Man these feel really really good. - Drum Workshop

TALKING DRUMS
ssc specialized shell coNfiguraTioN
Neil pearT & JohN good
d i s c u s s T h e f i N e r p o i N T s o f d w ’ s
laTesT shell TechNology
Neil: Hello. Neil Peart here. I’m with
Professor John Good and he is going to
explain to us a very complicated subject.
I’m just going to be the chief device for
exposition. I’m the student, as I always
like to say here at Drum Workshop. I’m
the student and resident, always glad to
learn from all of the great drummers that
come through and John about the nuances
of drum construction. He’s going to tell us
today about something called “Specialized
Shell Construction” and everything that
covers and as we’ve applied it between the
two of us in instruments and as John is
going to make available to all drummers,
a truly individual choice in each shell and
its note and response that you can combine
together as you wish, really, in the creation
of your own custom DW drum set. Over to
Professor Good.
John: Thank you. Thank you very
much. Now Neal, essentially we’ve
been doing this for a number of years,
you and I. And I think it started with
your R30 kit.
Neil: Yeah, you started to get some glimmers
of inspiration back then.
John: Yes, I did because you were, I
remember you landed your kit, the red
kit, in my showroom and you said, “Look
at it. Live with it for a couple weeks and
look at the way I’ve got it tuned”. And
before that I was just giving stock pretty
much, shells that I was making and you
were tuning them in ranges that maybe
they wanted to go.
Neil: Or that pleased me, yeah. There are
various needs that you have and from my
upper to lower toms is a perfect example of
that chromatic spread that the upper ones,
I actually like to be very bright and tonal
and tune them really tight and then a lot
of times use percussive dynamics, so that
when I really hit them full-out rimshot
across the head, that head stretches and
detunes slightly, so that becomes a part of
the throaty quality that I want the high
toms to add, but as I move down into the
lower ones, tonality is everything. I’ve done
a demonstration before with my DW drums
tapping that floor tom with a finger and
ooooh, it just produces a pure resonant note
with incredible sustain and I love that in
the lower toms for them to have that great
note recognition and quality, so that became
a part of the shell design. It started with
the lower toms, I think, and with the bass
drum, John applying his ideas in creating
tonality by combining the wood grains in
different directions.
John: Well, having said that, I, in the
earlier years of drum shell construction
and making, I always thought it was
the thicker the shell, the higher the
pitch, thinner the shell, lower the pitch
and that’s it.
Neil: Huh…OK, I didn’t even know that.
John: Oh yeah. Well, like cymbals. The
thicker ones have a higher pitch and
the thinner ones have a darker, washier
pitch. So, today we’re going to mess
with that theory entirely.
Neil: I mean investigate that science.
John: And the way we want to start
doing that is I brought three pieces of
veneer here and I’ve drawn some lines
so you can actually see…
Neil: They didn’t grow that way.
John: They didn’t grow this way. It’d
be pretty cool to find a tree that does
that.
Neil: Ha ha ha…But we’re looking.
John: So, I’ve drawn an arrow on the
direction of the grain…to understand
really what we’re talking about here,
you really need to understand veneer
first and so, I will use you as my
student.
Neil: Hmm.
John: OK, here we have
a piece of 1/36”
veneer and this is very, very thin
obviously, but the grain is running in
the direction. If you hold your hand
out, you will see that it holds itself very
well.
Neil: It keeps its shape.
John: And the grain is running this
direction. Now, every piece of wood
has a musical note value and you’ll
be able to hear this. Tell me if you can
hear it.
Neil: Yeah.
John: There’s a note in there. Ok now,
see the way I’m tapping this, I’m gonna
hold it and I want you to tap it for me.
Neil: Listen...Remarkable.
John: So the pitch went up, right? And
the pitch went up with tension. Now,
feel this tension here. That’s a fair
amount of tension.
Neil: It wants to straighten out.
John: It absolutely does. So that’s what
we’re going to call “horizontal grain”.
Then we have another piece here that
is a similar size. If you hold your hand
out, and you notice the grain is going
the opposite direction, it’s going “short
grain”. Hold your hand out, you’ll see
how it just falls.
Neil: Like a piece of wallpaper.
John: Ha ha, basically yes. And it has
a note value as well, but I wouldn’t be
able to change that because I can’t put
any tension on this, so we’re going
to call that “vertical
grain”. Then I
have
this wacky, wild diagonal cut piece of
grain here and if you hold your hand
out, you’ll notice that it twists like this.
Neil: It wants to spiral.
John: Now, if you tap the side while
I try to straighten it out, look what
happens. Tap the side.
Neil: Tap tap tap tap tap tap…it seems
to me an even exaggerated raising of the
pitch.
John: It’s raising the pitch, but it’s
getting its tension from a whole
different place, so we’re going to call
that “diagonal grain”, right? What
does all this mean? Ah…
Neil: Ha ha ha. How can we use it?
John: How can we use it?
Neil: When we hit things with a stick.
John: Which we’ll get into later and is
a very interesting concept. How can
we us it? I have 5 drum shells here and
the first shell is the typical ….the shells
that I love….many years…olive grain
on the outside…on the inside, crosslaminated
in between. It’s a 7-ply shell
with 3-ply reinforcing hoops…one goes
this way, the one behind it goes that
way and then this way…and you have
to have….So that’s a 7+3, 3-ply hoop....
and more at www.dwdrums.com/ssc
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