Drummer Cafe Community Forum

Hey all ... Ive got a rather unorthodox question (who me?).  How much would it effect the sound to remove the neck and legnth of a goblet drum like a dumbek?  So essentially it would be a small kettle/bowl drum with a hole in the bottom.  Or if only a small portion of the neck remained, like if it was just a 2" flare from the bottom of the drum?

In general, how much impact does that part have on the drums sound?

If Im not being clear, let me know, Ill try and get a pic up of what I mean if needed.

The reason I ask is that a typical dumbek runs about 12-17" in length and that can make them awkward to mount in relation to a drum kit.  With my 16" kick, my dumbek fit fine, but with the 20, its got to be off to the side away from where I actually want it.

I think you will loose the bass tone.

The narrow neck and upper chamber act as a spring thus making much deeper sounds  (bass) irrelevant of the drumhead size. Thus one gets three tones, edge, tone(1/3) and bass (center).

while (let say 16") frame drum has just two edge and tone.  hitting it in the middle like djembe won't give a bass tone.
if you would add a neck to a frame drum you would get a djembe/doumbek like bass tone.

Im talking about keeping the bowl structure, but loosing the length.   So that narrow neck and upper portion would remain.   Just the length, that starts at the neck, would be missing.   I went ahead and threw together a rough image of what Im talking about.  Kind of like a nakir with a hole in the bottom.

(http://www.allthetransients.com/misc/dumbek.jpg)

If the drum had no length beyond the bowl, would it retain most of its dumbek-ey sound?  

The throat of the drum, which is the part you are talking about removing, is what gives the drum it's low-end.  In fact, a wide neck on one of these drums (including a ceramic doumbek) will have LESS low-end than the narrow neck versions. It's this funnel shape that helps to build up the bottom frequencies that our ears perceive.

I've never done what you are proposing, but based on other drums that I've played as well as what I've studied in regards to the physics of sound ... this drum would sound very dry ... little resonance with a short decay time.

I'm curious as to what (even why) you are attempting here. Are you bored or just curious?  (http://community.drummercafe.com/YaBBImages/emoticons/inquisitive.gif)

I sure would hate to see a nice drum ruined by cutting off the throat. I imagine that if you keep a little bit of the neck of the drum, as your picture shows after the pruning, you may not loose as much as what I think you will. It will DEFINITELY be different ... if not drastically different.

The depth of ANY drum increases the potential for deeper ptiches and/or low-end frequencies to be realized. Take an octabon for example. They all have a 6-inch diameter head, but the shell depth helps to create the realized pitch differences.

You'll get some low-end from your reduced drum ... but it's not going to be anything like what it used to be prior to the surgery.

Check out my first post.  The idea is to have a more "kit friendly" dumbek.   At ~17" deep, mounting one above your kick is like trying to mount a floor tom up there.   Knocking that length down to 10" would make it more managable on a kit.   If the loss of tone is negligable, then it may be worth it to me.  

I know the Hidalgo practice conga has little to no low end, but a conga relies more on its whole body than a dumbek, which primarily relies on the bowl.   So my thought was that It would retain most if not all of its dumbek qualities.

It sounds to me like I would loose some percieved low end.  But not all of it.  Worst case scenario, I need to buy a new drum.  The one Im thinking of cutting down aint all that fancy :)

thanks