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Thread: shell damping and physics

  1. #1

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    Question shell damping and physics

    This may be outside the scope of even the biggest bass drum players on the forum.
    I aquired a 24" wide x 24" deep Gope Surdo. Essentially its an aluminium trash can with plastic heads. It sounds ok at low volume but if you wack it (its a street drum) it gets a nasty shake rattle on. I can change the heads ( I've ordered fibreskyns) but I think that its mostly the shell. Most surdos are 20" deep. Some are wood. I just think that this is a little too big and lively.

    I could do things to dampen it or stiffen it but I'm reluctant to do anything until I learn the phisics first. Can anyone recomend a website?

  2. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Doh View Post
    This may be outside the scope of even the biggest bass drum players on the forum.
    I aquired a 24" wide x 24" deep Gope Surdo. Essentially its an aluminium trash can with plastic heads. It sounds ok at low volume but if you wack it (its a street drum) it gets a nasty shake rattle on. I can change the heads ( I've ordered fibreskyns) but I think that its mostly the shell. Most surdos are 20" deep. Some are wood. I just think that this is a little too big and lively.

    I could do things to dampen it or stiffen it but I'm reluctant to do anything until I learn the phisics first. Can anyone recomend a website?

    Why would you even bother. It's too big a drum for all practical purposes.

    I've worked with a 24x14 for about 45 years, and it has covered everything just fine.

  3. #3

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    Are you saying that your drum is 24 wide or 24 tall? No serious carnival bateria would use less than 24 x 20 deep.

  4. #4

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    There a few ways to dampen it, as well as change the sound of the drum. It depends what you're after. Some heads come with muffle rings built in, and that will help you a bit with ringing overtones and just give you a more focused tone. If all you want to do is dampen, then I suggest grabbing a thick pillow or two and laying it inside the drum sideways across the shell. If you can find a 24" version, remo sells mufflers that sit under the drumhead and are mounted internally in the drum.
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  5. #5

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    Default Re: shell damping and physics

    Thanks Russ, I appreciate that there are some things that I can do, though actually yours would not work since a surdo is a mobile drum.

    The question was not looking for answers. It was looking for a place that descusses the phisics of how a drum operates and how to apply the correct treatment.

  6. #6

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    I believe its all about playing technique. You hold your mallet in one hand and use your other hand as a muffle.

  7. #7

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    I am confused here are we talking about a bass floor drum or one of those big upright floor drums used in symphanies.The way NR describes holding the mallet with one hand and muffling with the other sounds more like a big floor tom.

  8. #8

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    Its a marching style drum.

  9. #9

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    Ah ok I hear you NR that makes more sense. Thanks

  10. #10

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    Yes, there IS a certain amount of head damping, but there more to the sound than the head.

    Actually I'm starting to get my head around it. The surdo is essentially an aluminium cylinder with the head the tensioning rings pulled together with steel rods. Not bolts into hardware bolted to the shell like wooden drums. Now that I fitted damped heads I can hear that its the shell and the rods that are ringing.

  11. #11

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    Can't you fill it with crumpled up newspapers? Light and cheap.

  12. #12

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    What meds are you on?

  13. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Doh View Post
    What meds are you on?
    No need to be rude. Crumpled paper is a very viable dampening method.
    Where are playing the drum? You might not want to dampen the ring.

  14. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Northern Redneck View Post
    No need to be rude. Crumpled paper is a very viable dampening method.
    Where are playing the drum? You might not want to dampen the ring.
    This is a great point. You should tune and dampen according to the environment, to get it to sound the way you want depending on where you're at. The acoustics can greatly affect how an instrument sounds, so take it into consideration. I'd probably want some dampening or even full out muffling for a smaller room, but i'd let that drum sing for wide open spots like an outside stage.
    ZildjianLeague/LP/Aquarian/Mapex/Pearl
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pearl MCX Man View Post
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    Quote Originally Posted by amdrummer View Post
    if double bass is cheating then so is using two sticks

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  15. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Northern Redneck View Post
    No need to be rude. Crumpled paper is a very viable dampening method.
    Where are playing the drum? You might not want to dampen the ring.
    In fact it also helps out absorbing humidity keeping it off the skins! Anyway it was just a suggestion, take it or leave it.

