Learn Processed Metal Drum Sounds With Huge Toms And Cracking Snares

Metal drum sounds have become more and more processed over recent years with huge toms, clicky bass drums and cracking snares being the order of the day in most cases. While a lot of this is down to the way the drums are miked and processed, the tuning of the drums themselves is of huge importance. To begin with, toms should be tuned to a medium/low tuning, with the floor toms showing wrinkles when the hand is pressed into them. And while tuning the bottom heads to the same pitch as the top will produce the most tone and sustain, tuning the bottom heads slightly lower will shorten the sustain and introduce some pitch bend, which is often preferable.In metal, the snare is often quite high in pitch and tension and although it feels good to play it’s important to appreciate that, under a mic, a cranked up head can sound thin - so this is often an area of compromise.Finally bass drums should be tuned low, with the same wrinkle effect as the floor toms. They also need some dampening to enhance the thud by reducing the overtones and sustain. Some metal drummers tend to favour placing pads on the head at the point of beater impact in order to increase the ‘click’, however this quality is easily ‘dialled in’ using EQ when using a decent mic.

As well as hitting hard, a metal drummer usually holds his or her own in a mix full of distorted guitars by hitting rim shots on the snare.This involves hitting the centre of the drum and the rim at exactly the same time, every time and can take some practice to get consistent, but it adds a sharp, cutting quality to the snare sound. In metal, hi-hats are usually played slightly open for a trashy sound with some players even setting the clutch quite low so as to play the double pedal without affecting the hi-hat sound. However, this compromises the open and closed sound from the hi-hats, which is where X-hats, free standing hi-hats usually on the opposite side of the kit, come in.They enable the drummer to set regular hi-hats more open and mean the left hand has access to the rest of the kit, whether playing double kick drums or not.Finally, be sure not to clamp the top hi-hat cymbal too tightly in the clutch as it will need to be free to move. Failure to do this can damage the top hi-hat cymbal, causing it to crack in the worst case. Most of the drum teachers Swansea, Neathteach such metal drum sounds.

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