Quote Originally Posted by noreastbob View Post
When guys say "The type of wood has nothing to do with the sound of a drum", and "Any drum sounds good with the right heads and tuning", I can't help but cringe. It's a fact of physics that hard substances resonate differently than soft substances. And more to the point..."GOOD" is a subjective word!!!!!!!
Let's instead refer to the phrases, "Vintage" and "Modern" sound. The vintage sound is more thuddy and damped sounding in most cases due to the use and/or inclusion of softer woods and the heads of the day, usually two ply batters.
The manufacturing methods and abilities of the earlier, or vintage drum shell makers contributed to their sound as well. The appearance of the inside of my first set of Ludwigs" in "66 comes to mind: nameless fuzzy unfinished wood painted white. (Almost seemed like soundproofing)
Now "high end" drums are being built of select very hard woods (maple, birch, and think of all the exotic Australian hardwoods used by Brady) employing extremely accurate CNC methods and better hardware and head materials and construction yielding "the modern sound": richly resonant tone that can truly be tuned to a focused pitch if desired.
These are different sounds.
One may prefer one sound to the other.
If one likes the damped less resonant sound then one may say, "The best kit I ever heard..." about an older softer material shelled set. Many don't want the modern sound.
I believe strongly that the fact is you can with some difficulty make modern hardwood shelled drums sound like vintage softer wood drums via thicker heads, less tension and generous damping, but you CANNOT quite make an older softer wood and less well made shell sound like a modern drum.
And many don't want to so...great!
Go for the sound you want.
OP likes the sound of his Pearl Forums. He may not like the maple shells' sound as much.
I believe this oratory to be a mixture of my opinions, and fact.
QUOTE=noreastbob;709737]When guys say "The type of wood has nothing to do with the sound of a drum", and "Any drum sounds good with the right heads and tuning", I can't help but cringe. It's a fact of physics that hard substances resonate differently than soft substances. And more to the point... ..."GOOD" is a subjective word!!!!!!! "

..."GOOD" is a subjective word!!!!!!!

There is the key phrase right there. When you are dealing with a instrument that is, more than anything else, at the mercy of the acoustics of a given venue, be it a bar that holds 100 people or a club that holds 3-400+ people, tuning becomes more important than whatever the drum is made out of.

If you have 2 clubs of exactly the same dimensions but 1 has a lot of hard surfaces and the other has carpeting, drapes, acoustic tile, etc., you are going to have 2 very different drum sounds. I know, I've been there. In that situation, the tuning of the drums to make them "blend" in with the band becomes way more important than what the drums are made of.

This is not to start a debate, or worse, a argument, it's just my opinion based on what I've seen (heard) in maybe 10,000 gigs since my 1st band in 1961.