I tried your painters tape and it worked great except it looked like crap and was getting torn up from use. So I did an experiment - I removed the heads and used duct tape UNDER the head. BAM! It worked even better (dunno why) and since it's under the head my kit looks nice and clean. So try it! Duct tape UNDER the head... it works!!!
I was worried the duct tape would be too thick and heavy and affect the tone, but if it did anything at all it made it sound even better. FTR, I used Gorilla tape and I used a lot. I left an area about 6" x 8" in the center, even the kick head. Blocking so many air holes made them a LOT louder, which works for me but perhaps not someone who needs to be quieter.
If someone created mesh heads with a partial fill like this, and less holes in the low volume cymbals, it would probably create the perfect volume for bands that play at bars and stuff
This saved me. They use Remo ss at lessons, and thought they were perfect. When I installed them at home they were too quiet and the snare had no resonance. I put an X on each head with beige masking tape I already had on hand and the sound is just right. Great tip. Life saver.
Thank you, Dave from over 5 years ago. Hope you're still doing great! This is a fantastic suggestion, and it's made my drumming practice much more enjoyable.
nice trick.. It also helps to tune the resonance head really high. Much higher than you ever would with a normal head. This adds a bit more tone to your tom.
Amazing! This is a GREAT tip. I just bought a Tama Star Bubinga kit, which I LOVE and has absolutely gorgeous tone. I've been holding off putting on the silent strokes because I hate losing that beautiful tone when I'm practicing. This sounds like I would get some of that back if I continue to tweak it and figure out how to get the right sound coming out of it using tape. Another person suggested putting the remo mufflers underneath each head to get more resonance out of the toms. From your assessment that blocking air holes is what creates more tension and gives tone back, this is probably why it's able to get more tone again. I'll try both and see how they work out. Once again, thank you! Great pro tip!
Glad I saw this tip. I had this roll of decals which I used. It does make the toms sound realer, but my low volume cymbals are still 25 times louder than the drums are.
That makes a huge difference! I bought some Pintech Mesh Head Savers to increase the durability, but found that they add a small amount of tone to the drums. Without the Pintech the snare strainer had to be super tight to get a snare sound, but with the Pintech it allowed me to leave the strainer tension where it normally is. This tape trick will be my new way to add tone. Way cheaper! My practice and small venue setup uses the Remo SilentStrokes, Zildjian L80s, and the new Yamaha EAD10. The ambient sound is very low, but the EAD10 makes the kit into a hybrid allowing me to feed the kit into the PA. Total control and a ton of drums sets to choose from using the EAD brain. It's like an electronic drum brain, but includes the bass trigger with mics built-in. Additional riggers can be added if needed. It's a perfect practice kit. The band loves it.
Thanks for posting! I will be running to Home Depot today. Really made a big change to the tone! I think you could actually play these in a small acoustic gig with the Low Volume 80 Cymbals.
I geus Remo owes you one for this tip. They could produce a silent stroke with a round patch in the middle that with variable sizes. This would also have a better feel and would get rid of the 'scrubbing' effect the sticks can have on the mesh. Maybe i will try and cut out a patch from some other drumskin and glue it in the middle of the mesh head. Thanks, simple things ar often the greatest idea's.
WOW that's really cool, I have the silent strokes and recently bought a Yamaha EAD 10, it will be interesting to see how this sounds recorded with this trick
Awesome man, thanks for the tip. Put some silentstokes on my set recently and I loved them but they sounded a little too flat, this made them sound so much better. Also want to point out you can buy white masking tape which looks a little better on the drums than standard blue masking tape.
Outstanding suggestion and demonstration. Thank you! I had been practicing with rods for years because of the neighbors and just added Remo SS and Zildjian L80s to my 6-piece 1965 BOP Ludwig kit but was disappointed that the Remo SS sounded too quiet and with no tone. Slightly restricting the airflow with painter's (masking) tape is brilliant and it generated a number of additional great hacks from the Comments. (Drummers are smarter!) Painter's tape may not stick to the head as well as other types of tape over time, but it leaves no residue so the Remo heads remain pristine. Still, I'll experiment with Remo Muff L Rings (which I already have) to see how they affect the volume and tone and see (hear) if they provide a more permanent solution. Thanks again, Dave! Much appreciated you sharing this!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This simple little idea opens a whole range of possibilities on a drum head I thought was squarely a practice head and nothing else. Placing tape on all silent drum heads improves the sound so much that they could certainly be used on quiet acoustic gigs with sticks, rather than regular heads with rods, which is what I have been to quell my drum volume. Can't wait to try them now with the band!
