Bass Drum Rebound Explained - How to Not Bury
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- Опубликовано: 22 сен 2024
- Some discussion on allowing your bass drum beater to rebound from the head naturally. It works with or without a spring, if you let it. Obviously, use a spring in real life... its easier. Works in any technique and with any settings.
Thank you so much Ryan for this video. Answered all my doubts. I am one of those who push down. Gotta practice now...
Just the video I needed. I've only been playing for 2 months. I can't get away from burying the beater. It's a great time for me to learn this. I play heel up. I've never tried playing heel down as most videos I've seen recommend heel up.
Heel down has benefits and drawbacks, like anything. So does heel up. There’s no single answer.
Thank you for this Ryan! (I call you by the first name as if I know you, but this is actually the first video I ever see of you, internet rules man... I can lie if I want)
But yeah, really being all serious and stuff, I actually think that I just had a click in my brain because of this video.
It's about why I suck at playing double bass pedals, rudiments with feet, fast tempos, everything really.
Even tho I do know how to play well, and how to play with the band and not against the band as some people are doing.
I also would consider myself a fairly technical drummer, but that does not involve my left leg. Yeah, I didn't mention yet, but I lead with the right foot, as most drummers do.
But there is one particularly curious thing that has happened throughout my sessions with anyone I have played for.
Every single engineer I have ever worked with always say the same thing after I'm done with a drum part and get into the control room.
They even all have that same kind of a smug weird look on their faces, I've actually grown to expect it:
Then they say that my bass drum sounds heavy. And that its a good thing. (apparently, most beginner, novice and intermediate drummers play really soft, and it needs to be adjusted after the recording, in post-production)
I never understood it back then. I would just feel like it was a huge compliment you know, I would just feel so good about myself and my playing abilities that I just always shrugged it off, then said something in the likeness to "yeah that's how I play the drums, man." I now know why I should have paid more attention to it.
The reason why engineers and sound people, well, studio people, liked what I was doing, was because years and years earlier, I taught myself how the drums work.
I found out on my own that I was tighter and could get a bigger sound out of a bass drum by burying the beater down with the force of my entire leg on the head of the bass drum.
Now when I think about that it's just ridiculous. Its something like 15 - 20% of my body weight :D :D :D
But even I myself, have to give myself a break here. Because I was teaching myself a technique. And well, even though it is essentially bad, and it limits you in the long run.
I still got all those compliments right?
I mean, I can do some pretty technical stuff on my leading foot, but its the other one that is the problem.
It's so used to beating off that hihat that it does not have any technique beyond quarters and eights...
Well I can only hope someone understood anything I just said, but my point here, and what it really comes down to is that I just now, after almost 15 years of playing the drums, got an epiphany about how to play the bass drum pedal, and I am now hundreds of kilometers away from my drum kit...
Well anyways thank you, Ryan Alexander Bloom! And I will have an update as soon as I get to somewhere that is equipped with a bass drum pedal and I can try to understand this better.
Patrik M I get what you’re saying. Yeah. Lots of people (like guitar players) whine when drummers hit hard but engineers love it because it gives them a solid signal to work with. Studio guys typically don’t hold back in volume at all. You can play loud with lots of techniques, burying isn’t necessary.
Hello Ryan.
This is another thank you comment for this upload. Also, your video on seating position is great follow-up.
For anyone that needs additional follow-up, I had to adjust how I sit on the throne in order to stop burying the beater. I was sitting with my glutes over the center, but from videos I watched (another vid from this channel, and explanation from Thomas Lang, Eugene Ryabchenko and others) you want your core over the center of the throne, and your butt may hang out the back a little. So, this means the Roc-N-Soc throne that I used to use does not suffice optimal seating. Time to get a round one. If our quads are completely hanging, that means we’re sitting wrong.
Anyway, that adjustment made not burying the beater more natural.
I still have an occasional ghost hit, but I think will be cleaned up over time with the adjustment.
Also, for any deathcore fans: Eugene Ryabchenko, Jesse Beahler, Adam Björk, most of those swivel gods do not bury the beater.
Once again, thank you for the videos on ergonomics.
✌🏾
Dude you really helped me. I'm almost a year trying to avoid that over bouncy that happens when i play the bass drum. Sorry if it was a bit confuse, my english is not that good but anyways, this video really helped me!
I've been burying the head cause all me weight has been on my legs due to bad Throne position. I didn't know this was wrong and most likely the cause of the weird bass flam sounding hits i get often on my ekit. Thank you for this video and teaching me this!!
That happens a lot. Very common, very rarely acknowledged.
Practicing without a spring is one of the exercises Jojo Mayer recommends in his second DVD in the constant release section. If you can't do it without the spring at first, he recommends using a rubber band instead. Then you start doing only 8th notes non-stop at first, then without stopping go from heel down to heel up, heel toe, and so on. Of course, the intent of the exercise is not so much working on playing out of the bass drum, but switching seamlessly between all foot techniques.
