Drumkit Material Characteristics

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Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Lee » Mon Jul 04, 2011 7:58 pm

Is there anyone out there that can elaborate on the different variety of tone/characteristics related to various drumkit materials/woods?
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Ausrock » Tue Jul 05, 2011 12:16 am

Specific to your question............this link has one of the better explanations around http://www.drumdojo.com/shell_maple_birch_lauan_2.htm ...........then have a look at that sites previous page http://www.drumdojo.com/magazine/editio ... nicals.htm ............ ;)
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby ChrisW » Tue Jul 05, 2011 9:43 am

Just as an aside on kits, I do think the room, the drummer, the tuning and the head choice are by far more noticeable variables compared to wood type. The differences can be more pronounced in snare drums I think.
Also, I'm personally against the fashion for exotic woods. Forest habitat in third world countries can be devastated just so a drum can basically look nice, because as I said, the timbre difference is almost negligeable compared to other factors.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby OzDrum » Tue Jul 05, 2011 9:52 am

ChrisW wrote:Just as an aside on kits, I do think the room, the drummer, the tuning and the head choice are by far more noticeable variables compared to wood type. The differences can be more pronounced in snare drums I think.
Also, I'm personally against the fashion for exotic woods. Forest habitat in third world countries can be devastated just so a drum can basically look nice, because as I said, the timbre difference is almost negligeable compared to other factors.


I have owned all sorts of drum kits over the years - from Mahogany to Birch to Maple and now to Walnut. When you have everything else down - tuning, head selection and playing - there is a large difference in the different woods, plys and sizes. My current kit is a ddrum Dios Walnut and is an absolutely amazing sounding kit. Another one of our engineers has the exact same kit in Bubinga and it is a very different sounding kit even with same room/drummer/tuning and head selection. It still sounds great but it is different. All of the different woods give differing tones and amounts of attack. As for snare drums there are many more variances - which is why we have a rack of about 15 snares to choose from and we usually choose the right sounding snare for recording each song and an all-rounder for live use.

The same as guitar body, fretboard and pickup types affect tone on guitars - it is much more noticeable with someone who can play/tune - the same goes for drummers and drums!
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Postby rick » Tue Jul 05, 2011 11:11 am

I must jump in with my own belief systems about woods - you dont have to agree but read on

I think the best use of an exotic wood is letting it stay exactly were it grew for 400 years

However I also believe it has a valid use for humans to look at and touch and wonder at the array of sensory pleasure that wood gives as well as provided the even better and obvious use as the lungs and shade of the earth.
we can have both .. or at least we should be able to have both its natural

we should be able to marvel at the beauty of the natural design without ever forgetting the time it takes to grow
And the time it takes to replace !

One of the best places I see for such "exotic" woods is in musical instruments , your home dining table , the chairs you sit on daily ..Perhaps the hand rail on your stair case that you touch as you make your way into the world each morning or return to your cave at night ....This IS the only responsible use of the exotic woods .

Taking the finest trees and veneering them into long sheets so we can cover mdf panels that neither look like wood smell like wood or feel like wood and then lining the walls of untold amounts skyscraper boardrooms and mdf paneled doors in your local mcdonalds is the crying shame of the timber industry over the last 60-70 years

all those veneered products which are always made from the "best" trees are sold to us as the "best way" to use the tree to get the most use out of it .. being "Eco" friendly ....its big business bullshit and totally wasteful

anything veneered to mdf or chipboard in a 2 meter sheet has a very short life in disposable world we have — maybe twenty years if that ... more like 10 years truth be told and if the tree took even a mere 100 years to grow
....well you do the maths

Every time garbage day comes around I see the miles of veneered board ikea crappola thrown out of the street , every time somebody has a tussle in the boardrooms and the decor gets changed ... out it goes or the doors get painted over — thats it .. What a waste !


That is where the wood crimes go on in veneered doors and walls — not on snare drums or guitars !