Doesn't change the sound as much. The closer you place extra material to the edge the less tone alteration you get. You need to have it closer to the center where you hit the drum
Simple, clever solution, Sir. I've been unclear on whether a kit equipped with these heads could be practical for recording, or whether they're strictly for low volume practice. I think I'm seeing how they can be made to eke much of a drums harmonic content while keeping volume really low. I could get much use out of a low volume drumkit/cymbals rig which retains enough of the drums' essential sound to mic it up for doing trax. I can play my normally rigged kit without worrying too much, but I'd like to get super-violent on them, a la Keith Moon or Rat Scabies, if I wanted to. Lol. Hmm. I think it's coming together re my questions re all of this, and this vid actually served as a main stepping stone toward my reaching an understanding on that, and, so, Thank You very much! 👍😺 You're doing a nice and information-filled service toward home hobbyists such as myself especially. I like that this kind of stuff is appearing which is a happy medium between the purpose of an electronic kit and that of a full nuclear-bomb drumkit...a drumkit is astonishingly loud, lol. Because what I'd ideally like is a real-sounding, usable drumkit which is still old-school acoustic, and I'd like to be able to really bash and pound on it if I wished. And using compressors and plugin tube enhancers can fatten the sound to where the end result would be much the same as a full volume kit, that isn't a worry. I just want the dampened kit to be similar enough to the standard outlay to be totally as useful for recording trax at home as a standard kit. For decades, it's been not an uncommon thing in studios to mic up small Fender Champs and practice amps... it's well known that Jimmy Page was already employing this recording hack for guitar, especially during the sessions which wound up including the songs settled upon for inclusion in Zep's 1st album. If small amps can be beefed up via tech means to result in tracks which one could be easily forgiven for supposing they're listening to walls of Hiwatt stacks, then surely a similar approach could imbue a low volume drumkit rig with all the power and soundage one could hope for insofar as the result in a song being quite viable. Different. More extreme compression settings which make things sound huger than life would sort that out readily. I'm thinking this whole thing may even have the proportions of being a groundbreaking thing, and could become a common way of doing things in most studios. Interesting points to roll around in my head, hmm. Greets from Texas.
Evans DB One Low volume heads use a similar idea. With a Mylar dot in the middle. I haven’t personally tried them, but I’ve heard they also play more like an acoustic head, rather than a mesh head.
Such a simple idea but brilliant! I already have the full L80 set and will be getting silent strokes for my 8 piece Pearl SRX. Will give this hack a go 👊
i actually put 3 lines of packaging tape on my snare drum with Remo silentstroke (Pearl Compact Traveler) and it was perfect for acoustic jam in the house
They allow air thru? I had not heard that mentioned elsewhere! And then the sound can be altered additively, opposed to subtractively! Wow! What a great observation! I will use this! Thanks.
that is awesome dave! I have a drumkit with Remo SS and Z L80 on it, used in a jam room with great acoustics,(it;s a dome) and power soaks on all the amplifiers (keep the volume down) regular drums were just too loud, but i wanted a little more volume out of the SS heads. this looks like the perfect thing. also could balance the volume between them and the cymbals better. gonna get some painter's tape and experiment! thanks!
I just purchased a new set and put these on. They do a good job at reducing the sound level, and the the floor toms actually sound pretty good. The snare and the bass drum are still a problem... The bass drum has no bottom end and the snare sounds tiny compared to the rest on the kit. I have tried a couple different tunings in hopes of improvement. I have the Zildjian low-volume cymbals and I hear more hi hat than snare. Adding tape has helped some, but I also tried a Remo Flam Slam kevlar patch on them... it's getting there. hopefully Remo (as well as other manufacturers) are working on a fix.
I just got these silent stroke heads and wanted to see if I could get something in between. I found these Aquarian DuraDots that definitely give you some tone and volume back.
