Diggin' it! Cool baby, so overlooked, great solo, great drum sound, gots to agree!

(Louie Bellson, Slingerland), (Joe Morello, Ludwig), and (Alfred Bernard Purdie, The groove master! on his 4pc Roger's kit)flowers2

Philly Joe and "That Great Gretsch Sound"!![ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb23he64vbc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb23he64vbc[/ame]

I would agree. In any style of recorded music there is a great deal that goes into the final drum sound. Type of drums, head selection, tuning, stick selection and players particular technique account for much of it. Then you have to add mic selection, mic placement, the type of room and where the drums are situated, what console was used, what outboard processing was used, what is the recording medium, the engineer's particular taste, the producer's taste, and how the mix was mastered. Lastly, and actually quite important is the equipment the listener is usin to replay those sounds and the listener's particular hearing impairments (we are all mostly old drummers after all).

The same sound or video file posted here will sound somewhat different to each of us when we play back on various different transducers not to mention that these are all very compressed file formats. It is all pretty subjective at best, but an entertaining and informative thread nonetheless.

I would like to pose a question:

After listening the "Shortn'in Bread" with Joe Morello I was first reminded of just how musical a player Joe was, but it also reminded me of an issue I have had with "bop" tuning. I love tighter tensioned kick drum and really think the open snare and mounted tom sound extremely musical. More often than not, however, I don't care for the timbre of a floor tom tuned that tightly. To my ears, floor toms (I don't know if he was using a 14" or a 16") end up exuding a very "hard" tonality at that tension. The drum is not choked per se, but the head tension causes the drum to loose it's warmth. My perception is that we are all used to hearing that sound as it is pretty well associated with small combo music but when I listen solely to the floor tom, I do not find it particularly pleasing. That is just me. Not casting any aspersions on Joe Morello or any other fantastic small ensemble musicians. It is just my observation.

I have often wondered if the ideal bop kit would have been an 18" with 10" and 12" toms? I know that 10" drums weren't available in that time period but you could tune those drums up to the requisite pitches and have extraordinarily musical tones from them. They would still be warm and melodious. Of course that is kind of like the argument that many tympanists had when playing Mozart. We all said if Mozart had tunable drums or more drums, he would have written "this part". He didn't have access to that so to play Mozart correctly you stay with what was available.

I love the sizes idea. I had a newer-ish Renown 10-incher on a practice kit and it was awesome. I didn't tune it all that high, either, and she just sang.

Back to the business at hand.....

B

I recently bought a bop sizes kit on Ebay. Yamaha Birch Custom, with an 18"bass and 10", 12" toms and 13 x 14" deep. (actually 14"x13") floor tom. I use just the 10" and the 13" and It seems much more natural, and tunes to that bop sound easily. It feels very natural to tune that floor tom to a higher tone, although I don't go quite as high pitched as some of the floor toms I hear on albums.

An interesting idea. I tune my bass drum up (I'm not sure it's a bop tune per se; it's 22", so probably not: I like a nice "round" sound with punch and less sustain, and my front head is very tight, and the back is looser but far above the wrinkle stage) and also have a problem with the 16x16 floor tom being "odd man out" it seems - always hard to tune to the others when the others are tuned up. I'm a believer in the idea that we shouldn't be tuning our drums for where we sit but tuning for the audience; since low tones are less audible, it makes sense to tune up with the understanding that the tone you want will actually be in the room rather than lost. I always thought Joe, Buddy, and Grady did this; I know Louie did - I watxched him tune up his entire set before a small concert one night and was amazed at how much he tensioned them. Even John Bonham did it. Still, it plays hell with the floor tom, which, when tuned 'up', sounds not at all like a proper floor tom. Tuning is something that vexes us all, I'm sure. But I just think that, when I hear my drums recorded in a live environment, they simply sound better with higher tension on the heads.

Tuning can certainly be a black art. Personally I prefer drums tuned with either the batter and reso in unison or with the reso tuned higher. In my case I default to a minor third higher. I do not like the sound of a batter head that is tighter than the reso. I find that smaller drums generally have a wider suitable tuning range. I also find that the smaller the drum, the more meticulous you need to be with your tuning but it is also easier to tune. The larger the drum the longer the waveform and therefore the more difficult it is to discern the pitch, however, it is also more forgiving in the results. I just find that the range on larger drums is generally more limited. And that is the source of my earlier comment.

I think with any drum you just have to find it's sweet spot and the range in which it will work. Once you get there you can make minor adjustments to each drum in your set-up to make the kit work well together in a harmonic fashion.

This is all very interesting to me.

All great points about tuning and drum sizes. Joe Morello used the classic 22,13,16 set up. Big sizes for a jazz quartet. He tuned them about as high as you would want to go with that size config. but still low enough to occupy that tonal "foundation range" within the ensemble. The combination of big drums and small jazz group during that time period of jazz was quite unique and Joe was the master at providing progressive playing while maintaining traditional function. As the drummer's role in the small ensemble changed we saw smaller drums, higher tuning, less time keeping restraints and more freedom to contribute musically. I love listening and comparing the you tube clips on this post. You certainly can "get past" recording technique and isolate the tuning preferences of the players. Having said that, I'm pretty sure that Fred Gretsch wasn't too happy about Louie Bellson's less than great Gretsch sound on the Skin Deep video.

I prefer to tune in 4th's on a 4 or 5 piece kit...much edgier than 3rd's. But just like this entire discussion...all subjective.