[FourPieceMetal]

I for one HATE resonance (Sorry, Bob Gatzen. You've helped me with tuning, but your reso addiction hasn't infected me yet.) lol. The reason I hate resonance is because if my toms resonate, then it cuts through too much. I'm more a fan of the snare and bass cutting through toms, not vice versa. So, to stop my toms from resonating, I put an evans e-ring on my toms, and 3-4 moongels on the resonant heads. TBH that cuts off JUST enough resonance. I'm saying that so that 'you're using too many moongels' spammers won't care enough to comment. haha! tell me what you think about resonance and what you did to enhance the more or less resonant sound you wanted!

This post has been edited by FourPieceMetal: 17 August 2011 - 06:18 AM

[Poco Askew]

I started off liking a more dead sound. Now I much prefer to let the drums sing.

[Vasheir]

I want resonance (roughly 1 second max with the decay is usually what I end up with). I do have a problem where my bass drum causes my toms to sing, but the rest of the music drowns that out. On a previous kit, I did tune my heads to have little to no resonance using EC2's w/sst and ec resos.(one of my youtube videos has what that sounded like). That caused my heads to dent way to easily, so I ditched that. Also, it just wasn't what I was looking for. I would like the unborn to know what I was playing.

[Dan62]

I usually have my toms tuned so they resonate, but I like a quicker decay. My bass drum almost doesn't resonate and my snare doesn't at all.

[FourPieceMetal]

Maybe it's more long decay that I hate. . . What's the difference between general resonance, and a long decay?

[Poco Askew]

FourPieceMetal, on 17 August 2011 - 11:49 AM, said:

Maybe it's more long decay that I hate. . . What's the difference between general resonance, and a long decay?

It may just be me, but I associate decay and long decay with cymbal sounds. A ride or large crash can go on forever - like a gong. Resonance is applied to drums (for me), since the shells and reso heads "resonate" with the batter.

If you don't like resonance, buy the cheapest drums you can (as long as the crap hardware can be replaced easily) and throw some hydraulics on them. Problem solved.

[warboy]

It depends for me. If I'm doing jazz, than I want my drums to resonate like none other. For most other stuff though, I like a more traditional sound where the drum isn't muffled, but I use a head that's a bit thicker.

[drummingphil]

FourPieceMetal, on 17 August 2011 - 11:49 AM, said:

Maybe it's more long decay that I hate. . . What's the difference between general resonance, and a long decay?

I think the question is really about the speed of decay. Without any resonance at all you would get no sound from your drums...

[JBoom]

The mistake many make in tuning their drums is trying to achieve the sound they hear in recordings. Please remember that studio recordings are not only usually made in acoustically appropriate rooms, but also have heavily processed the sound produced from the drum. In most cases the drums being recorded are very resonate to begin with in order to achieve the end recorded sound. Also, resonate sounds work better in live performances where the sound competes with many other sounds in a room not acoustically similar to where you are practicing.

So, while it might be appropriate to mute your drums in your practice room, keep in mind that other venues won't like the muted sound.

I'm not sure if drumlessons.com has taught this lesson or not, but I've definitely heard examples in their lessons where the "monkeys" didn't change the mixing in time and you can hear the difference between the drums pre-mixed and post-mixed. This might be a good lesson to put up; actually demonstrate to the audience how the drum sounds when not processed vs. after being processed and that the drums are actually quite resonate and difficult to appreciate "live" in comparison.

I compensate for this in my practice room by wearing studio headphones, which dampens the resonate echo in the room.

[realscotch]

I just try to keep the resonance from carrying over to the next drum I go to. I don't want to go to the floor tom and have the mounted tom still ringing.

The fact that the acoustics of a club, auditorium, whatever, can affect the sound of your drums has to be taken into account. Drums that sound good on stage, might sound like a bunch of kettle drums at the rear of wherever you are playing.

Now that I'm retired, I have opened up the sound of my drums to give a little more sustain to the sound of each drum. Now I'm just working on finding a sound that I really like. Right now I have the Black Suede on them and I like it one day, and not like it the next. So I've been changing the resos around from Diplomats, to Aquarian Super 2's to Evans to Ambassadors. It's been a mish mosh on my videos.

[FourPieceMetal]

realscotch, on 11 September 2011 - 10:03 PM, said:

I just try to keep the resonance from carrying over to the next drum I go to. I don't want to go to the floor tom and have the mounted tom still ringing.

That's exactly what I try to do. I like enough resonance that it has nice tone, but I try to control the resonance so that I don't hit other drums and still hear the one I hit. I put the moongels on the bottom of my drums, cuz back when I didn't do that, the drums resonated forever. I could've hit the floor tom, and hit the snare drum 10 times and the floor tom'd still be ringing! So, with the moongels, it really controls the resonance to my liking, and I like the sound more than ever!

[Hampys]

Well Bob Gatzen may be a little extreme when it comes to resonance haha! (and bassdrum wrinkles!)

I like resonance but maybe not as much as Bob. Sometimes I let the drums ring wide open and sometimes I put on some moongel, depending on what I feel for.

[realscotch]

Gatzen couldn't tune a radio, and the guy from DW isn't much better.

[abacacus]

Resonance (within reason) is a VERY good thing. It translates into volume for the people in front of the stage. No resonance=a dead, quiet thuddy sound.

[FourPieceMetal]

realscotch, on 12 September 2011 - 01:23 PM, said:

Gatzen couldn't tune a radio, and the guy from DW isn't much better.

Lol. Dude no offense, but I couldn't have gotten anywhere I am now with my drums tuning-wise without Bob Gatzen. The ONLY thing I disapprove of about his tuning method is that half the time it's designed to make your drums resonate forever and a day. And that's quickly forgiven, cuz I just take out the resonance.

[realscotch]

FourPieceMetal, on 12 September 2011 - 03:44 PM, said:

Lol. Dude no offense, but I couldn't have gotten anywhere I am now with my drums tuning-wise without Bob Gatzen. The ONLY thing I disapprove of about his tuning method is that half the time it's designed to make your drums resonate forever and a day. And that's quickly forgiven, cuz I just take out the resonance.

You would have found how to tune your drums like every other drummer has done in the last hundred years or so. There isn't a drum that he has tuned that would make it's way on my set.

No offense taken, remember, I'm old school.

[Kavir]

So after my first gig, all of my moongel and muffling was removed from my heads because the resonance sounded amazing live. Recording I can see trying to control overtones and excess resonance, but my snare ring live was amazing.

[samcp12]

I love toms resonating but not allot, usually a tiny bit of moon gel makes them sound perfect (to me), I like a very dead sounding snare same as with my bass drum, I muffle it allot so there is just a thud/slap.

[sknick]

Constantly battling with the sound guy. He wants me to fill my snare with expanding foam. He's kidding. ...I hope.

[CricciDisk]

It's hard to describe preferences to resonance, but I like it when my toms have life in them. I try to aim for a strong attack that carries over slightly to whatever I'm doing next. I used to choke my rack tom on its snare stand, but now I keep the stand loose so it sings a bit more.

My snare is slightly different; it has a bright tone, but I prefer it to decay in a slightly shorter time. Essentially, I try to avoid letting the resonating body sound take over its attack, but I still aim for projection.

My bass drum is completely dead and attack-focused. It's not muffled internally or externally, but I keep its heads loose and aim for that bright, punk-sounding attack. The size of the drum adds in the low-end body and keeps it loud and proud, even though it's essentially an afterthought in the tuning process.

This post has been edited by CricciDisk: 14 September 2011 - 12:55 PM