Does Shell Material Make a Big Sound Difference? - A Drum Dog Sound Comparison
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- Опубликовано: 3 авг 2024
- We took a trip to our friends at @RubixDrumStudios to check out some of the stunning gear they have there. Amongst their many kits lay these stunning Canopus kits, each with the same sizes in different woods...
In this sound comparison we're setting out to discover how much difference the shell material makes to the overall sound! We'll be putting 3 kits head to head, each with the exact same heads and sizes but different woods!
-Canopus Birch
-Canopus Ash
-Canopus R.F.M (Maple)
Each in 'Studio' sizes of 20x15", 12x8" and 14x13"
For more in-depth lessons on all things drumming, check out our site where you can explore full-length lesson packs! - drum.dog
Contents (Quick Navigation):
0:00 - Introduction
1:43 - Birch
2:41 - Maple
3:33 - Ash
4:28 - Direct Individual Comparison
6:56 - Our Thoughts
8:42 - Vintage Soul Snare
Gear Featured:
Canopus Birch Studio Kit - 20x15", 12x8", 14x13"
Canopus R.F.M Studio Kit - 20x15", 12x8" and 14x13"
Canopus Ash Studio Kit - 20x15", 12x8" and 14x13"
Vintage Soul 14x8" Snare
Vintage Soul 20" Ride
Vintage Soul 18" Crash
Zildjian K 14" Hats
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Видеоклипы
These differences are so so so incredibly damn subtle. Keep in mind drums are for being mixed into music, if a drummer can barely tell the difference in this video on the subject, how the hell would anyone be able to notice any bit of these differences in a song
I’ve always liked the sound of maple, and this video has reaffirmed that for me. I find it to be a cleaner sound with less ringing. But the differences are subtle.
The attack on the ash kit is insane
That intro was gold lmao
Yeah for a second I thought I was on the orange youtube lol
After hearing this great comparison, my only conclusion is: forget about the different woods. Just get yourself a Canopus kit and you will always sound ultimately inspiring 🤘🤘
That being said, I happen to own currently Sonolites (birch), Phonics (beech), S Class maples, Yamaha Oak customs and a self-made acrylic kit 🤣🤣
1$t. Opinion: multiple variables. Heads, hoops, mounts, shell hardware all play roles. Density, hardness and thickness of any drumshell is critical, because this is the actual acoustic chamber that amplifies and 'flavors' the sound. Thin shelled drums sound and respond differently than thick shells.
However, greater mass overall means you have to use more muscle power to excite that mass into vibration.
Fascinating subject, and great vid as always guys.
The finish also affects the resonance. The more paint/lacquer on the shell, less resonance.
You guys are amazing for doing this!
Birch kicks are so versatile, but geez the Ash kicks are such cannons. To me, the 20” ash kicks have a lot of attack, but a sub low that makes them sound larger than they are.
Great video guys. For the most part, with the shells being one type of wood, you really can’t hear much of a difference. I think that when you start mixing woods together, thus making hybrid shells, is when the magic starts to happen! Some of the best sounding drums are hybrids. Tama B/B and W/B, Ludwig Legacy Maple, actually a hybrid shell, Mapex Saturn and Armory, and the list goes on. DW has also proven that you can alter the sound of a drum by messing with the configuration of the plies.
I hear it as birch has a more dry sound, shorter decay. Maple sounds more lively, and sure those drums might be tuned higher, but think i hear a longer decay in maple. Ash had more high frequency punch. The room make a huge difference too, I find birch kits sound best with close microphones and small rooms, maple kits do better in large rooms with no microphones. Another very interesting video! And don’t be hard on yourselves p, different drums like different tunings.
Birch! I think also the main reason for the great success of Yamaha's Recording Custom
They all sound fantastic,I don't think canopus builds a bad drum.they focus on quality and sound.great drums.
Great content!
These are all great sounding kits, but I liked the tone of the Maple kit the best. The Birch rack tom had a bit of a growl that I didn't like, where the Maple tom was a bit cleaner sounding, with a pleasant pitch bend as the tom fades out! The Maple bass drum also sounded the best to my ears, with less overtones, which are probably from a tom ringing rather than from the bass drum itself! The Ash kit sounded very bright and looked awesome!
Thank you guys. A very interesting experiment. Each different timber speaks for it self. Mapel is right in the middle. Shalom.
Thanks for watching
For the drummer, maple is very pleasing to the ears when sitting behind the kit, they sound nice and fat and warm, and that's why people love maple so much. Birch sounds great too behind the kit, but in a different way. With birch you get that nice attack with that luscious low end and they speak less in the mids. BUT, to the audience and what comes out through the front house, birch kills it and is the best in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, if you have a good sound man that knows what he is doing, maple can sound great through the front house, but it just does not touch birch. There is less EQing to do with birch drums..especially if you have ever had the pleasure of mixing in a set of recording customs. Man those drums are amazing, you hardly have to touch anything on the mixer, all the channels can be kept pretty much flat and they just sound perfect. I have seen and heard a lot of sound men with no real talent/ears that don't know how to EQ maple drums properly. So, when sitting behind the kit..maple sounds amazing. But what comes through the front house, birch all day every day!
impressed with the ash... beech wood missing in my opinion , great job guys
We agree, @dragobotica! Beech would have been a great addition for comparison. Keeping it in mind for future tests. Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed the comparison!