May be playing on a set with these at an audition. I think I'll bring a roll of the painters tape. I can removeit when done as painters tape 99% of the time comes off without issue
I just got Silent Stroke heads so tried using painter's tape & it works pretty well, particularly for the snare and floor tom. You sacrifice a bit of resonance but get more tone. So Dave, have you tried using gaffer's tape? Based on your experimentation, does there seem to be an optimal percentage of the drum head to cover with tape?
Extremely helpful! Thank you. Did you happen to notice a change in volume when you did this or just tone? My drums are packed up for moving right now so I can't experiment with this yet.
Yes, volume changes drastically, too. My main goal for doing it was to adjust the volume of my drums to match with my Zildjian Low Volume cymbals. You can dial in any volume you want by adding more or less tape.
Hey man! First of all: Thanks for this video. I play often in small churches, where my drumset is a big problem with the volume. So I watched your video and was thinking about putting on the Silentstroke on my drums an micing them. Do you know if this could work, beside the loss of some sound? Also, does your trick work with the kick head, too?
Great idea, thanks Dave! I'm going to try this with my silent strokes as I would like a bit more volume. One question: Does the blue painters tape ever lift off the SS heads due to their flexible nature?
I haven't had any issues with it lifting off. If it does you could explore using a tape with a more aggressive adhesive, such as duck tape. Give it a try.
I tried it with Pearl Mesh heads and painters tape doesn't want to stick. Which stinks because I'd need to put this on the bottom of the head or my son will rip it off. I've thought about, but haven't tried yet, stacking mesh over a mylar head with everything cut out but a ring of some experimentally determined thickness.
He thanks for sharing this. Realy great🙏. I have a question that maybe you or anyone else can help me with. I tried the tape like you showed in your video and indeed that made a big difference. Just that little diffinition in sound that i was looking for. Only when i put tape or paper on my meshheads it also creates some kind of rattle or click (forgive me my bad english) which distorts the definition of the sound eighter. Has anyone expeienced this? I have 2ply meshheads and i was thinking that it maybe could be that because of the air is blocked by the tape, the two individual layers of mesh are ratteling on eachother because of the air inbetween them. Groetjes!🙂
Great video, I started out with just the top heads and re-added the bottom ones for some tone. I'll try this and see of it gets better without further raising volume. It's ironic that the tape usually damps stuff, here it does the opposite. What if you put the ring instead of tape?
hhyperdd, I have one mounted Tom and one floor Tom. I don't really worry about the tuning on my silent strike heads. But, for my regular heads, I tune those a perfect 1/5 apart, for example 12" tom tuned to an A, and my 14" floor Tom tuned to a D. (d,e,f,g,a = 5 notes apart)
Great video, very helpful. I want to transition from my electronic kit to a quiet acoustic. I have no issues with neighbours even though I practice first thing in the morning, so am a little worried about upsetting the status quo by making the change. My kit has rubber pads which sound like hitting a phone book or of course a practice pad. I have been looking at a pearl rhythm traveller or a pearl midtown, plus silent strokes and l80 cymbals. The midtown looks like the nicer kit, but the rt I think may be quieter because of shallower shells and no resonant heads. Obviously I would prefer the midtown for the sounds, but there's no point buying something I can't play because it's too loud. I practice in my conservatory, concrete floor and no bedroom directly above. I also live in a detached house, although the neighbours are only 10 feet away. Sorry for the long post, but any comments would be appreciated. Thanks, Tom
Tom, I’m a Gretsch guy, so I’d recommend a Catalina Club - even a used one. But, the choice is yours. I bought a Catalina as a practice set and am impressed by the sound. I actually use it when gigging outdoors when I’m concerned the weather might mess up my USA Customs. Whatever brand you choose, I’d stay away from drums with only a batter head. Get a real set that you can also gig with. Lastly, before you buy the silent strokes, take a look at these: ruclips.net/video/wt-ygMn0Kec/видео.html I haven’t used them but I’m going to look into them too.
Great idea, managed to get some of this tape in 2" wide and used on my SS heads...any idea what kind of tension you've got on this head? Crank them up to around 75 using drumdial (where you'd have normal skins), far too tight, mine are now around 55. Still too much bounce on the BD.