Brazilian rosewood didnt disappear because the 400 year old trees were used as tonewoods for guitar backs on martins pre world war two !
it got put on the list because people figured turning it into veneer was a great way to get more bang for your buck per log and it was turned into cardboard filled doors in the newly acquired glamorous skyscraper office building of the 50s and 60s and 70s in every city in America and the three or four citys here as well
This is fact !
and we (humans) had forgotten the purpose of the cut down wood and the time it takes to replace
pure crime on earth — literally

obviously its FIRST purpose of the tree is much bigger and older and more important then to let us mortals waste it on veenered boards

but its true usefulness to engage the human senses and to uplift the human condition
in small pieces of our daily life cannot be ignored or taken for granted

When we use wood as an ideal it should be in products designed to last here on earth hopefully at least as long as the tree took to grow .. The veenered board fails miserably at this test !

of coarse if you dont see that and connect with the pure beautiful woods aesthetic — thats all right
not everybody does — every home in the world doesnt need a bunch of trees to be cut down and ignored

but just dont buy veneered stuff without a care thinking it is somehow helping i reckon .. its not

and dont sign on to an "Eco" wood treaty without actually understanding that mass veneered boards are the problem not the solution — we dont need veneered boards - we have paint

But we do need the option of tonewoods and exotics left in sizes we can touch to enrich our lives .

and for everybody that doesnt get it there is mega fast growing bamboo ...
i get it.... wood isn't a thing for everybody to wonder at

make mcdonalds out of bamboo — not D-28 martins or signature series snaredrums

hell what do I know ...can they make computers out of eco bamboo yet ..?
i will buy one of those in a flash

never met an musical instrument maker that didnt marvel in and respect the woods they worked with myself !
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby The Tasmanian » Tue Jul 05, 2011 11:21 am

I'm curious about shell thickness.
Some of the best kits I've ever heard in the studio had thin shells - they seem to sing/have tone forever.
They also seem to be more forgiving with tuning
But this does not seem the case with snares.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby rick » Tue Jul 05, 2011 3:06 pm

oh sure put the thread back on track nice one chris :)

i keep hearing the same thing the lighter the better

but then you find out about a 70's sonors .. apparently loud as hell with great sustain and as thick and heavy as ever
- by design they were so thick and heavy so that they could be perfectly round without wall flex

i have a drum book that said they sounded great but were very unfashionable as drummers were and are reluctant to change ...?
and the company eventually gave up on the idea as selling drums is more important to business then proving a point

anybody had a kit with stonking thick shells that sounded great
or conversely paper thin shells that sounded great ?
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby ChrisW » Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:44 pm

Never heard an album when someone could tell you what wood the kit was.
Never been in the studio the day after a drum session when anyone could tell you what wood the kit was, even in solo.

Now I got that off my chest.....

Two best kits I own - 1960's Camco - the bass drum shell is so thin it flexes when both heads are removed.
N&C Star Series (and Craviotto) - single ply kits. In other words, one single thin piece of wood bent into a drum shell.

Edit: All my favourite snare drums are single-ply wood as well. Apart from a 1920's Black Beauty (also thin, metal).
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby rick » Tue Jul 05, 2011 7:16 pm

Well i can tell you about the first solid wood snare i recorded
it was a brady jarrah picallo
looked great
but have heard better kitchen doors slamming pretending to be a
snare drum - it was truely unusable on the record

Have you had many 1920-30 drums chris w?
Black beautys radio kings and the like get a great rap
but aside from a wierd 1920 4" x 14" ludwig leedy snare
I had for a while
i have never seen enough early things to know
but they were all really light huh..?
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Ausrock » Tue Jul 05, 2011 8:31 pm

Well, here we go with another interesting discussion. Seeing as how I answered the OP first (and on topic :D ), I'll allow myself to digress.

Chris/Tas..........if you look at the site in the links I posted, I think there's info on shell thickness.

ChrisW...........wood species does influence the tonal characteristics of the shell itself, what happens once you add hardware, various heads, players and acoustic environments is another discussion altogether. Also, and this rarely happens, when comparing the influence of different timber species, to be fair, this should be done with each method of construction in isolation as comparing ply to steambent (ie: one piece ply) or any other combination is just comparing apples with oranges.

