All drummers appreciate a good life hack. If it’s guaranteed to save us time, money, or effort, we’re all for a change in routine. The following drummer hacks have been sourced from diverse users across the internet, as well as from our in-house drum experts, to level-up your gig savvy. And whether you’re brand new to the drums or you’ve been schlepping shells for decades, you’re bound to find some pearly nuggets in this list that’ll make your gigging life easier.
Simplify head swaps
If you’re like most drummers, you can be a little obsessive when it comes to head and hardware alignment. You want those badges dead-center on sight lines and all logos pointing due north from behind the kit. And if you’ve ever absentmindedly changed both top and bottom heads at once, you can remember how much work it can take to get your shell chakras realigned. User Trip McNealy over on the DrummerWorld forums recommends sticking a small sticker on the inside of each shell, between the two lugs where you want your head logos landing. This ensures that your heads, mounts, badges, and arms always align properly. Bonus: it also makes sure your snare throw off and strainer stay in the sweet spot on your stand between head changes.
Stop your kick from creeping
If we had a dollar for every time our performances were compromised by a creeping bass drum, we’d be rich enough to play guitars at this point. YouTuber rdavidr has come up with a novel solution for killing bass drum creep on hard surfaces, and it will only cost you a few bucks in rope and a quick trip to the hardware store. Let’s say you find yourself in a stage or practice setting where your kick drum just keeps sliding forward no matter how many sandbags and cymbal stands you throw in front of it. Just tie a rope from the mounting bracket of a bass spur around your drum throne and back around to the opposite spur, and you’re good to go. Your body weight as you’re seated at the kit anchors the drum in place. And unless you’re Iggy Pop, there’s no way that bass drum is sliding forward. You may have to experiment with tension — too much could cause your throne to creep when you’re not sitting on it.
When it comes to rugs and carpeted surfaces, there are much more elegant solutions. One of our favorite recent arrivals at Sweetwater is the KickBlock bass anchor. This lightweight foam block is backed with military-grade hook strips to hold fast to most rugs and closed-loop carpeting. And once it’s set, your bass drum isn’t going anywhere.
De-ping a floor tom or bass drum
You know that basketball-in-an-empty-court “ping” that occurs in larger toms and bass drums? Some folks around the internet have come up with some clever ways to neutralize it.
Gavin Harrison (King Crimson, Porcupine Tree) is fond of dropping thin muffle rings, such as the Evans E-Rings, inside his floor toms and allowing them to rest on the inside resonant heads. This will tame an extra-long tom sustain while soaking up some of the overtones coming off the bottom head.
In this video, Chris Perra of CustomDrumTracks.ca shows you how to de-ping floor toms by fastening strips of fabric to the insides of tom shells using hook-and-loop squares. A little trial and error is required, but you’ll eventually find the right balance of liveliness, sustain, and control.
Then there are the boys at Sounds Like a Drum, who have found that lining the entire interior of a bass drum shell with crumpled tin foil proves to be an effective (and practical) solution for de-basketballing a kick drum.
Now that’s what I call a tip-off!
Sick of your cymbals? Try stacking ’em.
Cymbal stacks are super hot today. That’s probably because they’re a bit like snowflakes: no two stacks are exactly alike, and every drummer is searching for that signature sound to call his or her own. So if you’ve got a couple cymbals that you’ve permanently relegated to the cymbal bag, give them a new lease on life in a stacked formation. They don’t have to be alike in size, series, or construction — in fact, sometimes the more disparate you can make them, the cooler they sound together.
While you don’t need special hardware to create a piggybacked stack, you may opt for something like the Gibraltar SC-XHAT. This affordable adapter fits over any stand or boom arm with a standard 8mm tilter. We like this attachment for stacks because it lets you dial in how sloshy you want your response. It’ll work for true stacks and even inverted hi-hat styles.
Unstick stuck nuts
Sometimes it takes a stick to get unstuck. What we mean is, if you have a stubborn wing nut or thumbscrew on a stand that’s so cranked down it’s impossible to release, then you can get some extra purchase with a set of sticks. Sandwich the stuck screw between two sticks, grasp the ends with both hands, and twist like a tire iron. According to user MikeM on the DrummerWorld forums, you can also use this technique to lock down a fidgety screw that keeps coming loose — just don’t hold us responsible if you end up stripping something!
Can’t afford new gear? Score it on the cheap!
Depending on where you are in your walk of life, a crispy new set of cymbals or shiny outfit of hardware may not be in the cards. If you’re in a bind, used marketplaces are a great place to score a deal. And not to sound biased, but Sweetwater has the best customers in the world. That’s the reason that we recommend getting your used drum gear on Sweetwater’s customer-to-customer Used Gear Marketplace. Transactions are totally free on both ends of the sale. And if you’re not under a time crunch, you can score some great deals on full kits, snares, and drum hardware just by browsing the classifieds each day. You may even come across something you didn’t know you needed, like $20,000 worth of power amp tubes or a rare Dweezil Zappa signature PRS guitar.
Got hacks? We want to hear them!
Got a drum hack or two of your own to share? We’d love to hear from you! Dial up your friendly neighborhood Sweetwater Sales Engineer at (800) 222-4700 or leave a comment on our Facebook page.