I know this is 4 years old but how tight did you settle on them? Only been drumming for 3 months, got a used kit for $300 and just changed the heads to SS... I just learned how to swap them out and tune but still not sure how tight they should be. Did you find the 2 inch tape work? Painters or masking or does it not make a difference?
@@larkins621 quite slack actually otherwise they have a lot of rebound which isn’t realistic. Any tape will do, needs some stick otherwise it comes off the skins easily. I used blue decorators tape, but gaffer tape would also work, have now taken it off as I don’t need the extra tone.
Thank you for this video, I appreciate it. I'm not trying to be rude, but it seems there is alot of tension on that silentstroke. What kind of tension can the 14" head take on a snare drum? Thank you!
Mark Adams, they're as quiet as hitting pads. Same as playing a Roland electronic set with mesh heads. You'll be fine. You should look into getting zildjian L80 low volume cymbals.
Mark Adams i take drum lessons in a small room with many other music rooms very close by so we have to keep it quiet in there and i use these heads with the zildjian l80s and i have to say its not as quiet as an electronic kit but its pretty quiet, if neighbors are what youre concerned about u should be fine
What kind of tape did you use? I put a silver tape on my silent head and I heard a click like a "tick tick" of the tape in contact to the head. Anyway, thank you for your tip! Very helpful!
Check out this review on other mesh heads. ruclips.net/video/smj5-bfBaPM/видео.html I’m going to try the drum-tec “real feel heads. They may be just right for a quieter head that work for practicing and live playing.
They certainly sound better, but does not doing that also make them louder? I take silentstrokes for what they are, practice heads. Don't really see the point of wanting them to sound any good by sacrificing their quiteness.
I tried your painters tape and it worked great except it looked like crap and was getting torn up from use. So I did an experiment - I removed the heads and used duct tape UNDER the head. BAM! It worked even better (dunno why) and since it's under the head my kit looks nice and clean. So try it! Duct tape UNDER the head... it works!!!
Excellent tip! Thanks.
I was worried the duct tape would be too thick and heavy and affect the tone, but if it did anything at all it made it sound even better. FTR, I used Gorilla tape and I used a lot. I left an area about 6" x 8" in the center, even the kick head. Blocking so many air holes made them a LOT louder, which works for me but perhaps not someone who needs to be quieter.
I'ma do that
I work in a medical clinic so I used cloth tape and it sounds excellent
you can get the tape in a beige color which probably will look even better on the bottom side
or try white gaffer tape
If someone created mesh heads with a partial fill like this, and less holes in the low volume cymbals, it would probably create the perfect volume for bands that play at bars and stuff
I have created those. I tweaked the Remo Silentstroke mesh heads. I will send you a picture if you give me your email address.
David Grundel athan_troquille@icloud.com
@@davidgrundel4151 here's my email address: jay.jirka@gmail.com please, send me the photo. Thanks!
@@davidgrundel4151 danielkchoi8@gmail.com would love to see what you came up with
David Grundel i would love to see man!!! Sanderthenoob@gmail.com
This saved me. They use Remo ss at lessons, and thought they were perfect. When I installed them at home they were too quiet and the snare had no resonance. I put an X on each head with beige masking tape I already had on hand and the sound is just right.
Great tip. Life saver.
Thank you, Dave from over 5 years ago. Hope you're still doing great! This is a fantastic suggestion, and it's made my drumming practice much more enjoyable.
Man this is great! I am playing on a farmer foot drum and the bass drum is almost totally silent. This has helped level the volume a lot.
nice trick.. It also helps to tune the resonance head really high. Much higher than you ever would with a normal head. This adds a bit more tone to your tom.
I actually found that having the lugs for the resonant heads barely tightened worked best. Especially the floor tom.
Amazing! This is a GREAT tip. I just bought a Tama Star Bubinga kit, which I LOVE and has absolutely gorgeous tone. I've been holding off putting on the silent strokes because I hate losing that beautiful tone when I'm practicing. This sounds like I would get some of that back if I continue to tweak it and figure out how to get the right sound coming out of it using tape.
Another person suggested putting the remo mufflers underneath each head to get more resonance out of the toms. From your assessment that blocking air holes is what creates more tension and gives tone back, this is probably why it's able to get more tone again. I'll try both and see how they work out. Once again, thank you! Great pro tip!
