[znamenacek]

Does any one else use studio rings. I see pics of other drumsets, and don't see them. If you don't, what do you use, and are the better?

[Der Trommler]

I use a pad on my snare and use heads that have a dampening rings built in for the toms and kick personally. I know drummers that preffer moon gel or oiled heads and others that add a dampening ring to their heads, I think it really depends on the sound you want.

[Tainojim]

Since I'm versatile with the drums, I prefer the rings. In some music I need that long resonance and in others I use the rings for that short resonance. So depending on what I'm play, I have that extra lee way.

Same with the gel and other types of resonance dampening materials. One of the advantages with the Gel Pad type is that you can regulate it, depending on how close or far you place them from the rims edge.

For the Bass drum I use a muffler to avoid back firing. Oh! That's my car. Haha.

[don11817]

I don't have studio rings, I've been using Moon Gel for dampening. There are 2 reasons for this, the second one is funny...

The first is, I like being able to move the gel around and finding the "sweet" spot that gives me the dampening I want on each drum. This flexibility allows me to tweak the sound of each drum, as their resonant overtones are different.

Second--I'm almost embarrassed-- I've gotten drum sticks caught up or stuck in the studio rings before. In the middle of a set, suddenly my stick is yanked out of my hand as I was looking somewhere else during a fill and now I have this ring flopping in my lap as I scramble for another stick... lol... Oh well. It was my fault, I'm sure--but it made for a glitch in the song and put a permanent kink in the ring so now it won't sit flat and is MORE likely to get caught on a stick...

There are drums with built-in overtone rings, Evans EC2's for example. The only drawback I see to them is you could never remove the overtone ring without changing heads--even though I think they sound fantastic and will be buying a set to demo out on my kit when I go through my Evans G2's.

Anyway the Moon Gels are around $8.50 retail for a set of 4 and if you find they dampen too much you can cut them in half to get a second set. The Remo studio rings for 3 toms and a snare are around $20...

	Evans Drumheads Shop for Evans Drumheads at Musician's Friend

	Remo Drumheads Shop for Remo Drumheads at Musician's Friend

[philadrumphonic]

Don't be embarrassed, Don. I've had a similar experience. Mine involved the stick catching under the ring and sending it flying like a discus as I brought my hand up past my head for the next stroke. I can't imagine what it looked like to the audience.

I recently switched to Moongel for Don's above listed reasons. Also, you don't have to worry about storage. It's nice to have your entire dampening system in a plastic box no bigger than a silver dollar. I hated bringing those studio rings with me. They'd either get bent in the transport, or worse, disappear while I'm breaking down the kit. If one bends, you get a really annoying buzzing sound from the drum as it vibrates against the head. All of them disappeared within the first week of college though so I didn't have to worry about that anymore. haha. I'd play with Moongel over rings anyday. And personally, I find them just as easy to remove and reapply as rings. This allows you to still be versatile and have better control over tone and the amount of dampening.

[Gus]

Are you toms almost level?

I have almost never had that happen with E rings, then again... mine were about 60%.

[Tainojim]

My old Ludwig 59 Rock Kit had built in adjustable mufflers on the batter and the resonanse sides. That was one of the best fetures on those drums.
.
Too bad no other drum company does this and even Ludwig discontinued doing this. After I had gotten my son a Ludwig accent 5pcs kit to mess around with, I installed some after market afjustable internal mufflers. They worked great on this cheap kit.

I'm still having second thoughts about installing them on my Gretsch Custom kit. I would like to keep them original, just in case I get some grand children in the future.

	Gretsch Drums Shop for Gretsch Drums at Musician's Friend

	Ludwig Drums Shop for Ludwig Drums at Musician's Friend