Nice content 👍🏻
I think I liked the birch mostly, I currently only have maple drum sets and I've put some thought into getting another birch set again.
Ive been really curious about Ash but not enough to actually get a set, I can't recall for certain if I've ever played an ash set before.
All 3 woods offer great sound. I could record, play on tv, or tour live with any of these 3 sets. To my ears, maple has a slight edge, but the difference is too subtle to be concerned about.
All 3 sound great.
Great comparison video. (Could have done without the ride and crash cymbals.) I never herd an Ash kit before and was really impressed. I did hear a difference in all kits but they were small.
What were the bearing edges on each kit.
Oriollo drums is challenging all the wood theoricians of the drums manufacture while giving a favor to the trees 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
i liked the birch. the maple had more pitch bend in the sustain. the ash sounded identical to maplw withput the pitch bend
My $418 5-pc Yamaha Rydeen poplar shell kit sound as these do.
maple is always a little bit brighter versus many other woods, for all type of situations where there is a vibrating string or head against it. it's subtle though and easily compensated for by other factors. This is why plastic, metal, fiberglass, etc... all work and can make great sounding drums.
The difference in the maple kit sounds like the difference from the re-rings rather than a difference in wood. The ash & birch seemed nearly identical. Any variance I heard could have easily just been a difference in mic placement before a discernible "wood difference." This tells me that, all hardware and bearing-edges being equal, wood is all about "psycho acoustics." If you were hearing differences, they were too small for the mic to pick up reliably. Anyone who thinks they could hear the difference in wood on a kit (once again, assuming identical hardware/heads/edges/tuning) through a live-show PA is insane.
To me, the difference in sound is so slight, it's hard to tell at some points which drum is which. I wonder how much you get of the differences in wood when playing with other instruments. Does it really stand out while playing something like Mastadon or Foo Fighters? What about when you put it through a mic, do you lose some of the qualities there too?
Can’t go wrong with any Canopus!!! Mt Choice get yourself an RFM
The things that factor in the drum sound are, bearing edges, depth and heads, that's it .. what type of bearing edges were in these ?
Differences in the sound of shell materials for a RUclips video typically aren’t going to be drastic. A lot of information is lost in a recording. However, the differences can be very obvious to the player, depending on their sensitivity and experience. The tactile response of PLAYING the different types of drums is rarely talked about in these types of videos, and is a major way of determining and perceiving the differences. I’ve played dozens of kits with all sorts of shells over the last 38 years and I can confidently say they’re all different enough to matter what I would spend my money on. For example, my feelings are neutral when it comes to the sound of maple, but I dislike the feel. It’s a constant, no matter what brand, and how many plies, etc. I always seem to like blended wood shells with a mix of harder and softer woods. It’s not a placebo effect at this point. I love these types of videos, but I understand I’m only getting a small fraction of the reality.
Curious. What was the interval relationship between the top and bottom heads? Regardless, my preference was for the birch kit.
I greatly appreciate videos like this, but it’s nearly impossible to do a true comparison. There are so many other variables at play here. The reinforcement rings, lugs, tuning, and mic position are the obvious ones. How about the edges, plies, and shell thickness? Are they exactly the same? I truly believe those things are affecting the sound more than the wood type. Not to mention that three maple drum shells with the exact same size, edges, plies, thickness, hardware, heads, tuning, etc will sound slightly different. Wood has some variance, and the raw shells will have different characteristics.
My point is that even with every variable being accounted for, three maple drum sets would probably have as much tonal difference as three sets with different woods. Still fun to compare and play the drums. Thanks for the video.
You didn't discuss how the drums felt under the stick. The feel of playing them, visual appeal, and subtle tonal differences are going to be more evident to the drummer than anyone else. It's up to each drummer to decide which combination inspires them to their best playing for the gig, and that might not be the same drums for different gigs. The differences are quite subjective; to each their own.
I agree. The feel is 90% the determining factor on what drums I like. And, impossible to judge in any recording.
Listening on a cell phone and at relative low volume it is not very easy to catch the differences. To me birch had more focus but was dryer. Surprisingly the bass drum of birch was quite satisfying. Ash had a rounder bass range with a satisfying ring. Maple was sweeter. Again, differences were not very big, all kits sounded good. Kudos to the consistent playing
I got a custom set of Slingerlands back in 1972. Custom as in all maple three ply with reinforcement rings I still have them and as good as I,ve ever heard and still in great shape! I,ve been living in Japan a nd doing bop for a few years now and was looking at the Yamaha stage custom birch and then thought why and grabbed a set of Pearl decade maple and they are awesome!! Uhh,, maple is medium Birch rings higher!!
