Drummer Cafe Community Forum

Here's a little story about a well-meaning guitarist with some new toys:

I'm the "sub" for my friends' classic rock cover band and I go to their practices each week to hang out and get the tunes in my head.  The regular drummer keeps his kit in the guitarists (very large RV garage) with the rest of the PA equipment.  

The guitarist bought a bunch of mic's and some additional speakers so he could mic the drums.  That's fantastic!  But there's a catch.

First, he clipped these rather large mic's on each drum and put two overheads over the cymbals.  The one on the floor tom was on the left of the tom next to your right knee.  Obviously in a prime spot to get smacked on a wild fill.  So, we moved that out of the way...

The real point of this story is this:  The guitarist took long strips of duct tape and ran it across his snare and 3 toms.  ALL THE WAY ACROSS RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF THE HEAD.  To his credit the guy whose kit it was kept his cool and didn't even take it off but he was clearly shaken.  

At one point in the evening he fiddled with the tape on the snare to see if it was going to leave residue behind but so far it hadn't.  

I'm going to pick up some moongel to bring to him so he can try to get rid of the tape.  BUT I'M ALSO GOING TO KEEP A BUNCH OF MOONGEL AND RINGS HANDY FOR WHEN I FILL IN FOR THE MAIN DRUMMER AND USE MY OWN KIT!  

Question:  Would you go berzerk if your friend duct taped your kit?  I'd go crazy.  

I would ask him what ducktape across the strings would do to the sound of his instrument and let him do the math.

The key is to be better informed than the other person, and to offer better ways to muffle and mic the kit. Duct tape directly across the playing area of a head is stupid. But you need to offer a better way to muffle the head. If you don't know that way, learn it, then show the guy. Skip the going berzerk part - it accomplishes nothing. Combat stupidity by being better informed.

Sounds like the guitarist/sound engineer has a promising future in the fast food industry.

To answer your question: Yeah.   But I'm thinking I might have packed up and left before the tape hit the heads.  There was no discussion?  No argument about it?

The guy keeps his kit in the guitarist's garage and we showed up with that already done.   I didn't say anything since it wasn't my kit (and I'm still kind of new to the dynamic of the group.)  

Mr. A suggests offering alternatives and that's why I'm coming with moongels etc next rehearsal.  Not only to help out the main drummer, but to have an alternative available for when I use my kit.  

:o  He had no right to even touch the guys gear. Your friend was a lot nicer than I would have been. I don't put up with anyone messing with my gear.  ::)   :-X

If the guy's only solution was duct tape he probably doesn't get a good sound anyway.

As my old hero Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon!"

That's the way to go. Once I had a gig with a band, and the sound guy was the chief's brother (and a "professional sound guy"). We had our last rehearsal on the venue, and he never showed up, as supposed, to set up the sound. When I arrived to the gig, the sound guy had his stuff set, and a towel I left on top of my seat was gone. He told me that he put it inside my BD, cause it sounded like a metal trash can (it was tuned wide open, cause the music asked for it), and non of his mics made it sound good.

What I did was, that I took the towel off the BD, while he got angry, and ask to try a Shure SM-91 mic that I own. He tried it, liked it, and after that he always asked me if I had the mic whenever we played.

I'm not too keen on people messing with the sound of my kit without me around.  I have found people who just kill the drums as a means to control the sound are lacking in the imagination department.

I recently did a recording for a rock group.  I arrived at the studio with my Ayotte kit ready to go.  Set it up and did my thing.  The engineer kept complaining the drums were to live sounding and asked me to tape them down.  It became a bit of a hassle, and in the end, I ended up using the studio's 12 year old Tama Stagestar!!  He had some old Studio X heads on it, and the kit sounded literally like boxes.  The best part was, a few days later the guitar player who hired me played a rough mix. The drums sounded all Creedish, new rock reverbed out, cannon type sound.  The engineer told him it was easier to just get dead drum sounds and "juice them up in the mix" with post processing.  Whatever, I got paid.

See, I thought I was the only one with these kinds of problems.  

My soundguy is always telling me "your drums are ringing too much."  When we do line-checks, I usually put my finger over the head so it doesn't "ring" (or as I like to call it SUSTAIN) and he doesn't start telling me to dampen them up.  Funny, the other soundcrew we use never mentions this.  They just do a better job and know more about getting good drums sounds.

I don't know what it is about non-drummers.  Drums are supposed to "ring" a little bit.  They're not supposed to sound like Don Henley's drums in Hotel California.  

Just like you said Drum4JC, I always keep rings in my cases just for situations like this.  

If the guy did it while the drummer wasn't there, that's not cool at all.  I usually will head someone off at the pass when they try to use duct tape on my kit, so I don't have to go berzerk.  But if it has been done while I was away, we'd have words.

Incidentally, that's one of the reasons I won't leave my kit in someone else's rehearsal space.

(http://louisrussell.com/barnbnik.gif)

Nip it! nip it in the bud!


This is why I always have my own microphones with me and know where to place them for the best sound.