Bad Drums

I heard these played pretty well and they sounded great. So yeah, no bad drums, just bad drummers.

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First: I am really digging that barrel kick! It would be a hoot to have an all oak-barrel kit!

Bad Kits:
I define bad kit in the same way Harry outlined. If the kit of any name falls apart in 2 years, it's simply a bad kit. Potmetal hardware, Asian mysterywood and generally poor workmanship. I have tried some entry level kits, and the dynamic range is horrible. They make a muted "thud" and little else.

Hardware:
On the same shells, I have used large lugs and small single-point lugs. The smaller lugs do contribute to letting a drum resonate. Big lugs (like DW) dampen the shell not just from weight, but surface area they consume. Hardware does make a bit of a difference. Perhaps 5-10%, but it's noticeable, much like taking toms off a kick drum. It's not always a bad thing, but there is a difference.

In the 70's/80's when almost everything was set up to "thud," CB700 could thud right along with them.
Hey Buddy'
Yeah i dont say drummers play bad meaning if ur thinking hardward wise there is all tyres of hardware out there we just need to expore more and consider the factors of many other drums and the leaders in the place there from may be having a ball because there producing so many stuff out there we just have to sit down and play them. Here is my set up at church..
Drums Pearl World series
Hardware all varies types
Cymbals Zildjian and sabian
Thone Pearl on Tama base
Drumsticks Vifirth x5B
Pro max brushes
and other Vicfirth stuff
 
Since I began drumming when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, a little perspective.

With name-brand drums, the bottom kits in the line-up are so much better today than "cheap" kits used to be it isn't even funny. You get round shells, some kind of hardwood, and almost always decent bearing edges.

As others have observed, you give a kit like that good heads and good tuning and you've got a pretty nice sound. Far and away better than the "cheap" drums of even 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, anyone who started drumming in the 1960s will tell you that the most amazing difference is in the hardware. The hardware that comes with the lowliest Forum-type kit makes the professional-level hardware we used back then look like the junk it was. Slipping tom mounts were a daily facet of drumming life--you just hoped it didn't happen in the middle of a song. Same thing for the snare stand basket.

Bass drum pedals were pretty good: we had Speed Kings and Camcos. But hihats? Today for $80 I can buy a hihat that's solid, silent, with adjustable spring tension and rotating legs. Back then hihats couldn't suck enough. Crappy and noisy.

Small-footprint flat-based cymbal stands--no booms available--were a nightmare. I routinely sent crash cymbal stands tipping over in the middle of a show. (Always a big hit with the ladies.)

Part of the problem was that everything was made of pot metal. You had tiny little wingnuts to hold your toms up, and you couldn't tighten them much for fear of breaking them right off. Happened all the time.

So as far as hardware goes, the worst stuff available today was miles better than the best you could buy back then.

In the end, I don't look down much at inexpensive kits anymore. So long as you have round shells and decent bearing edges you can make it sound good with heads and tuning. So it's poplar--who cares? If you asked me back then what my shells were made from I would have replied, "wood--why do you ask?"

The hardware is like dying and going to heaven for a guy like me. The choices in cymbals are simply amazing. Good drums are everywhere!
 
Say what?

db_Cask_Side2.jpg

Maybe they should turn this into a drum?

PA070057+Worlds+Biggest+Wine+Barrel+250+yrs+old.JPG


Incedentally, this is in exactly the same town where i'll be tomorrow.

Since I began drumming when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, a little perspective.

With name-brand drums, the bottom kits in the line-up are so much better today than "cheap" kits used to be it isn't even funny. You get round shells, some kind of hardwood, and almost always decent bearing edges.

As others have observed, you give a kit like that good heads and good tuning and you've got a pretty nice sound. Far and away better than the "cheap" drums of even 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, anyone who started drumming in the 1960s will tell you that the most amazing difference is in the hardware. The hardware that comes with the lowliest Forum-type kit makes the professional-level hardware we used back then look like the junk it was. Slipping tom mounts were a daily facet of drumming life--you just hoped it didn't happen in the middle of a song. Same thing for the snare stand basket.

