Turtlerock Forum

do people that know want to tell us what the deal is ?
do modern mounts make the recorded tone of a drum different / better / weird
anybody ever converted their old drums ..good.. great.. dumb ?

Good topic
Rack Toms do sound better suspended

and floor toms don't - they have a great relationship with the floor

when floating hardware first came to my attention in the eighties ( it may have been around for ever i dunno ) the idea sounded so logical to me

i had just bought a plastic banjo type armrest for my acoustic guitar which attached to the side just like a banjo one stopped your arm from dampening the top when you played it made a cheap guitar record so well
http://www.jpstrings.com/armrest.htm#Template

when i first saw the free floating stuff i looked at it all and thought
it must work the same way but i dont play drums so i got distracted by the world

but next time i looked up drums started looking like big chrome mechano sets and insanity set in
so i forgot all about it

i keep seeing classic kits ( ludwig/ gretch) with floating shell hardware on the rims but it makes the kits cheaper ?
so whats up ?

i wasnt talking about the mechano racks -- but hell lets mull that over too

a guy said to me one time " the drumkit is one instrument not ten !"
didnt really help me know what whats though
tones ..? volume ..?sustain ..? all three ..?

its amazing how much any mount or stand affects the tone of the any given drum, i hear it all the time when someone tunes a tom and then places it back on the kit and it changes dramatically .
I often use snare stands for toms cause they sound better supported from underneath - but every drum is so different - its a black art - like mixing.

Totally with you chris
solutions drummerguys ? Thoughts?
I cannot handle anymore black arts to master i want a prebought
solution:)

Geeeeezzzzuus, talk about opening a can of wriggling worms.

Firstly, when using the term "floating", let's not confuse (a) "rim type" mounting systems with (b) free floating shell drums like Sleishmans.

When "making" a shell, one prime aim is to end up with a shell that has few if any overtones when tapped, it "rings"with a(n almost) pure note. Unfortunately, the minute you start fitting hardware, you alter the response of the shell and the more hardware the more the shell's response changes...........whether the change is detrimental or not is a random variable. It's not impossible to have shells which in their "raw" state generate overtones only to find that the overtones are minimised once hardware is fitted..................ssssooooooo, do rim mounts really enhance a drum's sound...................toss a coin

drumagog > pitch dropping sine wave...

awesome toms.

I use RIMS style mounts on all my drums.
I'm not really a fan of long sustain, but I find the RIMS suspension makes for a cleaner, fatter tone.
If I was playing retro style music I'd be happy to play with mounted toms as you can get the same pitch and almost as much fatness, just not as flexible in that regard as the suspended (RIMS) toms in my experience.
I have one set of hardware (DW) for all my kits, and have RIMS mounts on all my toms, from contemporary Noble & Cooley to vintage Gretsch and Camco.
I use suspension feet for my floor toms. Again, to me they sound better, more true. It probably depends on the floor of your studio. The feet I use are a Pearl bubble design. Excellent hardware and not too dear.
I haven't played any Sleishman, but I did own a Pearl free-floater snare drum that didn't really do it for me.

The Tasmanian wrote:and floor toms don't - they have a great relationship with the floor

Sometimes. I've had a few toms where I've swapped out the feet for those big ones with a hole in the middle. That's opened them right up! Sometimes too much. But no, I would never mount large floor toms.

Sometimes how far onto the arm you set a tom changes it's tone as well, towards the edge of the arm can be a little drier than right up close to the elbow. Of course, that's a moot point for virgin toms with some sort of rim mounting system.

When we were tracking the last album I worked on, we had the drummer bring his home made jazz kit, and mounted the rack tom on a snare stand. We were going for an older, Neil Young "Everyone knows this is no where" drum sound.

AnthonyMF wrote:Sometimes. I've had a few toms where I've swapped out the feet for those big ones with a hole in the middle.

Those are the Pearl legs I was talking about.
I like them.
A couple of my kits have all mounted toms (like Gadd).

Lucky owner of Sleishman and Gretsch (G with RIMS mounts) - and as much as I love Gretsch there is no comparison.

The Sleishman wins hands down for sustain and purity of note. The 20" Sleishman bass drum sounds close to the 24" Gretsch for depth of note too.

Another advantage of the S. is that both skins are in tune with one another due to the balanced tensioning.


n.b. Gretsch has another trick but that's off topic

Over the years, Sleishman have sourced their shells from various manufacturers but that's another story

BTW, ChrisW, Pearl's free floating system should not be used as a comparison to Sleishies as it is not really a ff in the true sense.

Absolutely.
I'm not using anything free floating. I guess my whole set up is just removing hardware from contact with the shell.

Whats suspension feet all about? would that also shorten the decay somewhat?

They lengthen the decay over regular feet.
I guess the idea is to decouple the floor tom from the floor.

Nothing I'm using has a dramatic effect, but they sound better to me and are simple to install and use (RIMS and Suspension feet).

I suppose its a purer tone decoupled
although I have found legs usually make the note longer on a wooden floor - but every drum is so different.

Yes, if you have a decent room to record in, or a nice, specifically designed studio there can be benefits in setting up a different way.
I recently recorded on a wood floor, but sadly there was no tone or bottom end in the drums. We figured out (although never confirmed) that because we were on the third floor of an older, wood framed building, all our tone was disappearing into the floor and being distributed to other parts of the building. Not even the RIMS or Pearl feet could help.

For my DW's they have the RIMS type of suspension on the toms, which I've preferred since they came out.. my Yammies have their YESS system which I like less.. all of the stress gets focussed into one small area of the shell and, IMHO, tend to deaden the shells a bit.

For the floors, there is a trick that I got from Chris' pal Bob Gatzen... take small pieces of high-density foam and set under the feet of the floors to make them more resonant.. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.. depends on the room/drum.. but never hurts to try. Maybe Chris' Pearl feet are the same? I'll have to look into those... (thx Chris)

Sounds like a similar idea, yeah:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/drums-pe ... nsion-feet

You can buy the three rubber suspension tips separate for $10US, but the legs themselves are really good quality and seem to fit all my drums.