Birch or ash toms with a maple kick for non metal . birch kicks with ash toms for metal.
Also the only tuning that really sounded different to me was the floor Tom of the ash kit vs the other two
Maple❗️and as for that snare ‼️✌️
Birch has that low end growl. I'll stick with birch. Maple is nice however
Birch sounded ok but was going to choke the harder it was hit, but it seems maple doesn't choke out the harder it was hit. Listen to it again.
I like and have a Tama silver star (birch) , but the Ash is the best one.
That's the beauty of drum shell materials, @frednovaes5888! Glad to hear you're enjoying your Tama Silverstar. Ash indeed has a distinctive sound. 🍁
The slight differences are the slight differences in the tuning.
The Birch was my preference
The only thing I noticed is resonant tones when you payed them one by one. A bit more ringing in the ash and birch, but all sounded so close
I feel that as with guitars, the woods used don’t make the sound. For drums it’s the heads, which get miked and for guitars it is the pickups.
The only true instruments that wood makes major tonal differences are acoustic instruments like guitars, woolens, mandolin, etc
Just watch zakk Wylde shred the hello kitty. Sounds great and it is a cheap guitar
what is it w the pitch bend ? esp on the 12 mate. Good comp video though ,over all.
Birch wood hands down , sooo much more versatile than maple and that great EQ factor
Well where does one begin? The birch: has a kind of paperie woollieness. Maple: has a kind of paperie woollieness and the ash: Also has a kind of paperie woollieness. It all comes down to the tuning really. So subtle you can't really notice.
SO many other variables to contend with - shell thickness, plies, wrap, hardware, and most importantly bearing edge. Would love to see a comparison video truly isolating different variables like tone wood, then bearing edge, then hardware.
Birch bass ash high tom maple floor.
Yo drum dog, have you heard any of the metal sets made by Van Kleef or HHG? Those sound boss. If you can, you should demo some of those.
The Birch and Ash sound exactly the same!
Maple ALL the way! However, it would have been nice to have mahogany shells on this video for a comparison.
Is the maple rack tom tuned slightly lower???
Ash for orchestra
I prefer maple wood for drums
good job..for me maple vs birch 1-1
Maple is the best sounding kit but u should have also tested their Mahagony kit??
Yeah man. The difference between all these woods is so small it doesn't even matter. That's just my opinion though. I don't think I'll ever hear drums on a record and be like "Yeah that's birch right there." After EQing, mixing, mastering, or even at live gigs with all the sound going on, I don't see how anyone can tell the difference.
...and if the tunings have to be exactly, or even relatively the same for you to hear the slightest difference in sound, you can look past what wood you have on your kit.
Maybe the weight difference is more apparent...?
if the guy to the left was smoking a pipe, he'd be the spit of a youthful jack hargreaves😆
The mic positions have changed for each kit. Tiny fractions of an inch (angle and distance from the head) will make a significant difference to the ratio of resonance and attack, and is especially critical when comparing nuance of different shell materials. Next time, it would be great if you could use mic clips if moving a mic stand can’t be avoided. It is the most important element for these types of comparisons. Even more than slight differences in tuning.
Thank you for your work. I’m a bit frustrated though because most of the well made videos comparing shell woods have the same MAJOR flaw in their test protocol.
Unless you used the wrong word, you shouldn’t aim for the same head tuning, but the same head tension.
All tensions being equal, you’ll know, if one sounds a bit lower or higher, that it comes from the perceived tonal differences in the wood.
By tuning all the heads the same, you’re hiding this potential effect, and prevent yourself from answering the question: does one wood sit "lower" or "higher" than another in terms of tonal response?
Just buy a quality drum kit. Don’t skimp. Save up. Just do it. You can’t go wrong with any wood.
Super pro tip. Once the music cranks up, you can’t tell the difference
I think you really shouldn't have played those very loud ghost notes on top of those toms it's kind of hard to hear the Tom's
drum dial digital!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let's just say, a drum dial was available for use...
MAHOGANY.....
Is it my imagination, or is there a trend towards small drums and small sets?
More people living in smaller places I think. That and stagnating wages over the years, so less expensive drums.
Yamaha hip custom is the proof. recording for recorders, stage for stagers, hip for hipsters :)
@@DynamicRockers Yamaha👍👍👍
Not enough of a difference in sound to really matter.
No a lot difference.
The only person that cares what wood is used, is the drummer. No one else in the band or in the studio gives a rats ...
It makes a difference, just not that much.
All of them sound the same
wouldve had time if u didnt spend so much time jamming. all we need is one hit side by side.
What do I think????
I wanted to see what conclusion you arrived at, not you asking me what I think.
Waste of time.
If you're going to compare woods on drum kits I think you should take the time this video was poorly done you've done three types of woods what about the others I don't like saying this very poor video.....
Appreciate your honest feedback. Covering all types of woods in detail would make for an ambitious project, but it's definitely something worth considering for future videos. Thanks the suggestion!