Bass drum pedals were pretty good: we had Speed Kings and Camcos. But hihats? Today for $80 I can buy a hihat that's solid, silent, with adjustable spring tension and rotating legs. Back then hihats couldn't suck enough. Crappy and noisy.

Small-footprint flat-based cymbal stands--no booms available--were a nightmare. I routinely sent crash cymbal stands tipping over in the middle of a show. (Always a big hit with the ladies.)

Part of the problem was that everything was made of pot metal. You had tiny little wingnuts to hold your toms up, and you couldn't tighten them much for fear of breaking them right off. Happened all the time.

So as far as hardware goes, the worst stuff available today was miles better than the best you could buy back then.

I agree, i look at the hardware on really expensive drums from 40 years ago and the stuff that comes with a £250 kit these days and even that's a big improvement.
 
I really really want to hear that barrel kick!

I heard it at the Hollywood show this summer... it was amazing. One of the best kicks I've ever heard - punchy, full, just an enormous presence. It was the kind of drum that makes you just want to dig way into the most basic beat and play it straight for a month.
 
In the 70's/80's when almost everything was set up to "thud," CB700 could thud right along with them.

I bought a CB700 for $200 (standard kit 22,12,13,16, crappy snare) for my son when he was 10. About 3 years later he was still interested in playing so I went and put new heads top and bottom and an Emad on the bass drum. The snare remained hopeless but I got a great sound out of those mahogany shells.

I even gigged with the kit once and another drummer came up to me afterwards to say triumphantly that those were the best sounding drums he'd heard in a long time. When I told him they were CBs, he all of the sudden started criticizing the sound. Some people get hung up on brand names.

I do agree that the hardware sucks but soundwise you can get cheap drums to sound great with a little effort.
 
AS FOR:

"1 . The wood has not been moistened and then had its fibers stretched unnaturally..........etc
&
2. The grain of the wood runs vertically allowing for ...blah blah blah... "


COME ON!!!!!!!! really?

Now...Difference between birch shells and maple shells....SURE.

the difference between coated heads and clear....or calf...sure.

the DIFFERENCE between RIMS mounts and shell mounts...
I DEFINITELY BELIEVE THAT ONE!

BUT the difference between vertical vs horizontal grain...seriously?

I'd REALLY REALLY LIKE TO SEE the blind taste test.

I want to read the statistical analysis doc's that DW did
to prove it to themselves that this matters sonically....

maybe there is a SLIGHT difference....5% change in one resonance or another....(how does one subjectively measure "tone")

but really....I fail to see the diff.
 
What do people mean by 'decent bearing edges'? I have a Black Panther hammered brass snare - the bearing edges are flat, but there are slight little nicks and scratches in the snare side bearing edge - you wouldn't see them without a bright light - is this going to be negatively affecting the tone of the drum?
 
AS FOR:

"1 . The wood has not been moistened and then had its fibers stretched unnaturally..........etc
&
2. The grain of the wood runs vertically allowing for ...blah blah blah... "


COME ON!!!!!!!! really?

Now...Difference between birch shells and maple shells....SURE.

the difference between coated heads and clear....or calf...sure.

the DIFFERENCE between RIMS mounts and shell mounts...
I DEFINITELY BELIEVE THAT ONE!

BUT the difference between vertical vs horizontal grain...seriously?

I'd REALLY REALLY LIKE TO SEE the blind taste test.

I want to read the statistical analysis doc's that DW did
to prove it to themselves that this matters sonically....

maybe there is a SLIGHT difference....5% change in one resonance or another....(how does one subjectively measure "tone")

but really....I fail to see the diff.

Yes...really. Or...it's all a bunch of lies, damned lies.
 
AS FOR:

"1 . The wood has not been moistened and then had its fibers stretched unnaturally..........etc
&
2. The grain of the wood runs vertically allowing for ...blah blah blah... "


COME ON!!!!!!!! really?

Now...Difference between birch shells and maple shells....SURE.

the difference between coated heads and clear....or calf...sure.

the DIFFERENCE between RIMS mounts and shell mounts...
I DEFINITELY BELIEVE THAT ONE!

