Bass drum wrap - lost it's boom!!

[markthechuck]

Hi all
i re-rapped my bass drum a week or so ago, and now my bass drum has lost it's boom, it's 24" and i covered the mount hole before i put the wrap on, i use a drum dial so i know it's just about where it was before but it sounds nothing like it used to, could my wrapping have something to do with it, or will it just be a tuning issue?
Am i right in saying to get a boomy bass drum sound have the batter real loose and the reso tight? i have 2 pillows in there too.
cheers Mark

[Texdrumr]

First thing I'd try is taking out one or both pillows.

[Northern Redneck]

The wrap has nothing to do with it. Its a tuning issue. Try bringing your batter up a bit, loosening your reso (tuning them to the same note will give your biggest boom) remove the muffling.

[NoiseInMotion]

Definitely remove the muffling. That'll kill off any chance you have of a big boom. Then play around with the tuning and see what you come up with.

[Pearl MCX Man]

Well if you say that your bass sounded ok before the wrap change. Did you have the pillows in there before and was the tuning the same. These are things to condider. I agree with the above comments and try their suggestions.

[PopsOldSkins]

Hi all
i re-rapped my bass drum a week or so ago, and now my bass drum has lost it's boom, it's 24" and i covered the mount hole before i put the wrap on, i use a drum dial so i know it's just about where it was before but it sounds nothing like it used to, could my wrapping have something to do with it, or will it just be a tuning issue?
Am i right in saying to get a boomy bass drum sound have the batter real loose and the reso tight? i have 2 pillows in there too.
cheers Mark

Question:
Did you glue the wrap? or use the tape method?

[markthechuck]

Question:
Did you glue the wrap? or use the tape method?

Tape, will that make any difference?

thanks for the responses by the way, i'll take the pillows out and loosen the reso a bit.

Cheers Mark

[steveplaysyamaha]

I bought the evans EQ pad to replace the multitude of pillows and muffling I had in my kick, and what it did was force me to actually tune it to something I wanted. I found a loose reso for me was too boomy and not as controlled, I am still tweaking the reso, but the batter is reasonably tight.

[Northern Redneck]

Tape, will that make any difference?

thanks for the responses by the way, i'll take the pillows out and loosen the reso a bit.

Cheers Mark

You might want to bring the batter up a bit as well.

[PopsOldSkins]

Tape, will that make any difference?

thanks for the responses by the way, i'll take the pillows out and loosen the reso a bit.

Cheers Mark

Most deffinetly make a difference.
I did an experiment with two drums the same size. One glued, one taped. Total difference in sound.
Glued has the solid sound. Taped had a wierd kind of sound. Like you said. No Boom.

[Russ]

There's no boom because you have too much soft-surface density making contact with key resonating points on your bass drum. You must remove them to hear any kind of boom at all. If the wrap appears to be properly adhered to the shell(no air bubbles or loose seams, check the entire shell) then it wouldn't be logical to believe it's a wrap problem. Tape is somewhat unreliable, it can seperate over time but since you indicated that this is a recent mod you shouldn't be having any problems with that part of things.

If you're using throw pillows or something, take em out, unless your bass head is more of a boomy type like a fiberskyn or emperor. Leaving one in should end up giving you a not too boomy not too dead sound with some attack. Check tuning, and you should be good to go. Remember that drums are very sensitive, no matter what type of drum they are- they will react to any and all changes made. If you add too many pillows/stick on new hoops/heads/tunings, they will react accordingly so you do want to be careful not to overdo or underdo anything. The less muffling you use, the more the drum will open up naturally, and vice versa.

[late8]

Check to see if your new wrap is clear of the bearing edges? Did you have the boomy sound you liked with the pillows in before the mod?

[dropdtune]

Start by tuning empty drum batter and reso to the same note, and the note you want. That setup will have nearly maximum resonance. If too resonant a boom for you, tighten reso (very noticeable) and if not enough then, start your process of muting - using folded towels, felt strips across heads etc. It also matters how much heads are touching the packing. Two pillows is surely going to kill any resonance (i.e. boom). Also matters if you have a kick port. Strongly recommend reading the online 'Drum Tuning Bible' and you can get any sound you want out of your drums. The coupling of wrap to the drum exterior has an effect but I suspect you had your drums tuned differently before you did the re-wrap....remember drum dials measure tension, not sound. Good luck.

[Spiderjig]

Try and tune the batter head to the sound your looking for with the reso head off with or without the muffling. Have someone else hit the kickdrum after you put the reso back on and see if you can fine tune it from there.

[MrB]

I'm surprised no one has asked if the reso was ported. If you're still having issues and the reso is solid, try a hole. Otherwise, you've sealed a rather sizeable air escape route by wrapping over the mount.

[itchie]

I'm surprised no one has asked if the reso was ported. If you're still having issues and the reso is solid, try a hole. Otherwise, you've sealed a rather sizeable air escape route by wrapping over the mount.

he just bought a spanking new Saturn kit.......so im assuming this fixed any issues

[Skillful Kai]

if the two heads sound almost the same but not quite then they don't have the same sonic qualities as before and are most likely no longer the same sort of resonant frequency. They now don't work together to excite one another to make a big sound but you get the same kinda sound as before (almost, maybe, not?).

There's a huge grey area in tuning where half of it is luck and the other is superstitious but treat each case as its own and don't generalise. If I wanted to make my drum boomy i would definantely remove the pillows!

[schonz]

Maybe the new wrap is hugging the shell, hence muffling off the boom? Maybe factory wrap has aged or oven treated, to dry out the glue & moisture. Notice generally, old drum shells sounds better, maybe because they aged & dried out substantially.