CrimSun interesting. Never seen Jojo do it, but of course it’s not surprising that he advocates it, and I don’t practice this way normally. I tried it out on basically just a whim and some rumors and turns out it’s easy if you know how to play with rebound in the first place. The thing I’m a bit scared of is people using this to justify their extremely loose spring tension. I can hear it now, “I don’t need a spring at all so if you use a tighter spring setting you just suck at drums.” Yeah, no. Spring tension is still helpful even if you can kind of play with out it. I can see this getting twisted in dumb people though.
@@RyanAlexanderBloom Well, you also have the advocates of the other way around. George Kollias and the late John Blackwell set their pedals with the spring as tight as it can go and I believe Kollia's signature Axis already comes with the hardest springs Axis sells and he still cranks the tension all the way up.
The problem with setting your spring tension too low is that you lose dynamic range, especially on a loose bass drum head. The need to wind up more also can cause you to "tap" the head before each stroke as well.
CrimSun dude, I hate the double tap. When students do that in my studio I just have to stop the lesson and address it immediately.
My base pedal makes that clanking sound drives me nuts I tried raising the foot pedal but didn’t like the feel of it
Thanks for this! Very helpful!
Is it possible to do slide technique with no burying the beater? Every video i see they are burying it but say don't. Confused
I think it is possible but it’s tough to get the timing just right to get a nice double and still rebound that second stroke.
So the ideal method is to not bury the head and allow the beater to fall back to default?
Yes, from a technical perspective. If you really enjoy the sound of burying you can do it, but if you can’t stop doing it when you want, that’s a problem. I’ve known many people who cannot rebound at all. These people have trouble with certain things because they are completely limited to one way of doing things.
Are you able to do heel up slide technique without burying the beater?
Yes, although it’s tempting to bury because it would be so easy to do so.
I bury the beater and would like to improve my technique. However, it seems the only comfortable relaxed position for my kick drum leg is to leave my foot resting on the kick pedal such that the beater is in contact with the kick drum; I'm finding that I need to raise my leg slightly to allow space for the pedal to rise enough so that the beater isn't on the drum which is uncomfortable after a few minutes of playing. Is this because I'm not used to it or does it sound like there is there something else up with my technique or posture? Thanks!
Obviously I’m just taking a wild guess here, but it sounds like you need to get weight off your feet. Your throne should carry like 99% of your weight, leaving your feet free to play. If you’re overcoming the spring tension and burying all the time you should probably adjust your throne or adjust how your posture/balance on the throne is distributed. ruclips.net/video/pKfJGocuDgU/видео.html this video should help.
@@RyanAlexanderBloom thanks, I took a look at that video and it was really useful! I have a motorcycle style throne and I'm wondering if, even if my centre of gravity is running down through the centre of the throne, the leg cut-aways mean there's not enough support for the thighs which causes there being too much weight on the leg? I'm 6'5" - any other considerations for those who are tall? Thanks again.
@@theRossernator I never liked that style of throne for that exact reason. they are comfortable but I never thought they were effective for actually playing well. Once I was forced to play on one and I just turned it around backwards and used the round side as the front. The only thing specific to height I can think of is just to make sure you're high enough. I'm 6'1" and I rarely see anyone with their throne close to as high as I need it. regardless of how tall they actually are.
I'm not really understanding why it's bad to burry the beater? When I just started drumming, I drummed like this. I say to my teacher my feet got tired and he let me see some foot techniques like heel down an heel up. Since then I play most of the time heel up. Only with practicing I try to play heel up and down, just for foot technique. But the "not burry the beater" thing is not very clear for me. So what I ask: what is the most important reason to not burry the beater?
Really it’s because it slows you down a lot. You have to start a stroke from off the head. If the beater is on the head, you have to remove it before you can play. Backward then forward again. This must always happen right before any new note you want, Making any note a 2 step process. Rebounding, just like with your sticks, means the beater comes off the head on its own after every note. You dont have to do anything extra. then you’re already prepared for a new note later. No extra step. 1 step process.
Hi Ryan, thanks for this video!
When playing heel up how could I keep weight from the pedal when there is a pause between two strokes? Lift my leg? It makes me crazy because my new 16“ bass drum sounds horrible when burrying the beater because it flutters exlemly.
Thank you fpr any help
Chris
If your pedal “naturally” buries when you rest on it, most likely you need to re-evaluate how your body is positioned on the throne and where the throne is in relation to your pedals. I have videos about this on my channel, but basically I’m going to guess that you need to commit more of your body weight to the throne instead of to your feet. This may mean leaning slightly back and/or sliding yourself farther back on the throne surface and/or adjusting the distance from throne to pedals.