Drumming for only 3 months, just bought a used pearl roadshow for $300 and changed out all the heads to SS's... this is great!
Glad I saw this tip. I had this roll of decals which I used. It does make the toms sound realer, but my low volume cymbals are still 25 times louder than the drums are.
That makes a huge difference! I bought some Pintech Mesh Head Savers to increase the durability, but found that they add a small amount of tone to the drums. Without the Pintech the snare strainer had to be super tight to get a snare sound, but with the Pintech it allowed me to leave the strainer tension where it normally is. This tape trick will be my new way to add tone. Way cheaper! My practice and small venue setup uses the Remo SilentStrokes, Zildjian L80s, and the new Yamaha EAD10. The ambient sound is very low, but the EAD10 makes the kit into a hybrid allowing me to feed the kit into the PA. Total control and a ton of drums sets to choose from using the EAD brain. It's like an electronic drum brain, but includes the bass trigger with mics built-in. Additional riggers can be added if needed. It's a perfect practice kit. The band loves it.
Thanks for posting! I will be running to Home Depot today. Really made a big change to the tone! I think you could actually play these in a small acoustic gig with the Low Volume 80 Cymbals.
And I thought the silent stroke was something you did when you didn't want to get caught.
Great tip. Thanks for sharing.👍
I geus Remo owes you one for this tip. They could produce a silent stroke with a round patch in the middle that with variable sizes. This would also have a better feel and would get rid of the 'scrubbing' effect the sticks can have on the mesh. Maybe i will try and cut out a patch from some other drumskin and glue it in the middle of the mesh head. Thanks, simple things ar often the greatest idea's.
WOW that's really cool, I have the silent strokes and recently bought a Yamaha EAD 10, it will be interesting to see how this sounds recorded with this trick
Awesome man, thanks for the tip. Put some silentstokes on my set recently and I loved them but they sounded a little too flat, this made them sound so much better.
Also want to point out you can buy white masking tape which looks a little better on the drums than standard blue masking tape.
Sounds good. Nice trick. Wouldn’t have thought that would make that big of a difference
Outstanding suggestion and demonstration. Thank you! I had been practicing with rods for years because of the neighbors and just added Remo SS and Zildjian L80s to my 6-piece 1965 BOP Ludwig kit but was disappointed that the Remo SS sounded too quiet and with no tone. Slightly restricting the airflow with painter's (masking) tape is brilliant and it generated a number of additional great hacks from the Comments. (Drummers are smarter!) Painter's tape may not stick to the head as well as other types of tape over time, but it leaves no residue so the Remo heads remain pristine. Still, I'll experiment with Remo Muff L Rings (which I already have) to see how they affect the volume and tone and see (hear) if they provide a more permanent solution. Thanks again, Dave! Much appreciated you sharing this!
Did the rings work the same as the masking tape? I was wondering what sound you’ll get by using “big fat snare drum” on top 🤔
Great Idea, great presentation! With that you have a very versatile kit.
oh man. you are brilliant! i thought this would be some cheap hack but it actually puts it close to a real drum!
this is friggin awesome! what a world of a difference
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This simple little idea opens a whole range of possibilities on a drum head I thought was squarely a practice head and nothing else. Placing tape on all silent drum heads improves the sound so much that they could certainly be used on quiet acoustic gigs with sticks, rather than regular heads with rods, which is what I have been to quell my drum volume. Can't wait to try them now with the band!
What does the Silentstroke head sound like with the deadening ring? Seems that might work good.
Doesn't change the sound as much. The closer you place extra material to the edge the less tone alteration you get. You need to have it closer to the center where you hit the drum
Simple, clever solution, Sir. I've been unclear on whether a kit equipped with these heads could be practical for recording, or whether they're strictly for low volume practice. I think I'm seeing how they can be made to eke much of a drums harmonic content while keeping volume really low. I could get much use out of a low volume drumkit/cymbals rig which retains enough of the drums' essential sound to mic it up for doing trax. I can play my normally rigged kit without worrying too much, but I'd like to get super-violent on them, a la Keith Moon or Rat Scabies, if I wanted to. Lol. Hmm. I think it's coming together re my questions re all of this, and this vid actually served as a main stepping stone toward my reaching an understanding on that, and, so, Thank You very much! 👍😺 You're doing a nice and information-filled service toward home hobbyists such as myself especially. I like that this kind of stuff is appearing which is a happy medium between the purpose of an electronic kit and that of a full nuclear-bomb drumkit...a drumkit is astonishingly loud, lol. Because what I'd ideally like is a real-sounding, usable drumkit which is still old-school acoustic, and I'd like to be able to really bash and pound on it if I wished. And using compressors and plugin tube enhancers can fatten the sound to where the end result would be much the same as a full volume kit, that isn't a worry. I just want the dampened kit to be similar enough to the standard outlay to be totally as useful for recording trax at home as a standard kit.
