[JAG]

I've been playing a Mapex Pro-M Rock set for a couple years now and I'm still having a hard time extracting good, warm sounds from the floor toms (16" and 18"). Especially the larger of the two. Currently I'm using Evans G2 coated for the batter heads and G2 clear for resonant. To get the sound I have currently, the 16" is not dampened but the 18" is riddled with moongel.

Do any of my fellow drummers have thoughts on tom sizes that large and tuning them for a warm boom?

Boom.

[eames drum shells]

Hey jag try starting with the bottom head first on th 16 tom i use the same head set up and it works great. tune the lugs across from each other,also try to tune the bottom head a little higher. good drumming

[JAG]

A little tighter eh? I'll give it a try even if it's just for empirical evidence's sake.

Loose heads make for a deep sound. Big drums make for a deep sound. Is there a balance or profit in either specifically?

[Der Trommler]

There is a balance between a smaller drum and head loosening. The looser the batter head, the harder you have to hit it to get your sound and obviously you can only loosen it so much. On the other hand a bigger drum can always have the batter torqued a bit tighter to give you a higher pitch and also has the ability to go lower in pitch too.

Something to keep in mind is that you would have to loosen the batters on all of your toms accordingly. You don't want to have to hit the higher toms lighter and the lower toms harder to get even sound so the idea would be to keep the head action about the same all the way across the toms.

[JAG]

Mmmmm, I wasn't aware of that. Good call. Thanks.

[don11817]

Some drum heads have a built-in warmness and others are more bright. If your Pro M's are Birch, then the G2's are gonna be really bright, if it were maple, the G2's would sound slightly warmer, but the G2's themselves are inherently bright...

For a warmer and somewhat darker sound, I recommend getting away from the G2 coated heads on toms, especially the floor toms. The coated heads tend to give you more "stick" sound--the slap you hear when you strike the drum with a stick. They also resonate more and tend to have more of that "ring" sound you are trying to get rid of with your abundance of moon gel...

Changing heads to a hydraulic 2-ply clear will warm-up the sound more and the lack of a coating provides less of a slap or "stick" sound in the primary attack. If you want to really change the sound try going with the ebony or dark colored hydraulic 2-ply heads--they will make the sound even more warm and dry with very little overtone. Less moon gel is necessary...

FIRST, see if you can find some drums with hydraulic 2-ply heads and ebony hydraulic 2-plys and see how you like the sound. Hopefully there's a drum shop near you that has some you can dink with...

	Attack Drumheads Shop for Attack drum heads at Musician's Friend

[JAG]

I knew it Don! Thanks man. I've been really curious about my head choices and even more curious about the hydraulic heads! I've a friend with the blue hydraulic on much smaller heads and the sound is delicious. Do you suppose the immensity of the shells will be a problem? (I suppose not. I'm certainly not the first person to have an 18" floor tom and if it was really that big of an issue (no pun intended) they'd move away from large shells.)