On drums...

Kelly, I wonder if your 12 aversion is due to the lower power needed to fire that puppy into distortion mode. If what you are not liking about it is that the sound overwhelms the rest of the kit, a gentler sticking may be in order. I've been working on that quite a bit, because the 12 makes great sounds and has a great variety of tonal shifts, but is easily over played to the point where the tonal characteristics get lost in one great midrange wooooooorm. My previous style of beat and conquer, did not ask for much finesse, because banging away on 14 Sig with pinstripes allowed me a kind of freedom to get away with murder. But what I could not get was that careening sound that only a 12 will offer.

I suspect that a 10 does not have the volumetrics, if you will, to produce that kind of sonic overload. I can't say for sure because I don't use the 10 in the lineup. And the 14... I can whack away at the 14 Designer with impunity if not with great joy. But the 12 will bite back, creating a midrange rumble that is capable of obliterating the coherence of the rest of the kit.

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Gregory

I always had trouble with the middle tom in the configuration...
It sounded great by itself, but with the whole kit...

UNTIL I discovered the REAL problem - my 18" crash is inches above the tom... The toms sounds totally different with no cymbal above it....

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Goki - short from Goran

Let the good drums roll!!!

I dunno Greg. That sounds like a long shot. It just doesn't sound musical. Sounds like a drum.
This has been going on my entire life. I don't have the problem with any other drum. Just might simply be I don't know what I want the thing to sound like.
It also doesn't help it seems that it doesn't know what it wants to sound like. Seems to want to be a bigger drum than it is. I think this is why I always leaned toward 12 x 12. It's easier to get that size to be "something" other than a wanna be 10 or floor tom.

Here's a tuning question: If my 10 tom is very close to perfect at 76/74 on the drum dial. Is there a natural progression from there? In other words, my 12 does not work at all at 76/74. So can/should the larger 12 go to say 75/73....74/72?
Make sense?

I wouldn't have expected a cymbal to do that, at least not one that was far enough away so that you could still play the drum! But I'm glad you found the problem and solution. That always feels good!

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Gregory

Perhaps you have a hearing disorder that happens right at the natural pitch of a 12? It's not impossible.

I like the 12x10 Designer, and I like the 12x9 Classix. The Classix 12 is, if anything, a bit less demanding to play, but then, as we have been told over and over (and Cliff will verify), birch is naturally EQ'd...

When I first got my Classix, I tuned all the toms to the same tension. On even number sizes, that meant a tonal shift of a third between each drum. The Avon lady falling down hill. That's a natural progression, but not a natural progression I wanted to live with.

Unfortunately, I don't use a 10 so can't make any suggestions. The 12 should tune well in the 75 to 74 ball park, but the interval needs to make sense in your ear. I would guess (guess, mind you) that the interval would sound quite good at 75, but you have the dial and can try 74 too.

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Gregory

Does yours have a 12?

ahh...possible. Can't hear a thing my wife says.

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Cliff

River City Trio

What if we did all have the same opinions?

Not sure about the specifics of the notes, Cliff, but they sounded like fairly perfect triads. Of course, at one end or the other, in order to fall in line, the octave has to be reached by a fourth or a dissonance is set up. But I can't remember the specifics, other than that thirds aren't really what I am trying for.

Naturally, I never ran into the problem until I started using four toms, which is to say until a year or so ago. A three tom, or even two tom arrangement is a whole lot easier to tune.

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Gregory

Two Toms,
Little One = High
Big One = Low

Easy

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Jeff
Gots ta luv da Beech
Australia