Bearing Edge
One of the most critical things about what makes a drum cut through or blend in is its bearing edge. What’s going on here is the amount of drumshell touching the drumhead. Imagine taking a marker on a blank sheet of white paper and drawing a perfect circle. Now do it again with a sharp pencil. Finally, do it once more with a superfine-tipped drafting pen. These different widths of lines represent the amount of drumhead touching the shell. The less acreage of contact, the brighter and more projecting the sound. A fatter line equals more warmth and low-end.
Let’s talk about how loud it gets: it’s not about volume, but about where the volume is perceived. Mic a drum up close and toss the signal through a PA to get Here become There. However, if you’re in a live setting without amplification, the difference is noticeable.
Let’s talk about how loud it gets: it’s not about volume, but about where the volume is perceived. Mic a drum up close and toss the signal through a PA to get Here become There. However, if you’re in a live setting without amplification, the difference is noticeable.
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Let’s pause here for an important consideration. Although the bearing edge is just one of a list of factors that can sculpt the sound of your drum, it works most closely with the thickness of your shell. How does a sharp edge sound on a thin shell compared with a fatter edge on a medium shell? The differences are subtle one from the next, but more profound as you widen the extremes, such as a rounded edge on a thin shell vs. an aggressive edge on a thick shell. |
Where were we? Oh yeah, picture yourself on a stage without your drums mic’d. Say you’ve got 10-ply maple shells on your toms (thowing in a few Re-Rings for added effect?) with 45/22½ edges. The keyboard player will think, ”Yeah, your new drums are loud…cause you’re hitting them hard.” Meanwhile, the drummer 65 feet away at the bar (yeah yeah, we say we play for the audience, but I know you like impressing the drummers out there) piques his eyebrows at your last fill because he can hear every diddle with clarity and notices that they’re louder than your last drum set—and he remembers how you play. If you had, say, 6-ply shells, Mr. Drummer Guy At The Bar might think your drums sound a little muddy; however, the bassist on stage mentions after the gig how…full, how…PRESENT your drums sounded. You can place where the volume is perceived by combining features like shell thickness, hoops, heads and bearing edges.
The most popular TreeHouse edge is the 45/rounded. It’s the most acoustically present edge working especially well on thin shells and one-ply shells. The 45/22½ is the most different edge from the rounded one and is great on practice quads and snares that need to sound like a .22 starter pistol. The 45/45 is arguably the most common edge out there. More people who request specific edges ask for this one than any other. It’s versatile and great for applications where you need your drumset to rock tonight and swing tomorrow night.
Instead of cutting the inside at 45, you could go with a more vintage-style 30 inner edge. All of the outer profiles seen below work with a 30 inner, however, we don't recommend 30 as an outer profile.
I really don’t know the difference in sound between the 45/45 and the centered 45. I usually make double 45s like the 45/45 pictured here, but some folks ask for the centered 45; since it was pretty cool to figure out how to e-draw these bearing edge profiles, I thought it’d be neat to show you the centered 45s as an option. Which one(s) do you want?
The most popular TreeHouse edge is the 45/rounded. It’s the most acoustically present edge working especially well on thin shells and one-ply shells. The 45/22½ is the most different edge from the rounded one and is great on practice quads and snares that need to sound like a .22 starter pistol. The 45/45 is arguably the most common edge out there. More people who request specific edges ask for this one than any other. It’s versatile and great for applications where you need your drumset to rock tonight and swing tomorrow night.
Instead of cutting the inside at 45, you could go with a more vintage-style 30 inner edge. All of the outer profiles seen below work with a 30 inner, however, we don't recommend 30 as an outer profile.
I really don’t know the difference in sound between the 45/45 and the centered 45. I usually make double 45s like the 45/45 pictured here, but some folks ask for the centered 45; since it was pretty cool to figure out how to e-draw these bearing edge profiles, I thought it’d be neat to show you the centered 45s as an option. Which one(s) do you want?
6-ply |
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8-ply |
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10-ply |
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