For decades, it's been not an uncommon thing in studios to mic up small Fender Champs and practice amps... it's well known that Jimmy Page was already employing this recording hack for guitar, especially during the sessions which wound up including the songs settled upon for inclusion in Zep's 1st album. If small amps can be beefed up via tech means to result in tracks which one could be easily forgiven for supposing they're listening to walls of Hiwatt stacks, then surely a similar approach could imbue a low volume drumkit rig with all the power and soundage one could hope for insofar as the result in a song being quite viable. Different. More extreme compression settings which make things sound huger than life would sort that out readily. I'm thinking this whole thing may even have the proportions of being a groundbreaking thing, and could become a common way of doing things in most studios. Interesting points to roll around in my head, hmm.
Greets from Texas.
Evans DB One Low volume heads use a similar idea. With a Mylar dot in the middle. I haven’t personally tried them, but I’ve heard they also play more like an acoustic head, rather than a mesh head.
Sounds very good for such a small change
Such a simple idea but brilliant! I already have the full L80 set and will be getting silent strokes for my 8 piece Pearl SRX. Will give this hack a go 👊
Incredible! What a difference.
i actually put 3 lines of packaging tape on my snare drum with Remo silentstroke (Pearl Compact Traveler) and it was perfect for acoustic jam in the house
They allow air thru? I had not heard that mentioned elsewhere! And then the sound can be altered additively, opposed to subtractively! Wow! What a great observation! I will use this! Thanks.
Wow!! This is amazing!! Thanks for sharing!! Love this idea!!! I was looking for something like this!!!
that is awesome dave! I have a drumkit with Remo SS and Z L80 on it, used in a jam room with great acoustics,(it;s a dome) and power soaks on all the amplifiers (keep the volume down) regular drums were just too loud, but i wanted a little more volume out of the SS heads. this looks like the perfect thing. also could balance the volume between them and the cymbals better. gonna get some painter's tape and experiment! thanks!
That's great, also, if you use a single ply head with no muffling on the bottom you'll get even more tone.
Great thinking Dave! Thank You!!
I just purchased a new set and put these on. They do a good job at reducing the sound level, and the the floor toms actually sound pretty good. The snare and the bass drum are still a problem... The bass drum has no bottom end and the snare sounds tiny compared to the rest on the kit. I have tried a couple different tunings in hopes of improvement. I have the Zildjian low-volume cymbals and I hear more hi hat than snare. Adding tape has helped some, but I also tried a Remo Flam Slam kevlar patch on them... it's getting there. hopefully Remo (as well as other manufacturers) are working on a fix.
That pretty awesome! I have been putting a strip of gaffe tape on them in the middle to give a less bouncy feel. Thanks for sharing!
does it stay on though?
A big big big thanks for this tip
Awesome tip I can definitely hear the difference
That sounds pretty cool. I'll definitely try that. Thanks!
Nice Video! It really helped me for my low volume snare
I just got these silent stroke heads and wanted to see if I could get something in between. I found these Aquarian DuraDots that definitely give you some tone and volume back.
Very nice work. Ive heard that miking these drums with SS heads installed sounds great with overhead mikes.
Awesome. That's it , I'm getting some. Thanks for the demo.
Works great thanks for the tip
ok, this is really good, thank you
I will try this on my kit with Meshheads tomorow.
Thanks for the tip :D
THANK YOU SO MUCH! GREAT IDEA!
Oh hell yeah, that should help, I wanted a little more side.
Awesome advice! Thanks so much!
WOW!! Thank you so much this was so helpful
Thanks a lot for this, this helped me a lot!
