Hey. I am part of a band and looking for a cocktail drum set because of their cheaper price and more compact size. My question is: when the bass drum is hit, does it make the snares in the snare drum vibrate a lot? Thanks.
-Big z
P.S. I will be playing in a punk/metal band, but i heard these drums are mostly for jazz. Will it sound good?
question about snare/bass
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fw
It's very hard to get rid of snare rattle when you hit the bass, but a lot of people on the list have found ways to do it. Check old posts or go to Keith or Dinkus' websites.
Also, it wouldn't be impossible to play punk or metal with a cocktail set, but you will be limited by volume. They are quiet drums, so you'd need mics, a pa, and a monitor. Even then, don't expect a cocktail snare to sound like a regular snare or a the bass to sound like a 22".
You might try something more like the Slingerland Expresso, because it's cheap, compact, and is played like a conventional set, except the bass pedal hits the bottom of the floor tom.
Will
Also, it wouldn't be impossible to play punk or metal with a cocktail set, but you will be limited by volume. They are quiet drums, so you'd need mics, a pa, and a monitor. Even then, don't expect a cocktail snare to sound like a regular snare or a the bass to sound like a 22".
You might try something more like the Slingerland Expresso, because it's cheap, compact, and is played like a conventional set, except the bass pedal hits the bottom of the floor tom.
Will
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Guest
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fw
I'm a bad person to ask about solving the no rattle problem, as I still haven't figured it out. I think John's philosophy is to embrace the rattle. I find that with my drum, I can get the snare to sound just about perfect, and then my bass drum sounds like butt. So I fix the bass drum and lose the snare sound. Or I can compromise on both. So I'll try to grow into John's philosophy if none of my further experimentations with dampening work.
When I say the drum is quiet, you'll find that even if you pound the thing is hard as you can, it will max out on volume immediately and probably sound quieter than a light-to-average drummer's drumming. Remember: there is a snare fan under the top head, and that muffles the drum significantly. Also, the drum doesn't exactly have resonant heads or open holes like concert toms--the bass sound gets absorbed by a baffle or the top head, and the snare sound gets absorbed by the baffle or goes into the floor. I followed Keith's lead and drilled some 2 1/2" holes into my shell, but it hasn't helped a ton--it kind of just dries out the tone.
I'll try to add more later.
Will
When I say the drum is quiet, you'll find that even if you pound the thing is hard as you can, it will max out on volume immediately and probably sound quieter than a light-to-average drummer's drumming. Remember: there is a snare fan under the top head, and that muffles the drum significantly. Also, the drum doesn't exactly have resonant heads or open holes like concert toms--the bass sound gets absorbed by a baffle or the top head, and the snare sound gets absorbed by the baffle or goes into the floor. I followed Keith's lead and drilled some 2 1/2" holes into my shell, but it hasn't helped a ton--it kind of just dries out the tone.
I'll try to add more later.
Will
You should embrace the rattle (it isn't that much, no more than a regular snare). You won't ever get a sound of a piccolo from a 20" deep drum. You will get a good deep tone though, lots of puck metal bands use deeper snares than shallow, just crank it up. If you spend some R&D time you'll get a snare sound that will work for you. The kick you may have a problem with if your used to a 22" sound. My cocktail Kick cannot compete with any of my five other kick drums, however live it puts out a great punch and crack. This cleans up the live mix and doesn't compete with our bass player's 5th string fighting over the same frequencies. I get alot of compliments from my cocktail kit's sound live. These kits are what they are, don't try to recreate a huge John Bonham kick sound out of a 15" kick, it will not happen. If you are aware of these kits small limitations you will have no problem making them work for you. Check out the links and posts on this site for other peoples ideas, you may find what you need to make this system work for you.
Dinkus
Dinkus
allright thanks....and ive used a 16" wide 20" deep bass drum and it sounds pretty good to me. 15" by 30? shoudent be much different. Thanks for the info.
