The Drum Buzz

This is a guest post Kent Aberle who has been a mentor and friend of mine for a while – he’s also an awesome Atlanta session drummer

Merry xmas!  This time of year gives birth to many new drummers as kids all over the world walk downstairs to their first drumset under the tree.

If you are playing Santa this year and buying your child his or her first drumset, or even 2nd drumset for the teenage drummer it can be a stressful situation.  There are so many choices now at different prices.  Don’t stress!  The beauty of the many choices is that there is something for every budget.  So, the first thing to do is decide your budget.

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This is a guest post Omar Alvarado who runs the great drumming website – The Paradiddler

When we think of the drum kit, we usually think that all the drums are of the same brand and type.  This would be a good assumption!  A drummer wants to make sure that their drums have the same ‘timbre’ throughout, that even though the sizes differ, the drums tonally match regardless which size is struck.

A similar case can be made for speakers.  You could buy two different brands of speakers, similar in size, with identical specifications as far as watts per channel, impedance, sensitivity, etc.  But when you set them up as a left and right speaker in a stereo setting, they sound different.  Likewise if you mix and match brands of speakers in a surround sound environment, the sound difference can be quite pronounced between speakers.  This has a lot to do with the design of the drivers within the cabinet, the placement of the drivers within the cabinet, the construction quality of the drivers and cabinet, and the like.

The same can be said about drums.  If you have a 10” tom from brand A, say, Ludwig, and then another 10” tom from Tama, even if they have the same type of head and tuned similarly, they would tend to sound different.  Sometimes even if they’re made of the same material, such as maple or birch, they may sound different due to the different manufacturing process of each, thickness of the shell, etc.

So due to the above, for good reasons, drummers tend to stay with one brand of drums for the whole kit.  This doesn’t necessarily include specialty drums, however, such as mini timbales, roto toms, or Tama’s famous Octobans.  These have special sound properties (usually higher pitched) that give more options and melodic possibilities for drummers who want that flexibility.  However, there’s one particular drum in the set that, well, most drummers in the know would rather you ‘leave it alone’.

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The economy has taken a hit on the “extra spending” of most of us and that can make it even harder for new drummers trying to get into a band.  This can also make hard for those who have the desire to learn to play to afford the equipment needed to learn.

After my 5 years away from playing drums I had no equipment aside from a couple of old broken drumsticks (kept because they had some sort of memory tied to them).  At the time I started to play again the economy wasn’t that bad.  However, I had just bought a new house and was preparing to get married within the next few months.  Buying a new drumset was out of the question – Even if I wanted to buy it, my wife to be would have never let me hear the end of it (and rightfully so).

I was lucky enough that a friend of mine needed a drummer desperately and he had a drumset that I could use.  As of right now, I’m still using this drumset.  Over the past few years I’ve added some of my own bits and pieces to the kit – a new splash cymbal, a new snare drum, a new double bass pedal, and some other random bits an pieces.  However, I’ve come to a point where the entry level drumset that I’m using just isn’t enough.

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