May be playing on a set with these at an audition. I think I'll bring a roll of the painters tape.
I can removeit when done as painters tape 99% of the time comes off without issue
Sweet video man, will definitely try this 👌🏻
Awesome trick man will be trying
I just got Silent Stroke heads so tried using painter's tape & it works pretty well, particularly for the snare and floor tom. You sacrifice a bit of resonance but get more tone. So Dave, have you tried using gaffer's tape? Based on your experimentation, does there seem to be an optimal percentage of the drum head to cover with tape?
Thanks so much, what a great idea. It definitely helps.
Thank you so much for sharing!
I need these! I have a small hybrid kit and what less false triggering. This must be the answer. :)
Great video. Thanks for the info...
I wish you would have added the Evans sound ring to that head for a comparison.
Frank, the plastic ring bounces around on the silent stroke head and has no acoustic effect.
Extremely helpful! Thank you. Did you happen to notice a change in volume when you did this or just tone? My drums are packed up for moving right now so I can't experiment with this yet.
Yes, volume changes drastically, too. My main goal for doing it was to adjust the volume of my drums to match with my Zildjian Low Volume cymbals. You can dial in any volume you want by adding more or less tape.
Great discovery!
Great video!
Thank you for this perfect solution!!
Hey man! First of all: Thanks for this video. I play often in small churches, where my drumset is a big problem with the volume. So I watched your video and was thinking about putting on the Silentstroke on my drums an micing them. Do you know if this could work, beside the loss of some sound? Also, does your trick work with the kick head, too?
you can get a better sound just using cool rods, hot rods and brushes
Great idea, thanks Dave! I'm going to try this with my silent strokes as I would like a bit more volume.
One question: Does the blue painters tape ever lift off the SS heads due to their flexible nature?
I haven't had any issues with it lifting off. If it does you could explore using a tape with a more aggressive adhesive, such as duck tape. Give it a try.
I tried it with Pearl Mesh heads and painters tape doesn't want to stick. Which stinks because I'd need to put this on the bottom of the head or my son will rip it off. I've thought about, but haven't tried yet, stacking mesh over a mylar head with everything cut out but a ring of some experimentally determined thickness.
I realize I’m commenting on a old video but I’m curious what happens when you put the damping ring on the silent stroke. Anything?
He thanks for sharing this. Realy great🙏.
I have a question that maybe you or anyone else can help me with. I tried the tape like you showed in your video and indeed that made a big difference. Just that little diffinition in sound that i was looking for. Only when i put tape or paper on my meshheads it also creates some kind of rattle or click (forgive me my bad english) which distorts the definition of the sound eighter.
Has anyone expeienced this?
I have 2ply meshheads and i was thinking that it maybe could be that because of the air is blocked by the tape, the two individual layers of mesh are ratteling on eachother because of the air inbetween them.
Groetjes!🙂
Same here, it is indeed an annoying sound! The 2 plies makes them a bit louder by themselves, I wonder if just 1 ply and the tape would work better
Great video, I started out with just the top heads and re-added the bottom ones for some tone. I'll try this and see of it gets better without further raising volume. It's ironic that the tape usually damps stuff, here it does the opposite.
What if you put the ring instead of tape?
great. now I know that's what I need. thanks for the advice .
O-U-T-S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G suggestion. Thank you. Do you have any pointers on tuning those Remo SilentStroke heads?
hhyperdd, I have one mounted Tom and one floor Tom. I don't really worry about the tuning on my silent strike heads. But, for my regular heads, I tune those a perfect 1/5 apart, for example 12" tom tuned to an A, and my 14" floor Tom tuned to a D. (d,e,f,g,a = 5 notes apart)
I appreciate your response more than you know. Thank you.
Genius! Thanks for the tip.
Great video, very helpful. I want to transition from my electronic kit to a quiet acoustic. I have no issues with neighbours even though I practice first thing in the morning, so am a little worried about upsetting the status quo by making the change.
My kit has rubber pads which sound like hitting a phone book or of course a practice pad. I have been looking at a pearl rhythm traveller or a pearl midtown, plus silent strokes and l80 cymbals. The midtown looks like the nicer kit, but the rt I think may be quieter because of shallower shells and no resonant heads.
