Are High-End Drums a Giant Waste of Money?

[Tornado]

I will make cheap drums sound like a high end kit with triggers and samples and processing, which may work for the workflow of the engineer much quicker than trying to figure out why a beautiful work of art Dunnett snare has a grating honk that gaffing can't remove.

So yep.

I understand Milton Sledge used an Acrolite on Garth Brooks' hits. It sounds pretty good.

I like playing good drums, but to over-value them over getting a sound appropriate for the song is a mistake. There is a reason why Don Henley's drums were dead, they get in and get out and don't get in the way of the vocal or guitar.

Unless you're buying used, a 5x14 Acrolite is a $450 drum. That's not cheap, and it's a great drum. Nobody is going to kick you out of the room for bringing a Ludwig snare.

 

[Whitten]

I like playing good drums, but to over-value them over getting a sound appropriate for the song is a mistake. There is a reason why Don Henley's drums were dead, they get in and get out and don't get in the way of the vocal or guitar.

Nope, it was the fashion at the time.
Originally it came about because Geoff Emerick and Ringo were trying to figure out how to record more punchy drums. They had been using two or three mics on the drums. As they added more close mics they started to dampen down the toms and bass drum (this was before gating the resonance away), the drums were more punchy, but also dead and thump.
Since the 90's Henley has played all those eagles songs on a modern high end kit with much less damping.
I've heard The Eagles tracks in a high end recording studio and the drum sound on those 70's songs is absolutely killer. Of course they were the best drums money could buy at the time, recorded in the most expensive studios using very expensive microphones and a high-end recording console.

 

[Whitten]

TMy very expense drums sounded great in all tunings and with every head. With lower end drums you put them in the sweet spot with the right heads and you'll get a good tone (whatever that actually means).

Agree, 100%.

 

[Tornado]

I think there's a misconception that all gaffed up dead drums sound the same. They really don't. The shells still resonate, even if you're preventing the heads from sustaining. People think it's nuts to use RIMS mounts or the Pearl floating floor tom feet if you add muffling later, but sustain and resonance are two different things. For example, a floor tom with the suspension feet and muffled head is a much deeper, richer tone than a floor tom with standard feet and no muffling, even if you control for sustain. That stuff you can do with any drum, but the point I'm making is that it's the vibration from the shells that is making the difference, which is going to be different with high end drums vs cheap drums.

 

[Whitten]

Yep. I'm not really a fan of long sustain.
I use RIMS and Pearl floating floor tom feet. It retains the warm depth of the drum. When I play standard mounted toms they've lost some of their tone in my experience.

 

[John DeChristopher]

I will make cheap drums sound like a high end kit with triggers and samples and processing, which may work for the workflow of the engineer much quicker than trying to figure out why a beautiful work of art Dunnett snare has a grating honk that gaffing can't remove.

So yep.

I understand Milton Sledge used an Acrolite on Garth Brooks' hits. It sounds pretty good.

Kenny Aronoff records with an Acrolite probably 80% of the time. A lot of pros use them. Just because it's not an expensive drum, doesn't mean it's a cheap drum. Am I missing something?

I like playing good drums, but to over-value them over getting a sound appropriate for the song is a mistake. There is a reason why Don Henley's drums were dead, they get in and get out and don't get in the way of the vocal or guitar.

What Chris @Whitten said. It was the sound of the times. As was Hal Blaine's. We're talking about the Eagles. Their records weren't made "on the cheap." There wasn't pressure to get the drum tracks done in an hour and get out. They spent whatever money they had to make a great record. That was the sound they were going for.

Or this song.

Vs this one. I guess both sounds are processed, one with gaff tape and one with electronics.

Do high-end kits at some point become a virtue signal, a sign of how awesome someone is?

I don't think I understand the reference to these two songs? "Hot Butter" is Rick Marotta on drums and "Heaven" of course is Steve Smith. Steve's drum sound on this song is considered the Gold Standard of the time. Recorded on a Ludwig kit I believe... Am I missing something?

Ha, forgot to add it.

I have seen the Dead and I know what they used.

