comfortable setup than they are with having a huge bass sound. Drummers used to have horrible setups, but now you'll never find ridiculously angled toms. Having a comfortable setup, in my opinion, far out rules having a bigger bass drum.

I also think being "different" has something to do with it.
 
During the early to late seventies I drove a 26. At the time I had 4 - 6 up and 2 down.

The first time I played that set up I thought my right arm was going to explode when I went to the ride cymbal because it was higher and further away to clear the toms than I was used to. I did get used to it and played that kit for a long time.

Fast foward..................

When I got back into drumming three years ago my 22 inch bass drum was driving me crazy. I remembered how the 26 sounded. I tried out a lot of different heads and still found the 22 lacking.

I had an audition to go to and that morning I changed heads several times. I wasn't happy at all with the bass drum sound. Once I got to the rehersal studio and set up the bass drum sounded good. Much different than in the confines of my home practice space. A lesson relearned.

I'm happy with the 22s these days. I tune for maximum boom and like the sound I'm getting. I'd rather have several rack toms than a 26 inch kick.

If I find a 24 that matches one of my kits I'd probably go for it, but a 26 is more than this old dawg wants to mess with. If I were running a single rack tom it might be an option.
 
transport and takes more money to make from the makers, therefor it costs more...

i think the same way you do...i have my 24" and love it....i plan on having a 26" in the next few years...but, i dont know if i will ever buy a new kit that has smaller than a 24"

unless i strickly use it for my jazz/country gigs..
thats what i use my 20" right now for..

Alex
 
Why would you? You know you can just tune a 22" a little lower. It won't sound the same, but it will be close. Plus, many kits don't have basses that big, and it's hard to find heads and cases in that size. Also, it makes positioning everything suck. Imagine trying to play a 12-13" tom over a 26" bass drum, it's possible but hard and to some uncomfortable. But the main reason? Not many people like that sound.
 
the bigger the drum the more energy it coudl take to play it - however that's not specific enough - for example it could due to its size achievev a greater max volume but there's more air to displace so at some level it has to make adifference
i mean i love bonham much as the next but like he did quick triplets by incorporating toms nad stuff its not like he played quick notes continuously with one foot the way we like to roll on kick drums in today's equivalent music to zeppelins burgeoning metal. i think that generally you're just gonna get so much more attack clarity out of a smaller drum and its like any drum dimensions - when you are say playing faster as many today like to (lets not get into the merits here ok) then its better, the smaller kicks and toms etc, for getting a nice clean tone wen lots of notse are being played on it
26 and bigger to me is more an orchestral association and when u do a orchestral bassdrum roll you drum on each side there is no strict batter/resonnt relation ship....you dont do 32nd notes at a bajillion bpm on such a thing and i think...well you can see how it percolates.
i like 18s, 20s, and 22s depening on whims ideally speaking...other than that well if i wanted to do lots of mid tempo 'running' on my kicks (like say if you were playing for The Scoripions - mid tempo, loud, 70s sounding....then get 24s, 26,s etc and bigger than that and it better be for an orchestra or becuase you're getting paid to , Ginger Fish.
 
Simple as different strokes for different folks. I'd say certainly there are more big kicks offered now, than ever before. Non-pro level kits like the Catalina "Rock", the Zep "Accent" and a host of other brands now offer large sizes outside the "pro level only". Unheard of in the 60's, 70's and 80's. You wanted a big kick back then, you threw down the big money. As far as "sound", I love the sound of a 26. I'll probably be scoring another one soon.
 
Big bass drums are great, but for all around I can't go wrong with having a 16 x 22" bass drum. I've personally learned to just keep things as simple as possible when it comes to my drum kit. I've learned by venturing into exotic drum kit setups, they really don't last. But when I take an overall inventory of the stuff I'll use and generally need, overall, a 22" kick is a staple; and I won't have unnecessary gear lying around, personally.
 
Another thing, personally, I can't stand ultra deep bass drums: 18" and so on. I feel like I have to take a running start and jump kick the pedal to get a response. If anything is a fad in my eyes, I think it's the current popularity of these ultra deep bass drums. Dave Weckl, Terri Lynn Carrington, Steve Gadd, Dave Dicenso, to name a few stick with a 16" deep bass drum, and I've personally found this way more pleasing to play.
 
I quite like the idea of a biggger bass drum
 
Sounds like you are loving the new kit, very cool

to answer your question, it's personal preference, for most. The big bass drums were very "in" in the 70s, I think Bonham had a lot to do with that. Then the bass drums started getting deeper and were delivering a great tone from the smaller diameter. The big kick is not as versatile as the smaller kick. It is a very cool sound for the right styles of music

I used to play 24s but went to 22 with my first DW kit. For me it was more about getting the toms lower, I am only 5' 6". With my TAMA Artstars I had 2 24 kicks and power toms.
I found it much easier to play with the DW fast toms over a 22.

In your case with a 4 piece kit you will not have a problem getting the tom down low but it you use that 26 with 3 mounted toms it might be a different story.

Agreed! Also, a 22" is the most versatile from a sound standpoint. At one time, most companies offered bass drums in 18", 20", 22", 24" and 26" and the middle ground was a 22". Also recording a 26" back in the day was a real hassle because it was all about controling the sound (this is way before things like compression and noise gates). Also, you really have to have a need for that size of drum just like you would need to be playing quite a bit of bop for an 18" bass drum to be your size. I know tht there were exceptions to this, Buddy Rich used a 24" and I believe Louie Bellson used to as well. But those two were more Big Band players rather than straight ahead be bop.

I was also told that the bass drums shell depth getting deeper was due to the fact that shell construction changed in the late 70s and early 80s, from a 3 ply shell to six ply shell and some of the bottom end was lost due to that change. Deeping the shells was the manufacturers attempt to regain that bottom end.


Mike

http://www.mikemccraw.com
http://www.dominoretroplate.com

http://www.youtube.com/drummermikemccraw
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However, I do not understand why more people do not play 26 inch bass drums
Im mic'd often and boom is one thing the sound guys hate.

For me, 26" kicks are far too impractical when it comes to buying heads, carting them round and tuning them to a room when considering how little difference they have to a 22 onstage.
 
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