Obviously I would prefer the midtown for the sounds, but there's no point buying something I can't play because it's too loud.
I practice in my conservatory, concrete floor and no bedroom directly above. I also live in a detached house, although the neighbours are only 10 feet away.
Sorry for the long post, but any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tom
Tom, I’m a Gretsch guy, so I’d recommend a Catalina Club - even a used one. But, the choice is yours. I bought a Catalina as a practice set and am impressed by the sound. I actually use it when gigging outdoors when I’m concerned the weather might mess up my USA Customs. Whatever brand you choose, I’d stay away from drums with only a batter head. Get a real set that you can also gig with. Lastly, before you buy the silent strokes, take a look at these:
ruclips.net/video/wt-ygMn0Kec/видео.html
I haven’t used them but I’m going to look into them too.
You sir are a genius
I wouldn’t go that far, but thank you for the compliment.
WhT happens if you put the Evans sound ring on the silent stroke?
Rick Malone, it bounces around and has no impact
probably a dumb question but does this significantly raise the volume levels?
You sound like Stanton Moore .. Gretsch Drums too 👌🏼
Sydney Drums seriously I thought the same thing his voice sounds like Stanton
Great idea, managed to get some of this tape in 2" wide and used on my SS heads...any idea what kind of tension you've got on this head? Crank them up to around 75 using drumdial (where you'd have normal skins), far too tight, mine are now around 55. Still too much bounce on the BD.
I know this is 4 years old but how tight did you settle on them? Only been drumming for 3 months, got a used kit for $300 and just changed the heads to SS... I just learned how to swap them out and tune but still not sure how tight they should be. Did you find the 2 inch tape work? Painters or masking or does it not make a difference?
@@larkins621 quite slack actually otherwise they have a lot of rebound which isn’t realistic. Any tape will do, needs some stick otherwise it comes off the skins easily. I used blue decorators tape, but gaffer tape would also work, have now taken it off as I don’t need the extra tone.
@@larkins621 oh and I’ve changed the SS heads on snare and bass drum for black hole heads, more realistic.
Awesome!!! Thanks for the tip!\
Happy ! thank you...very cool idea
Would gaff tape work as an alternative? Great video by the way!
It works great.
Thank you for this video, I appreciate it. I'm not trying to be rude, but it seems there is alot of tension on that silentstroke.
What kind of tension can the 14" head take on a snare drum? Thank you!
Do you think the silent stroke heads would be ok to use if you live in an apartment or do you think it still may be too loud?
Mark Adams, they're as quiet as hitting pads. Same as playing a Roland electronic set with mesh heads. You'll be fine. You should look into getting zildjian L80 low volume cymbals.
Thanks for the advice Dave I miss playing drums now I can play you made my day.
Mark Adams i take drum lessons in a small room with many other music rooms very close by so we have to keep it quiet in there and i use these heads with the zildjian l80s and i have to say its not as quiet as an electronic kit but its pretty quiet, if neighbors are what youre concerned about u should be fine
What kind of tape did you use? I put a silver tape on my silent head and I heard a click like a "tick tick" of the tape in contact to the head. Anyway, thank you for your tip! Very helpful!
viinniicius, use a lightweight painters tape (masking tape)
nice trick! Thanks for sharing that
Simple and brilliant. Thans a lot :D
Thank you so much!
its a clever idea , what class of drum heads you use back ( in the bottom side )
Niceeeeee!!! thanks Dave!!
That's awesome!
Check out this review on other mesh heads. ruclips.net/video/smj5-bfBaPM/видео.html
I’m going to try the drum-tec “real feel heads. They may be just right for a quieter head that work for practicing and live playing.
How does the reso-ring on the Silentstroke head compare to the tape method?
How much tension or lug turns to use with the Remo silent strokes
Brilliant!
Could also use a felt strip
do you have a link for this tape? every tape i have in my house it gets less sticky with a couple of minutes of use
Great video!
Thank you!
Thats crazy! Does this effect the volume level too? or just the tone?
how would silent stroke sound with the ring on????
They certainly sound better, but does not doing that also make them louder? I take silentstrokes for what they are, practice heads. Don't really see the point of wanting them to sound any good by sacrificing their quiteness.
oh my golly genius! thnx!!
what type of tape do you use? its important please reply!1!!