Rick...........while you're probably/undoubtably historically correct re the rampant use of exotic veneers in architectural environments, the "modern" trend is to use reconstituted timber veneers.........these are plantation timbers which are processed to emulate desirable veneer species and some chippies I've shown them to couldn't tell that they weren't the real deal. I've attached a couple of pics of samples I have here. I'm "holding" 2 8'x4' sheets of Quilted Maple and 2 sheets of"eco" Banksia veneer as per the blue Sleishie kit.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby The Tasmanian » Tue Jul 05, 2011 11:07 pm

ChrisO/Rick - Being a chippie and joiner by trade (with a love of Australian timber) - one thing I have found out in my experiences is that a lot of species of trees are very close in DNA.
For eg - Australian Cedar - If you go through Asia, they have other species that looks/feels/smells identical - but a slightly different DNA makeup.
So you only have to travel 2 - 3000km away from a species sometimes to find another source of the right looking/sounding timber on some nearby island/nation.

The old pioneers/botanists named a lot of species before the full understanding of how wide spread these timbers were as they focused on "owning Islands"
Sometimes the leaves would also be different because of the prevailing growing conditions over millions of years , but when cut they are so close it is like a mirror.

This is why a lot of furniture makers rape islands - as they can pass off these as the known species and make a fortune compared to the ordinary log.
The Japanese have been on to this for decades with instrument making too.
Not sure about the other side of the globe in US/Canada, but I would imagine a similar story in places.

It reminds me of going to the fish markets and over the years these new fish have come on to the market like Blue Eyed Ocean Cod (my fictitious name) thinking that its a nice fish fillet to have for dinner - but its actually some alien species from 1km under the ocean that glows in the dark and has spines growing out of its head, a byproduct of deep sea drag netting. It looks like a fish fillet, smells like a fish fillet,,,, rebranded

back to drums!
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby rick » Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:55 am

Where do i start with that lot
three guys name chris to choose from!

i will let the fish swim past cause that would be a longer debate about
not much

The eco veneers are great bring em on
same with fotoflame and all that stuff
if people cannot tell the difference then they dont
need to - it wont bring back the brazilian rosewood or the
australian cedar

just make sure you use it wisely was my rambling and probably lost point

architectual veneers are stupid greedy and a waste of a tree
and the reason we are now on eco woods
Hell print snakeskin on the bamboo veneers !
Just dont use the beautiful real stuff in a throwaway situation

And as for drum tone
well thats what the thread is for !

what do i know about drums..
not much
but believe me i am listening to every thing that
comes up
even blue eyed ocean cod !
( you do know there is that fish you made up and it looks exactly how you described it
right chris? )

you can catch them by line but you have to go out past the shelf
so its a long way down
its like catching a bag of cement
the guys that are into them call fishing for them harvesting!

ugly ugly bastards too same.... with the fish
its what we fish for now the gem fish are done over
and the hokai will be soon enough!
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Drumstruck » Wed Jul 06, 2011 9:44 am

Rick - that's the best post I've read from you - agree 99% with your sentiments and wish more of the world realised this. It's time (probably too late in fact) for people to realise that our trees are imperative to life as we know it and are under severe threat. And it's time for people involved in the timber industry to look for new forms of employment. The ridiculous pretext that nn jobs will be lost if logging is stopped - what the F*** are these people going to do in 10 years when there are no trees left to log?

On the drums side I'm half way between the earlier comments regarding sound obtained from the timber used in the shells - yes; the skins, tensioning and drummer make more difference to the sound than the timber, but also yes; the timber used does make a fair difference - probably about as much difference as mic selection. I've also had numerous kits over the years in Maple, Birch and PI Mahogany (Lauan) and tend to gravitate towards a fiberskin style of head - whilst I liked all these timbers and could get by with either/or they are quite different.

Compare also the sound of frame style drums like rototoms - basically a skin and metal support structure - and they sound very different to any timber drums. Compare steel or brass snares - also very different regardless of skin or tension. My personal favourites are African log drums - carved from solid logs with animal skins and tensioned with leather thongs.