BUT the difference between vertical vs horizontal grain...seriously?

I'd REALLY REALLY LIKE TO SEE the blind taste test.

I want to read the statistical analysis doc's that DW did
to prove it to themselves that this matters sonically....

maybe there is a SLIGHT difference....5% change in one resonance or another....(how does one subjectively measure "tone")

but really....I fail to see the diff.

You'll have to sit behind a stave kit, or hear recordings of Zambizzi's and my kits (he has the better quality recordings and more of them).

How the shell vibrates and transmits sound is important to the character of the sound. If the wood grains cross each other, like in a ply shell, the sound will be more muted, which is neither good nor bad, just a quality of the material.

If the wood grains are parallel to the shell and of the same piece of wood, sound will be conducted much more efficiently and completely. Each grain of wood resonates freely and sends those vibrations into the sound chamber.

Then of course there's the presence of glue. Manufacturers like to pretend it doesn't exist, so they don't talk about what it's made of or what it does to the sound. But a typical ply shell contains lots and lots of it. It's part of the sound of that kind of construction. (I'm not dissing ply shells; see above for a discussion of the areas in which ply shells are vastly superior to stave and solid shells.)

It is not a slight difference. Like I've said, it's like the difference between HD and regular TV. Everything you put into the drum, you get back out of it.

Sorry for the physics lesson (or "blah blah blah" as you might call it).
 
I believe it was Omar Hamkim that said..."It aint the drums, it's how you play them".


Isn't it Hakim? I am not sure. Anyway, I totally agree with that statement though, there is a huge difference between First Act, and Tama Satarclassics. If there wasn't we would all be playing First Acts.
 
You gatta get to the really bad kits in order to make the really good ones.

Anyway, my Mapex that I have is the lowest standard one, and I love the sound of it and everything. It doesn't bother me at all. The only difference in the expensive kits is the type of wood, and the sound from the type of wood. I would still like a bigger kit though.
 
Obviously, just another Keller customizer.

I think I know what this refers to ^^^^

As to the main question, it's a matter of relativity. Like Zappa said, "what qualified as an acceptable drum sound forty years ago would be laughable by today's standards". This is what we are seeing in drums today. Between custom "microbuilders" and big name outfits like Pearl and DW, we have so many excellent drums that even the cheap kits have had to raise the bar somewhat just to stay in the running. To wit: I checked out the Jordison signature Forum kit at GC not too long ago, and was rather surprised at how well the kicks sounded right out of the box. Not to say that they were AMAZING, but damn good for what they are.

There are some kits that aren't worth the money six months from now, but who goes to Wal Mart to buy a serious drumkit?
 
I have (in some peoples opinion) "bad drums", they are CBs. I can get a good sound out of them, but the next day, the sound has completly gone to pot. It is a major nuicence because I spend all that time and money on buying drumheads and the next day it is just gone.
 
Okay , you can take a cheap kit and with the right heads , make it sound fairly good if you know what you're doing. There are a lot of similiar methods in the making of the shells, But what about the quality of the hardware on these real cheap drums that people say "there's not much difference". Try cranking down the tension rods on a real cheap snare only to have the tension rod reciever break off or the lug itself break away from the shell. This happened on my Groove Percussion snare and two Mapex snares (years ago). I would never recomend anyone buy a CB kit when for roughly the same price you can buy a quality used entry level kit. If someone gives you a CB kit however, play the hell out of it. No dissrespect to anyone who owns a CB kit. My first kit was CB untill i burned them in a blaze of glory ."...torches blazed and sacred chants were phrazed, as we start to cry, hands held to the sky..."
 
I believe any kit can be made to sound good. I really don't believe the drum material makes as much difference as people like to think. Look at Ludwig's see through kits in the 70's, Tommy Aldridge's carbon fiber kit from Yamaha. Both were made of plastic and with the right heads sound just fine. You can re-cut bearing edges and put on good heads and make them all sing. As for the cheap hardware, it's a non-issue here because it doesn't affect the sound and can also be replaced.
 
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