Part of Michael’s Drums series of life-long joy
Michael’s Drums 10
2017 – 2018 Update
Been experimenting with various cymbals. The ones with the big LASER-cut holes — 18″ crash, 10″ splash. Nice and trashy at low- to mid- volume; they don’t respond with greater volume, however, when they’re beaten: Greater loudness beyond mid-volume does not exist with and can not be gotten from these cymbals…it’s like the surface area, because it is substantially less (due to the big holes), and the lower material mass causes the sound output to “compress” — in other words, playing mid-loud, full-loud, too-loud, and danger!-loud all sound approximately the same. I actually prefer their sound at low-volume because it’s so interesting. Close-miking candidates fersure. I wonder what a removable, heavy homemade rivet (below) would soundlike…
Fixed a $350 22″ beast “jazz ride” that sounded sooo good in the store but awfully out-of-place on my main kit…I drilled a single hole for a homemade heavy “rivet” that consists of a 1″ long #6-32 machine screw with a pair of #6 nickel stainless nuts (heavy) tightened against each other (and an internal tooth lockwasher) at the screw’s end, so that — unlike standard “rivets” — the sizzle is VERY light at low level but comes up nicely at mid- to high-levels. The character of the sizzle can be changed by adding more nuts (weight), and/or moving the nuts further towards the screw head, and/or changing the length of the screw. Adding more screws and/or thickening this one are options, too. Everything is removable (except the screw hole(s). The cymbal sounded so awful that I figured nothing could really worsen it, even a crack (you know, now that I write that, it sounds pre-cracked or something… …just not purity to the tone, it’s all mungy, without the rivet.). Anyway, I’m sure glad I tried it. That one rivet made it about 100x more interesting to play and hear.
Picked up a bunch more snare drums, all different depths, shells, heads. My favorite is still my original 40-year-old Ludwig chrome ‘symphonic’ snare. Pretty soon I’ll need a snare/drum rack.