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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby ChrisW » Wed Jul 06, 2011 9:46 am

Exotic woods are a huge issue in guitar manufacture and sales.
If there were as many wannabe drummers as wannabe guitarists it would be an issue in drums too:
http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/03/beh ... g-debacle/

Of course wood type alters the sound. In most cases I don't think it changes the sound enough (all things being equal) to justify supporting exotic logging, often borderline illegal.
Most of the best drum recordings from the history of rock/pop/jazz have been made with drums manufactured with common or garden woods.

The two biggies are maple and birch of course. The links in post two describe all the tonal differences.

Yeah, the king of snares I think is the Ludwig Black Beauty from the 1920's.
I can't tell you why, just something magic in the material and manufacturing process.
It has all the attack and bite of a metal drum, with added fatness and warmth.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby rick » Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:01 pm

btw i dont speaketh blind on the issue of timber , my mothers family come from a small timber/mining town in south western australia , two of her brothers have worked in the timber mill which probably cutup the logs for any karrie , jarrah , floorboards , railway sleepers or bridge beams and pylons you have ever seen

they have worked in the mill since they were 17 , one of my uncles just turned 80 he still goes off to work every day
nowadays they mill up plantation pine - there are no old growth forests left in wa !

maybe it was the christmas holidays running around the timber trails - but i like the stuff :)
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Ausrock » Wed Jul 06, 2011 6:07 pm

I'm sketchy on the history, but as I understand things a lot (maybe most) of the pre-Keller ply shells were made from Poplar (eg; Jasper shells) and I don't hear many people complain about the sound of older kits. Considering it is a common plantation timber (apparently it's frequently used in the "eco-veneers), what caused the swing to Maple, etc., I'm not sure.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby rick » Wed Jul 06, 2011 7:22 pm

maybe six months ago i thought drums were mostly made of the cheapest stuff they could get hold off with the flashiest plastic stuck to the outside to suck the drummers into buying them
and a couple of boutique makers felt their could be more to it over time-
so they made different and hopefully better things

I still think part of that theory is correct :)

i find it interesting that even in our little collective the different perspectives and the experiences behind them
are all over the place but still in basic agreement on most points raised in this section of the forum


Who knew ?
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby rick » Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:27 pm

ChrisW wrote:Exotic woods are a huge issue in guitar manufacture and sales.
If there were as many wannabe drummers as wannabe guitarists it would be an issue in drums too:
http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/03/beh ... g-debacle/



i did read that posting chris thanks for that - i had seen it in a cutout some where else as well
i read about 10 fine furniture / trade wood magazines from around the world a month every month and I have done for many years so I am well versed on the real wood issues .

american industry is basically fucked for sources of wood — so their own stocks are controlled and policed very heavily as are the alternate sources and replacement woods /plastic veneers
they lobby the rest of the world to use their rules .. normal tactics
the europeans are the same but they are much better at real solutions and have different needs and solutions
But no more trees !

unfortunately the large part of the new replacement wood product are US companies products and they are seen as very high value commodities such is are reliance on wood products
and they have heavy lobby group action on government constantly it is very much politics nowadays

Maybe not so much the environment saviors they masquerade as .. But who knows ?

because of the size of the market and the amount of money involved
when i see names like dupoint being thrown around in the same sentence as the leading envirowood companies
My alarm bells are ringing !

i suspect Gibson were being greedy and somebody made an example out of them
not to save the trees but to lobby the plastics forum

most of the fast growing replacement woods have a complicated wood "printing" process to make them look as good as the ones ausrock showed - the europeans dont bother with that they invent new substrates and promote new "looks"

i like furniture veneers in the traditional french burl type sense — i should state that
but i am not into what is going on in the name of saving the planet in regard to "pretend woods"

but if something is made of plastic and graffite / aluminum mix then printed to look like wood , even if the product is amazing strong and looks like wood i am not sure why it needs to look like wood
(and my brother overseas installing many tonnes of the new stuff a year up in the Darwin botanic gardens as fences and decks where he works managing the cities "forest")

well frankly those new "woods" are just bullshit we have to use because the real woods are gone .. wasted
- so we might as well paint them brown and tell people it's a new thermoset plastic metal thingy designed to save the trees - i reckon pretending they are trees is just weird and at its foundation a big business lie