Gaffing up the entire kit doesn't mean it matters that it's high end or not.

"Do The Hustle" is a drummer named Steve Gadd. He's pretty well-known. He's probably the most emulated drummer of the late 70s and 80s.

I may have missed the point of using these songs as examples. But my point is: they were recorded with what we'd call today "high-end drums." Back then they were simply drums... Ludwig, Slingerland, Rogers, Gretsch... drums. They have been muffled more than today, but drummers used the best gear they could get.

They sound the way they do on these records because that's the sound they wanted. By the same token, Charlie's and Bonzo's drums sounded the way they do (bigger and more open) on Stones and Zeppelin records because that was the sound they wanted.

Edit: Are high-end drums a giant waste of money? No. But it depends on what you want to get out of them. You can make a half decent (and not so decent) drum set sound ok/good in a live situation, with good heads, some tape and good mics. So yes, you can use a less expensive drum to get the job done. But to my ears, it won't sound as good as my Gretsch or Rogers (high-end) drums. At this point in my life, getting the best tone is what I strive for at a gig. Final answer.

 

[Frank Godiva]

 

[Matched Gripper]

Guitar players discuss gear more than anyone I know …..

I attend a drummers hang at the LDS every month and we don’t talk gear this extensively ……

You ever been in a band with 2 guitarists ?
Geez , they will go on forever …

Have you seen the video where a guitarist A, B, C’s several guitars made of different woods and guitar strings tensioned across two benches with no guitar, and the sounds between them were virtually indistinguishable?

 

[Houndog]

I

Have you seen the video where a guitarist A, B, C’s several guitars made of different woods and guitar strings tensioned across two benches with no guitar, and the sounds between them were virtually indistinguishable?

I have not …

 

[Matched Gripper]

I

I have not …

I think this is it. Don’t have time to watch the whole thing now, but, I think this is the one that was posted on DFO a couple of years ago.

 

[DrummerJustLikeDad]

Who needs high-end gear, when a SpongeBob drum can sound this good?

 

[Houndog]

This drum set sounds pretty great after new heads and tuning …..
Heck , the toms sounded pretty decent before reheading .

 

[Madmarian]

Marion-don’t disagree with what you posted. My comment was based on the statement drummers are the only ones who discuss gear. More discussion I hear and debated about deals is with amps, not guitars.

I did not say only drums discuss gear, the drummers are the only musicians who discuss wheter or not they need good quality instrument. It is common sense for every other musicians to get the best instrument their financial situation allows period. Your instrument is your voice, and better is always better. THIS kind of discussion (do we really need a better instrument?!) is drums ONLY.

other musicians might argue that they prefer the sound of this or that instrument / gear etc. but drummers are the only ones where you can get roasted for buying yourself a professional instrument. I have seen this literally a hundred times or more in communities wherever drummers introduce their gear. Is it expansive, there will be people who say that you'll not hear the difference much live and you could have saved a lot of money. Oh and I forgot the most used argument: "A good drum kit does not make you a good drummer. And a good drummer on a cheap drum set sounds better than a mediocre drummer on an expansive kit.

Sigh...

 

[Madmarian]

This drum set sounds pretty great after new heads and tuning …..
Heck , the toms sounded pretty decent before reheading .

the thing is, when you turn a drum set into a recording, they sound a lot better than acoustic. The sound difference might be huge when you hear them first hand, but especially when recording with close mikes, you pretty much only mike the heads, not the drum. This is like playing an acoustic guitar which you mic' with a single coil. while a cheap guitar might sound and play terrible acoustically, the recording - the single coil also simply pics up the strings' action - might sound decent after a bit tweaking. If drums were semi acoustic, why bother. But for a semi acoustic instrument they are darn loud, and having a bad acoustic sound means you battle the stage sound and need to overpower it to sound any good. Well, pretty much like we are used to anyway as drummer.

This is why so many drummers think that the quality of their instrument does not matter so much; they often totally disregard the instrument as an acoustic instrument, and act like as if it is semi acoustic. Like you would not judge the sound of an electric guitar by how it sounds strung unplugged. You plugg it in, you play it over a decent amp and would not think it sounds terrible even though without amplification it does.

