Zen and the Art of Recording by Mixerman

Author:Mixerman [Mixerman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business Aspects, music, Recording & Reproduction, music recording, reference
ISBN: 9781495004513
Google: lV4iBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Published: 2014-10-01T23:49:53.111813+00:00

Drum Heads

The heads are your first consideration when evaluating a kit. Old heads are far less vibrant than new ones, which provide a softer attack with less ring. The heads should be considered and discussed in advance of your tracking session. Dead heads are useful for more mellow drums, and if you’re not sure whether that’s the sound you want, you should probably check them before the drummer installs new heads. The tone of months-old heads can’t be recreated in a reasonable time frame. Once you remove an old head, you really can’t reasonably put it back on, and a change in heads on one drum pretty much requires a change in heads on them all.

There’s a famous story that’s gone around for years, about a producer who spent an entire day working on the snare tone. Supposedly the band was popular and the budget expansive, as one might expect on a session in which it’s acceptable to take a day to dick with the snare and its mic. Upon achieving the desired sound, the producer ended the session for the day, and called the tech in to change the heads for the purposes of making takes.

Apparently the second day went similarly to the first, as the producer still found the snare tone displeasing. This happens. He spent another 12 hours slaving over the tone, and once again called in the tech to retune the drums for a morning downbeat. By the end of the third day, as the producer once again called for the drum tech, the engineer piped in, “Maybe you just prefer the tone of a beat-in head,” at which point, they began making takes.

New heads are more vibrant, have a more definitive attack, and offer you more range in pitch adjustments. Dead heads, particularly months-old ones, won’t be as responsive to pitch change, particularly if you want to lower them. Detuning a fully stretched and worn head would be tantamount to shedding 400 pounds of excess weight—the result of which would be flabby skin. Once you bring those old heads down in pitch, you might as well keep loosening the lugs, because it’s now time for new heads.

Drum heads come in many varieties. The drum head that is struck is called the batter head, and the other is called a resonant head, although some players might choose to go without resonant heads—a tone I generally abhor. They lack resonance. Go figure.

There are two main types of heads: white-coated and gel. White-coated batter heads tend to emit a richer tone, and given the thickness of the coating will produce shorter resonance times than a single-ply gel head. When it comes to recording drums, coated heads will often make your life easier, but genre does come into play. The metal hard rock drummers seem to really love the gels for their sharp attack.

Fully resonant heads on a drum kit can be overbearing and subject to obvious overtone interaction. Toms in particular are notorious for interacting with the rest of the kit, and this can result in excessive and obvious frequency beating.

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