  16. #16

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    FYI, for DCrs who have not seen a Gope surdo before, see below example. Picture worth thousand words.

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  17. #17

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    Sir Doh, I know the kind of drum you're talking about. Guys in DC Land, like what he said, a surdo is not like a kit's bass drum, which you can muffle with a cushion. It's not a marching bass drum either, in the sense that it's played vertically and you play with mallets on two heads....even those can have a little bit of dampening. No, a surdo is one of these:



    Sir Doh, are you in the UK? Apparently this guy has one of the largest surdo's in the UK over there.

    More often than not, samba groups perform outdoors, and a surdo has to have that sort of sound projection for outdoor use, not like what we have indoors with our bass drums, recording or playing live gigs indoors. Damping a surdo with a pillow or other things we take for granted won't help in Sir Doh's case.

    Surdos in action, this time with a German samba group:


    Sir Doh, are you able to provide some photos of your surdo? I'm a percussionist as well as a drumset player, and I have a few percussionist friends who might give me some info about surdos as I don't own one, but I do go to a number of percussion jams and the occasional Brazilian guy will turn up with a surdo. Actually, I just realised, one of our DC chatters, ShaneRoney, is a drummer/percussionist as well, his specialty is also Latin percussion and definitely knows his stuff. Maybe PM him? (tell him Drumbledore sent you, cheers!)
    Last edited by Drumbledore; 02-15-2012 at 04:55 AM.
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  18. #18

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    Thanks for the videos man now most of us have a better idea to what Sir Doh was talking about.

  19. #19

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    damn is this still here? I'd given up. In my original post I did not ask how to damp a drum. I asked where can I find out about the physics. I also said that it is a street drum. Kinda frustrating that no one reads the question but seeks to answer it.

    Thanks to Tadmen and Drumbledore for the pictures. The 29inch surdo player appears to be from a band called Fat Samba from the Isle of Wight, UK. Coincidental because I bought mine from another band on the island (the place is 20 miles across and there are 4 samba bands parading around!).

    Anyway I polished the corrosion out of the inner shell and painted with primer and hammerite. That might be dampening some very high frequencies. I but the Fiberskyn powerstroke heads on but it sounded dead like a Hiphop kick. Samba is supposed to play a note. So I fitted calfskin and its much better.

    The low frequency wobble is still there. Its probably because it is as long as it is wide.

  20. #20

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    Well on the physics side, being a metallic shell the sonic properties are much like a room's acoustics. You play somewhere with thinner harsher surfaces such as stone or metal walls, you're going to hear a bit more echoes and reflections than say a dense and treated room with soft surfaces to block some of that out. Since you're using a metal shell which compared to certain woods is thinner, you will hear some of the same echoing and sustain. This is a natural property of metals as a musical material, they have a slower decay and in some cases a higher volume.

    You are correct in believing that things like finishing affect the final tone of the drum. Any object that adds mass to a drum is a potential tone inhibitor, so the removal of as much weight as possible from that drum removes the tone that is lost. Since the interior and exterior both play a key part in the sound of a drum, it's good to check on the shell from time to time to check for flaws. I think a head like a powerstroke3 isn't meant to give you a lot of boom, but rather to cut out boom and leave you with more attack. Great kick head for miking up, because you can add in a little reverb to it later on. Good luck with the calfskin, and be careful where you use those heads because they are sensitive to the weather.
    ZildjianLeague/LP/Aquarian/Mapex/Pearl
    Snares: 4
    RIP- Frank, Wolvie, Les Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Pearl MCX Man View Post
    I wish I was your wife
    Quote Originally Posted by amdrummer View Post
    if double bass is cheating then so is using two sticks

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    No metronome?
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  21. #21

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    Russ,
    The Powerstrokes were a big mistake. I thought that I needed to damp everything. In fact its only the very low frequencies that are an issue (5 - 10Hz). It goes "boing". Just to counter those who say that it is because it is aluminium:- I regularly play other 24 in and 22in surdos make slightly differently by Artcelsior, but they are not as long. Only 20" instead of 24" like mine.

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