If Drums are part of a signal chain, well, you could play cardboard boxes and mike them propper, and there you go. But it will sound terrible acoustically, the creativity is lost, it is not inspiring to beat a dead pan, and your band has to suffer too. You play good gear because you enjoy playing it more, you feel inspired by the sound, the stage sound is a lot better, and it is way easier when playing live to get a good sound. Can a cheap kit sound good (enough) too? Sure. But you'd be the only musician on stage thinking this way. Ever other band member is trying to get the best gear his or her money can buy (well, but the singer who might not even have his own SM85 lol), and not just rely on the sound engineer to make them sound awesome.

 

[Houndog]

I don’t know very many drummers who think they don’t need a quality drum sound .

 

[Madmarian]

One last note...

I think the reason why some drummers argue for cheap drums is that they see the drum kit just as part of a signal chain, where the lack of sound quality is just a minor issue, as due to close miking you pretty much only hear the heads anyway (especially live), not the whole acoustic drum kit. It is common sense to always mike each drum and cymbal individually.

Those who argue pro good (expansive? not necessarely) drums are those who understand that any acoustic instrument is judged by it's acoustic qualities, and not how it sounds mic'd.

As mentioned above, mic'ing can cover up a lot of flaws - close mike boost your tone, give you a bass and mid range boost, nice compression (all together called proximity effect), even before you touched the EQ. The fader can bring your whole drum set into a smooth balance from harsh and loud instruments (snare, cymbals) to the usually muddled toms and kick and let them shine.

...are drums acoustic after all? I fear not...
Another perspective on this as instrument builder is the lack of musicians who are willing to really put the acoustic features of a drum set into the center of interest. To explain what I mean - the way most drums are built today makes no sense for acoustic instruments at all.

Drum by drum:

-The kick sounds pretty muddy unless you mike it, which is why the head is ported by default. However it sounds, it is not how we want it to sound acoustically. You only mike instruments from inside when you have no respect for their acoustic sound at all, because it sounds totally different from inside than from outside. But this is how it is done, for most drummers. And if it is not them, gosh, the sound enigineer will cut a hole into their head faster than you can say John Bonham.

- Toms are built semi acoustic too. Ever wondered why the toms have different depth while they have also different diameter? I guess you did never think twice about it. But it makes no sense, acoustically. Still, the drum it is the only acoustic percussion instrument where each gets deeper when it also gets wider. Congas, bongos, timbale, timpany - all have in common that they come in different diameters, but within a group you have the same depth. Not so with drums. This came about simply because drummers combined smaller, shallow drums from acoustoc sets with deeper, larger drums from louder stage drum sets (while most high toms were 10 or 12" and rather shallow (6-8") before, since about 1964 the industry saw a need for louder stage drums and sized them up, giving us a deeper and wider 13" high tom, usually 9-11" deep). It was drummers, not manufacturers, who combined these in the beginning for what is now a typical drum set with decending toms. The result is that the larger high tom, being also deeper, sounds less vivid and more percussive than the smaller tom, thus you run into issues tuning them. Many call this the middle tom syndrom, and now you know why you have such a hassle. Sure you can get around it, when you are skilled. But it makes no sense to make the toms deeper acoustically. We do this for the look of the kit, because drummer feel that it looks odd when toms are shallow and the same depth all over the sizes. Right?

- The snare is way too loud compared to the rest of the drums. While it was way less loud when drummers still played traditional grip - the main reason for this grip sure was to keep the snare tamed in volume (and not break the calf heads!) - we now hear it being played with rimshots by default. Thus it is usually a whopping 4-8x or 6-9dB louder than the rest of the kit, which results in an unballanced and annoying drum sound no matter how awesome your snare sounds. But why bother, as drums are just part of a signal chain, and you just need to use the fader to correct this issue. When the drum set became a thing, most snare drums were 10" or 12" small, usually with calf heads. These could not be played as loud as you play the drums today. Often Drummers did not have the money to buy a dedicated drum kit and used marching snares instead, instruments built to be played on the street, as loud as possible. So a 14" Snare became the de facto standard snare. Does it make sense, the way we play it, acoustically? Nope. But we mike them, so why bother.