Thanks, I will try about this.
I just read the post about the motorcycle throne which I‘m using as well. Maybe I should get my old round one back out of the corner and find out, if there us a difference.
Use that flutter to your advantage
Maybe it will sound silly but I was wondering if it was still possible to do heel-toe with out burying ? I mean I realised that I'm not able (not yet anyways) to get those heel-toe doubles with out burying in the first place.
I’m not a heel to expert but I think it depends on what type of “heel toe” you’re doing. I recently learned there are 3 or maybe 4 versions... the internet is really not a good place to figure out the difference between them. But anyway some look like rebound is easy and maybe necessary. Others not so much.
Thanks for the info!
You sure can use heel toe without burying the beater. In fact it is the best way to articulate them imo.
@@benking9160 I'll work on it then, thank you
No worries the best tip I could give you is DON'T start in the heel up position with the beater resting on the head. Instead, start with your foot in a relaxed position with the beater AWAY from the head and with the ball of your foot roughly two 3rds of the way up the pedal. When you want to play a double using heel toe raise your ankle and leg SLIGHTLY and then drop as you normally would to execute a heel toe double. Most importantly RETURN to the RELAXED STARTING POSITION BY ALLOWING THE BEATER TO BOUNCE OFF THE HEAD. Your foot will naturally catch the rebound. There are endless possibilities and you will find out your own way.
Any specific heads up on mute (nylon) meshs ? I'm struggling a bit to practice on those.
IVAN in my limited experience those provide an unrealistically high level of rebound. They’re good for your hands, as in they don’t cause a lot of shock or fatigue, but they’re not very lifelike. You get some weird habits practicing on them too much.
Ryan Alexander Bloom I got them for the bassdrum ; and for me they're completely "dead" not only reboundless but mushy; it is good in a way coz I'll learn not to bury so much but not so confident for long run technique development... I assume you have not tried the bassdrum ones right ?
They're great for the sound aspect but tricky....
IVAN no I guess not. I’ve played them for other drums and also I’ve played the bass drum mesh pads for e-drums like Roland. So apparently that’s not similar.
Adding a patch to the contact point of the beater should help a bit. Another thing you can do is add tape to the head, that makes it a bit louder, but allows you to get it closer feeling-wise. Granted that if you play out of the bass drum, that rebound is nothing to worry about, as you know how to control it.
alright thanks!
Yeah I tend to bury more often than not -- I found my performance would be tighter. Pretty sure I am tightening my calves up ... I desperately need to clean up my pedals before I start practicing this however ... priorities!
I’d like to see you do this with demonstrations of consecutive doubles, single to double variations(barracuda, immigrant song etc.) in context(while playing the full kit, maybe on a gig ya know real time).
Yeah, nah. If you mean play that stuff without springs, it takes too much focus. I do the springless strokes to make a point, not because that’s actually a good idea to take the spring off and try to play for real.
@@RyanAlexanderBloom sorry actually meant with the spring on
@@ddrummer1821 oh, ok well then you just want drum covers of barracuda and immigrant song? That’s more realistic. I can’t guarantee it will happen… but sure the idea is good.
@@RyanAlexanderBloom Here's the thing I've seen only two dudes NOT bury the beater while doing consecutive doubles or single to double combinations at a medium and fast tempo (LIKE IN immigrant song or barracuda). If you're going to say people cop out on burying the beater then I'd like to see you demonstrate and show those things(single to double combos and consecutive doubles) AND in a groove context. You'd actually be helping a lot more because as you know it's not really applicable to being doing slow single strokes letting the beater rebound off. That's all well in good but like Bruce said "boards don't hit back" ; )
@@ddrummer1821 Hmm. I personally don't think those two songs are particularly hard. I don't bury while playing them, and just because my family is out of town and I have time to myself, I've recorded you a couple bars of each so you can see my kick pedal. Not the whole songs, or even big pieces... but rest assured I can do it all day long. I'll upload it today. Check my channel in like 15 minutes, or whenever after that you see this. The fact that you don't see people not burying is probably because they don't know how not to, or like the sound of it. Or both. Not because its in any way beneficial to this type of groove.
Sir that's good but when I kick my leg is paining is there any solution for this?
Where does it hurt? What technique are you using?
Sir my upper part of the leg
And IAM using heelup technique sir
It don't hurt always. When I play more faster. It begins to pain
Because I wanna always lift my leg up
Can't really see the bottom of your feet man. But it's a good video
I can do both but I bury it because I'm to lazy to lift my leg lol
That’s funny because it takes effort for me to bury, being lazy for me means rebounding because that’s what naturally happens when I play.
@@RyanAlexanderBloom maybe it's my fat legs lol