Drumming thread! Advice/technique/composition/gear/etc...

I've been playing for almost 5 years now, got a couple things going with some other people, took lessons for 3 ish years. I can answer any questions for any newbies to drumming.

I use a shitty Ludwig accent kit because I can't afford anything better, but I get it to sound decent through various techniques.

My drumming idols: Gavin Harrison, Sean Reinert, Bill Bruford, Billy Cobham.

How bout' you people?

heh, ive always loved drums, my fav instrument...but my parents, being the assholes they are never agreed to getting me one...so i had to settle with a guitar instead. ah well better than nothing...

but...i do have drum sticks... XD

ITS A START...gotta start somewhere...and im getting there...

I used to play drums for a couple of years when I was younger. Have a beginners Pearl set sitting at home at my parent's and collecting dust Would love to resume playing some time, but it just doesn't seem to be any time for it :(

Well I'm playing drums for year and for now I have Amati drum set... It's very lame, I am planing to buy old TAMA but we'll see =)
Any advice how can I get better sound of my drums?

I tried to learn drumming from my friend for like 2 months and just when I had to leave the city for university, he got double bass pedals!
He had an ok Chancellor kit and Mapex pedals later

Dulle wrote:

Well I'm playing drums for year and for now I have Amati drum set... It's very lame, I am planing to buy old TAMA but we'll see =)
Any advice how can I get better sound of my drums?

Yeah, keep em in tune, and stuff the bass drum with a pillow.

Also either get what is called a deadening ring for your snare, or make one yourself with an old drumhead, it's basically a head with middle cut out, so a ring (durr). You place it on your snare drumhead.

You can also try cutting off the two outer wires from the bottom of your snare drum. So there'd be the long metal snare going under, and like 6 or 8 wires or something, and you'd take a pair of wire cutters and take out two single wires, one from each side of the grouping.

To tune, first, you are going to need a drum key. That looks like this.



Now, what you want to do is loosen all of the tuning lugs on your drum till they are no longer exerting any tension on the drumhead. (ie, until it is possible to pull them out)

Now, you want to turn each lug about a half turn equally until you have the tone you want

It is best to do it in a criss-cross manner.

Let's assume you are tuning the snare drum, which would have eight lugs.



So you would follow each number (turning the drum key a half turn each time) and then after you've gone through once, give your drum a tap, keep doing this until you have the sound you want.

You can get a drum key at any music store for a buck or two.

It is VERY important they are equally turned, after you are done, tap the area near each tuning lug on the head to make sure each sound the same.

Hell men! I always dreamed to be a drummer. But not in my town...

Yep stuffing the pillow in the bass drum is absolutely required unless you don't want to it to sound like that of a marching band

I had two friends, drummers, i asked them to teach me how to play. It was fun until one time. I got really mad about something and somehow i ended with a stick in a drum.That was the end of my drumming career.

Hey guys I'm gonna start playing the drums this summer, and I'd like to know if its easy or not... I've never played an instrument, so Im starting from zero...

I like how Bonham played, and right now I think that Joey Jordison and Lars Ulrich are the better ones...

learn all things Bonham and Ward then play Doom metal.

I was definitely gonna suggest Bill Ward as well, and doom metal is awesome.

If you dig Bonham and Metallica, grunge acts are probably right up your alley, since they're effectively "classic rock + heavy metal."

About Ulrich though, he's typically regarded as the "Ringo" of the metal drumming community; except he's not totally useless because he can arrange songs... and he has a castle. Probably makes his stuff a good a starting place but, as with most things Metallica, if you want similar but classier, roll Megadeth.

If your into metal drumming check out the DVD "Extreme Metal drumming 101" by Flo Mourier of Cryptopsy. He has some amazing technique and shows a lot on how to train for metal drumming (especialy death metal)

rawheavygreen wrote:

learn all things Bonham and Ward then play Doom metal.

that's exactly what i did.

www.myspace.com/keefmetal