- Cymbals, don't get me started. For some reason especially heavy and metal drummers pick the loudest cymbals they can get, while in the music they play cymbals are usually put waaaay in the background, a lot below the rest of the kit. Gladly this is the instrument where most drummers still agree on that a good instrument matters, as you cannot tune a cymbal much, and the sheere volume of cymbals make them unbearable when they sound bad. Still, many drummers pick them by their sound, but usually not by how they blend with the rest of the kit. Well, gladly most drummers in fact do care a lot for cymbal sound. But that is also thanks to the fact that cymbals sound better when bigger. They get deeper in tone, less agressive, and can be played less loud as well due to the mass which takes a harder beating to be as loud as a smaller cymbal. Here suddenly sounding good is cool, I know so many drummers who play crashes as hihats and rides as crashes.

I missed the floor tom. But it is so low in pitch, you cannot really mess with it and ruin your sound, all I can ask you to do is just tune it warm (tune the bottom head higher than the batter head) because it will sound so much better that way acoustically. Yes, most tutorials teach to tune resonant - both heads the same pitch- but this sounds pretty week and muddy acoustically. Mic'd it sounds good, but you still have to tame the resonance with muffling. And it should be a warning signal if an acoustic instrument sounds better muffled than not. Tuned warm, the different tuning of the head shortens the sustain, and a few feet away from the tom - the listening distance - you get an overtone one octave below the fundamental pitch -thus the name warm tuning - which gives the drum set a really full and enjoyable sound acoustically. Close mikes won't be able to pick it up, as they actually just pick up what is happening 1 inch away from it, so drummers often never learned to tune a drum set for a room, because those who teach tuning of drums play them in large rooms, mic'd, amplified, always.

So this might give away why I think drums are not acoustic anymore. And as result, drummers dicuss, a lot, about whether or not it makes sense to get a good one. Again, as part of the signal chain, sure you get away with a less good sounding instrument - and having a really bad balance in volume is not an issue at all, as mic'ing also means compressing. And since most drums are explicitly built for this -they used to be called "stage drums", though the trend is gladly towards the "studio drums" (all drums one size smaller and shallower, but remember, a studio is still a place where you mic drums...) - they do not sound as good as they could, acoustically, which drummers usually not realize. Some might have experiences with real acoustic drum kits (usually built before 1964), and some even know how to combine snare, tom and kick for a decent acoustic drum experience. But as long as we keep seeing obnoxious built drums for maximum volume and not for maximum sound, there will be drummers puzzled over why to spend more on a drum kit, when they lack in sound anyway and only blom when mic'd.

Does it make sense to you what I write, or am i just an old grumpy drum maker who is contemplating his bad life choices?...

 

[Houndog]

I put together a bunch of cheap “Astro” branded kits together one XMas at the LDS and we were all surprised at the quality of sound saying , “ heck I could gig these !”
Especially the snares ….

 

[Tornado]

Something that is probably more common to drummers than other musicians is that many drummers focus more on doing the thing rather than hearing the thing. I came to that realization about myself a while back, and changing my mindset about that made me more conscious of a lot of things and improved my playing a lot.

 

[Josh Vibert]

There's more to it than sound. There's pride, sex appeal, etc. But the other often overlooked downside of "cheap" drums is the hardware (hoops, lugs, rods). I used to have this Majestic MIJ kit that sounded KILLER. I gigged it several times, recorded with it a few times, and had it as the house kit at my church for a few years. Ultimately it was that house kit thing that let me to selling it. In that environment I wanted a set and forget (mostly) solution and I was having to re-tune the toms every week.

 

[Houndog]

This drum set sounds pretty great after new heads and tuning …..
Heck , the toms sounded pretty decent before reheading .

This video might be better suited to show what it means to tune a drum properly ..