P.S. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW
How does that look? BTW thats around my price range (i'm 14)
P.S. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW
How does that look? BTW thats around my price range (i'm 14)
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fw
16x20" is to me one of the lowest sounding, punchiest, most beautiful bass drum sizes available. I think 22" and 24" heads tend to get floppy as they are tuned low, so the pitch tends to gain high end attack at a loose tensioning or a high tensioning. The middle zone is the lowest zone, but the middle can be kind of boingy. I'm currently building a 4-piece out of my school's old marching drums--I've got a 10x8" tom from my cocktail set, a 15x12" that used to be a tenor snare as a floor tom, and a 26x12" bass drum. I've noticed that even though the head has the capacity to generate a lower tone than my 20 or 22, it has to be tensioned pretty tightly to get any sort of focused tone at all. The shallow depth doesn't help with low end, either.
I've been trying to figure out bass tone lately, especially after the modern drummer article in the Louie Bellson issue. Head size seems to control the depth of tone conceivable in a world of perfect math, but I think the bigger the head gets, the flappier and therefore higher pitched it gets at loose tunings, and the smaller a head gets, the less ability it has to generate a low tone. The more I experiment, the more I feel 20" is the most versatile, most easily tuned, and most quickly beautiful bass head size. 18" or 22" seems like a close second, although I find my 22" to be kind of lackluster--it's such a middle ground of tone and pitch that neither make the drum stand out. When I want definition, I lose tone, and vice versa.
The length of the air chamber seems to shape the tone--I think it affects pitch and resonance. But it can only work with what the head provides. So a 14-16" head on a cocktail chamber makes the snare sound very low even with the head cranked and the snares tight. The chamber seems seems to drop the pitch of the bass head about as low as it can go, but there are two problems--one, small head. Two, floppiness issues...a wrinkly head loses tone and increases a thwappy kind of attack sound. So there is a point at which detuning the head raises pitch and ruins feel. The head can only go so loose before it loses its desired affects, and at that point, the head isn't nearly as deep sounding as a 20" bass drum, regardless of the volume of the chamber. Also, the baffle or snare head absorbs the sound, so nothing can "sweeten" the initial tone of the attack, outside of the shell itself. If anything, the drum hampers the bass drum tone--either with rattle or a deadening baffle.
You'll need to find a good way to mic your bottom head and spend a lot of time experimenting with eq, and if your band is loud, I would imagine you'd need to be in their monitors for them to hear you during practice. In a coffee house gig, these drums are absolutely beautiful unmiked with sticks or brushes. There are few drums that sound is beautiful with brushes.
People were talking about the idea of conceiving of the cocktail set as a different instrument than a drumset. I actually see one advantage of playing punk on a cocktail set--It's just a big drum. The simplicity of it should work well. You get to stand around and dance and act like a guitar player if you want. Without any finesse, the drum will give you only a few sounds--okay snare, marginal bass, closed hi hat, cowbell, or cymbal. That would work really with a punk aesthetic.
With finesse, you can find hundreds of sounds on the same set up, some beautiful and some disgusting. I think this paradox of the cocktail drum is what makes them like crack to the drummers on this list. Cocktail drums are strange creatures.
The only way to make a cocktail set play like a conventional set, as far as I can tell, is to get one with a separate snare and treat the top head like a floor tom. The bass and snare will sound much more conventional, and your volume level will rise. If you play seated or develop acrobatic skills, you can play a conventional hi-hat or remote hi-hat, too.
I guess there's another paradox--there are actually two types of cocktail sets even though they both look the same. What makes them different, besides the snare mechanism, is the mindset--will the drum be its own instrument, or a compact conventional kit?
Will
PS--that ebay set looks serviceable, but my wife has that same bass drum pedal. My hunch is the cymbals will sound awful and the hardware will fall apart little by little. A lot of guys on here have built their own with Keller shells for about the same price as that set will cost. Check out their postings. If you can find an old crappy floor tom somewhere and an internal muffler and an old set of snares you can chop up, you'll have the necessary hardware cheap. Re-doing a pedal is no big deal.
