HowTo Muff Your Acoustic Kit(Low Cost/Retaining Feel/Touch/Sound-Avoid Complains

[RudimentalDrummer]

How To Muffle Your Acoustic Kit (retaining The Feel/Touch at a Low-Cost - Avoiding Complains in HDB ) - - - - - This Orginal Method of Muffling a Drum Kit (retaining the Feel/touch which is of most important) was explain and taught to me - by Alvin from Music Lab (My Drum Instructor) - and it works absolutely well ... so now I would share it with all of you here.

After my Neighbour complain about me drumming too loud (I really have no other choice). My 1st option was to buy the Roland Electronic Kit TD9 which will costy me S$4100.00 at Swee Lee (because I feel that Electronic Drums with Rubber Pads will do me certain harm if I practice it very often on it - as over time I will lose the Touch/Feel of an Acoustic Kit later on as I play so often on it (and I love it)....and I call Alvin hoping for a solution (which beforehand seems like the whole world really tearing apart for me) - - How is it possible for me (1) To get the Touch/Feel of a real Drum using my Existing Kits, (2) plus must be soft so that my Neighbours wont complain against me again and if they did - I will have no problem if I could bring it to a really soft-level without disturbing anyone in my vicinity. (3) plus if possible - - Low Cost and whatever needed is easily accessible (I can buy it anywhere) - - - seems like an impossible dream to me.....but I was lucky .... hahahaha My Instructor came to my rescue.

The Practice Kit here to be Muffer is :- A Mapex QR Series

18" Bass Drum
14" Floor Tom & Snare
a 8" & 12" Tom
1 Hi-hat Stand, 1 Cymbal Stand and 1 Ride Stand

Cost Used:- (excluding my HQ Pad - which you can just use a Card-Board - or those last time Olden Days Rubber Floor-Mat cut to fit also can)

6 Bags of Fibre (S$3.50 x 6 ) = S$21.00
5 Fibre Cushion = S$18.00
Total Cost = = S$39.00




The Floor-Tom is used as an example here.
YOu see a HQ Rubber Muffle-Pad (I've already had this last time - but rebound was unreal - so I kept it and now brought out to use for this project). and some Bags of Tontins (or Artificial Fibre Used for Stuffing Pillows) - - not Cotton har, as these Fibre have Good Sound Absorbing Qualities.




A Close Up view of the Fibre used here




The Fibre in a Plastic Bag (S$3.50 per Bag), HQ Pad, Floor Tom & Rings




The Top Rim & Batter is taken out, and a HQ Pad is placed right to the bottom of the Tom (till it touches the Resonant head). You can do this with all the Tom-Toms, but not on the Snare and The Bass Drum (there is some difference here - I 'll let you know later - see below). Make sure that the Bottom Reso-Head/Rim is not too loose - but tightened as we will have to push the Fibre in all the way - - Try to squeeze as much as you could into all the Toms-Toms

ANOTHER OPTION ON TOMS - -:- If you do not put in the HQ-Rubber-Pad for the Tom-Toms you will have a louder Tom sound (I put the Rubber HQ Pad place at the bottom of the toms because I wanted the toms to be softer)......So, if the Tom-toms are did exactly in the same manner as the Snare Method (see below explaination) - It will be louder (of course) but you will get a (Much closer tom sound closer to the Original Tom Sound).

[RudimentalDrummer]

The Fibre is now stuff into the Toms




Fill The Fibre Right Up to this Level




Replace the Batter and Rims Back and tighten it with you Hands. Do not over-tightened the Batter. Tighten the screws till you feel (just nice not tight but enough to hold the rim to the tom - just slightly abit more after Hand-Tightening).

You will find that the Rebound (when you hit it with a Drumstick) is exactly like that of hitting on a Normal Acoustic Kit (except for the sound of course which you will hear a different sound - - but be;lieve me - all the toms, bass drum and snare will have a different sound - so it's good) - Now tune the drum to your Desire-Feel/Touch that you always drum (It can 100% be done here)...



For the Bass-Drum use only (Fibre in a Pillow sort, dont use the loose form), fill the bass drum fully with these Fibre-Pillow leaving only a small little area eg 1 Pillow-case space.

Also dont tightened this Batter, cause if you do, when you do your double-pedal (seems like you play bery bery fast due to rebound) this will give us Big-Problem later on when you play on the Real Kit (as you will find yourself playing so much slower) - - so just leave it as loose as possible (when you screw the rims to the drum) - - - must remember that

[RudimentalDrummer]

The Snare - (IMPORTANT) - Take note

Do not put the HQ Rubber Pad into the snare (as the snare will not rattle - so you dont get a near-snare sound)

Place the Fibre into the snare (dont press it and stuff it like making it as tight as possible) - - It also means you actually use less Fibre here. Just place it loosely till it reach the top...But dont stuff it till it's tight.

Replace the Rim & Batter when everything is ok - like what we did for the toms. (Adjust the Feel/Touch you would like) - The snare strainer will give you the snare sound (but soft) works same as how you want the Pak-Pak sound to be....



This is how the entire Kit will look after you have Muffle the entire kit. Not too ugly still



Very Very Happy now - Now I can Practice My Double-Pedal, whatever....my Metronome is there also (a true practice kit for me finally) - - -



And Ooops yes - for the Hi-Hats, Cymbals & Ride - Use Cymbal Muffle - it's defintely better than those Plastic Cymbals (which are preety loud when you hit them)

PS: - Oh and yes - one more thing to share - If we Muff our Cymbals, Hats & Ride etc - There will be a Marking later opn on the Cymbals (a darker patch where we place the muff - so please don't use your expensive Cymbals to do that - - but it can be polish back up to shinny of course.




How This Muffling Method Works (Options you have on The Toms) : - The Key Point


( 1 ) - - The Batter must always be tuned (not so tightly) but loosely - so you can get the Real-Rebound when you drum on it.

(2) - - The Loudness Of the Drum (depending on how you all wants it to be at which level) - - Is through

(a) - How much Totins you are using to fill the Drum - - If you want it softer - You have to press the Totins/Fibre Down to fill up the Drum - - - this case, you get a softer sounding drum - but loses a little more real-tom sound.

(b) - Likewise If you don't press the Totin/Fibre down into the toms and just stack it on (it will be more loose right ? and you will be using less tontin/fibre here) - then you get a louder tom-sound (but I dont mean as in a Loud sound), and you will get a closer near to real-life tom-sound.


So - You pick which method best suit you (I prefer method b) but my neighbour always complain complain (so for now only - I will use (Method a) - - Method b is still not loud, just that I wanna wait till my neighbour cools down 1st - then I will change to method b for the Toms only.

[mrekoj]

wa...
u sacrifice many pillows for this ??

[DullTheater]

RD, its muffle, not muffer

mrekoj, i dont think he sacrifice pillows, just a matter of buying tontins that came in a bag..

[Composer of Requiems]

Wah cool!

Have you tried mesh heads before? I'm interested to know how this compares to mesh heads. I used mesh heads on a snare before, good feel with almost no sound at all, just that I heard that it wears down the bearing edge.

Btw, is it just me, or is the soft database very problematic recently?

[pedialite]

they should put this in the newspaper instead of things like people complaining.

[Jugman]

hey! if it works, i can get a drumset without the worry of my parents and neighbours complaining! thanks a lot RD! and Alvin!

[KDY]

Is the sound loud enough for you to jam?

[RudimentalDrummer]

Originally Posted by Composer of Requiems

Wah cool!

Have you tried mesh heads before?

Yes I had ever Tried a set of Pearl Mesh Head on an entire Kit.....The Rebound is just - too much..so I sold them all.