If they can make drum parts or guitar parts that do the job the same or maybe even better bring them on !

but give them some cool name like "lucasite , or rozewellite " or whatever it takes to make somebody make the purchase dont make it look like we can all have AAA grade woods for $2 that doesnt help i reckon

leave the trees in the ground - use the manageable stocks wisely
and never take the time it takes to grow a giant for granted

my current favorite wood is australian ringed gidgee
the clever little tree never grew big enough to be of use as a furniture wood or construction wood and it's a hard as can be and as beautiful as any wood you have even seen
its basically a wattle type bush and there are unseen miles of the stuff minding their own business in nsw and qld

So the loggers only ever burnt it as firewood to boil their billys while they were traveling through to find forests to cut down and send to England ! (who ran out of trees before robin hood was around -he has living in a managed forest!)
but gidgee will be a valued tone wood soon enough but thankfully it is already on the do not touch without a permit list

As are by the way ...ALL australian trees !
for all the bullshit through at the australian forestry lot good and bad
we lead the world in looking after our stocks —
theres more to be done but i reckon
Putting the wood in the right place in peoples mind
is the solution -
not making the idea of beautiful wood poison !

back to the thread if we can
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Chris H » Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:17 pm

Too many times recently in the Dandenong Ranges,i have seen beautiful trunks of blackwood from a recently fallen tree cut up for firewood. How can THEY be so ignorant?
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Ausrock » Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:33 pm

rick wrote:maybe six months ago i thought drums were mostly made of the cheapest stuff they could get hold off with the flashiest plastic stuck to the outside to suck the drummers into buying them ................
and a couple of boutique makers felt their could be more to it over time-
so they made different and hopefully better things


The first part of your statement could be applied to the lower end stuff coming out of Asia but then you have the likes of OCDP who essentially took stock Keller shells and stock hardware, stuck some glitzy wrap on and did anything else just to be different (not better) then sold them for exhorbitant (sp) prices ..........that's good marketing for ya.

If you really want "boutique" drums look at the likes of Odery and Le Soprano or contact the likes of Gareth at Highwood in the UK.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby ChrisW » Thu Jul 07, 2011 9:34 am

Craviotto, which I don't have any connection with, are making IMO the best sounding drums today.
The snares are in another league, the kits are great, but super expensive.
Honorary seconds for studio use are Noble & Cooley and Pork Pie.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby danander11 » Thu Jul 07, 2011 10:48 am

Hmmmm.. I almost feel guilty jumping in here.. almost.

I guess my view is a tad more short-sighted than some here... I do not pay attention to the timber industry in the world and I have a general, though relatively uninformed, opinion that parallels ricks in a lot of ways.. We, as a world, like to waste things. Sad.

With my (lack of) qualifications established..,

It is my personal opinion and experience that al things being equal, wood absolutely makes a difference to the sound. I'm currently in love with maple but have also played drums made from mahogany, beech, birch, poplar, cardboard and plastics of various sorts... One of the best kicks I have ever owned was a Yamaha Beech Custom 22".. I currently have, (thanks to my own hesitation in actually selling the Yammies), thick birch shelled drums, and thin maple shelled drums. I prefer the thin shell for more sustain in tone and overall sound..

As far as exotics go... I agree with Rick.. I guess I view quality gear much in the same way as I view art that I happen to enjoy. Using exotic wood for something that you appreciate when you pull it out is like enjoying a nice painting that you own. Sometimes a nice birdseye maple will have me looking at it for awhile, sometimes a nice burl.. (I also agree with Rick regarding burls.. beautiful!).

and finally, regarding blue-eyed ocean cod.. I find this funny because my current favorite snare drum is a 14 x 6.5 Brady Blue Mullet... =)) I love the sound of this drum right now.

btw.. I'll put a plug in here for Chris and the guys at Brady.. They make some great sounding drums.. (Sorry about your piccolo there Rick). Chris gets timber from everywhere. One batch I saw them putting together was from reclaimed wood taken from an old shearing shed that had been scheduled for demolition.. sanded up and polished the wood was beautiful.. Unique history of the wood is almost as beautiful in some cases as the wood itself.