I've been trying to figure out bass tone lately, especially after the modern drummer article in the Louie Bellson issue. Head size seems to control the depth of tone conceivable in a world of perfect math, but I think the bigger the head gets, the flappier and therefore higher pitched it gets at loose tunings, and the smaller a head gets, the less ability it has to generate a low tone. The more I experiment, the more I feel 20" is the most versatile, most easily tuned, and most quickly beautiful bass head size. 18" or 22" seems like a close second, although I find my 22" to be kind of lackluster--it's such a middle ground of tone and pitch that neither make the drum stand out. When I want definition, I lose tone, and vice versa.
The length of the air chamber seems to shape the tone--I think it affects pitch and resonance. But it can only work with what the head provides. So a 14-16" head on a cocktail chamber makes the snare sound very low even with the head cranked and the snares tight. The chamber seems seems to drop the pitch of the bass head about as low as it can go, but there are two problems--one, small head. Two, floppiness issues...a wrinkly head loses tone and increases a thwappy kind of attack sound. So there is a point at which detuning the head raises pitch and ruins feel. The head can only go so loose before it loses its desired affects, and at that point, the head isn't nearly as deep sounding as a 20" bass drum, regardless of the volume of the chamber. Also, the baffle or snare head absorbs the sound, so nothing can "sweeten" the initial tone of the attack, outside of the shell itself. If anything, the drum hampers the bass drum tone--either with rattle or a deadening baffle.
You'll need to find a good way to mic your bottom head and spend a lot of time experimenting with eq, and if your band is loud, I would imagine you'd need to be in their monitors for them to hear you during practice. In a coffee house gig, these drums are absolutely beautiful unmiked with sticks or brushes. There are few drums that sound is beautiful with brushes.
People were talking about the idea of conceiving of the cocktail set as a different instrument than a drumset. I actually see one advantage of playing punk on a cocktail set--It's just a big drum. The simplicity of it should work well. You get to stand around and dance and act like a guitar player if you want. Without any finesse, the drum will give you only a few sounds--okay snare, marginal bass, closed hi hat, cowbell, or cymbal. That would work really with a punk aesthetic.
With finesse, you can find hundreds of sounds on the same set up, some beautiful and some disgusting. I think this paradox of the cocktail drum is what makes them like crack to the drummers on this list. Cocktail drums are strange creatures.
The only way to make a cocktail set play like a conventional set, as far as I can tell, is to get one with a separate snare and treat the top head like a floor tom. The bass and snare will sound much more conventional, and your volume level will rise. If you play seated or develop acrobatic skills, you can play a conventional hi-hat or remote hi-hat, too.
I guess there's another paradox--there are actually two types of cocktail sets even though they both look the same. What makes them different, besides the snare mechanism, is the mindset--will the drum be its own instrument, or a compact conventional kit?
Will
PS--that ebay set looks serviceable, but my wife has that same bass drum pedal. My hunch is the cymbals will sound awful and the hardware will fall apart little by little. A lot of guys on here have built their own with Keller shells for about the same price as that set will cost. Check out their postings. If you can find an old crappy floor tom somewhere and an internal muffler and an old set of snares you can chop up, you'll have the necessary hardware cheap. Re-doing a pedal is no big deal.
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Guest
I wouldn't be inclined to play punk on a cocktail kit - it really isn't a very loud drum, and hitting it harder won't make it sound better.
But playing while standing is cool, so I'd instead recommend a setup more like Slim Jim Phantom used with the Stray Cats. That way you're playing a "real" bass drum and snare, and can really cut loose on them, but you're still standing up and playing a minimal kit.
KC
But playing while standing is cool, so I'd instead recommend a setup more like Slim Jim Phantom used with the Stray Cats. That way you're playing a "real" bass drum and snare, and can really cut loose on them, but you're still standing up and playing a minimal kit.
KC