Peace!

(This is a kit I found at Forks in Nashville a few months ago.. I really want this kit just to look at.. lol)
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby ChrisW » Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:24 am

danander11 wrote:We, as a world, like to waste things. Sad.


You can decide not to on a unilateral level.
And your Yammies are killer drums that have graced many landmark recordings.
I sold my RecCustoms in the late 80's. I should have kept them because they are as relevant now as they were back then.
These days I'm more interested in recycling wood, by buying used drum kits. :p
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby The Tasmanian » Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:06 pm

So guys - as far as old cheap generally not considered cool kits, did Star/Tama/pearl etc make really nice thin shelled kits from nice sounding ply?

Curious about these old cheaper Japanese kits? What eras are good - was it just 2 factories making them - rebranded as different kits?

On Topic:
On those early 70's premier kits I've wondered weather the plastic covering on drum ply hinders the tone.
If anyone put laminex over a nylon string guitar i know would have massive an affect on the tone/ length of note.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Ausrock » Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:45 pm

This is an uneducated thought.............Laminex is relatively dense/brittle, something akin to a good Aust., hardwood so it might be tolerable in certain circumstances. Not ideal BUT tolerable.

Drum wraps on the other hand, are a more pliable product less likely to carry and/or transmit sound vibrations. Also, a lot may depend on how a wrap is adhered to a shell............some are glued over the whole contact surface while others are wrapped tightly around the shell and only glued where the ends overlap.

I think in general, this discussion could go on for a long time ;)
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby The Tasmanian » Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:57 pm

Laminex is the wrong word/product - but what I mean is any plastic coating used must have an impact on the sound of the drum compared to a shell without plastic coating.
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby rick » Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:06 pm

I think chris w comment on recycling wood by buying 2nd hand kits should not slip by so easily

Its the best way to actively help the "what to do bout the wood" issue

Brilliant !
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Drumstruck » Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:14 am

The Tasmanian wrote:Laminex is the wrong word/product - but what I mean is any plastic coating used must have an impact on the sound of the drum compared to a shell without plastic coating.


I agree -it certainly wouldn't enhance the pleasure =))
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby ChrisW » Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:28 am

The Tasmanian wrote:So guys - as far as old cheap generally not considered cool kits, did Star/Tama/pearl etc make really nice thin shelled kits from nice sounding ply?



I don't think the cheap Japanese kits sound too good.
As for older uncool kits, I have a friend who uses old Tama and Pearl mixed, all maple, all fantastic sounding. I'll ask him what era they are from (IIRC 1980's).
Unfortunately, many used kits in the Aussie scene seem expensive to me.
1960's Ludwig are probably the biggest bargain in America.
Fantastic sounding drums, and two a penny on Ebay USA.
But the Tama and Pearl high-end drums from the late 80's and early 90's were fantastic at the time, and very uncool now, so should be a great sounding kit for a good price.

My newest kit is an N&C Horizon from the early 90's. I also have an N&C Star from the late 80's, a Camco Oaklawn from the 60's and a Gretsch RB from the 60's.
These kits are equal to, and IMO, better performing than most brand new kits you can buy now. All you need is brand new hardware (unfortunately).
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Re: Drumkit Material Characteristics

Postby Drumstruck » Fri Jul 08, 2011 12:40 pm

I had a pre-73 Pearl kit (back when they had the old PEARL logo rather than the italicized Pearl logo that everyone knows nowadays) and it was a nice kit that sounded good but definitely not great.

The shells were medium thickness - about the same thickness as average modern shells and were made from a variety of timbers - visible via the internal grains that were all slightly different from one another. They lacked projection so I varnished the insides which improved them quite a bit, but it was chalk and cheese compared to my Gretsch - nowhere near the dynamics, resonance or sheer volume. :-o
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