Drum Science - Part 2

In part 2 of this 3-part series, Rob Toulson explains how to optimise the drum sound for recording by experimenting with drum head, damping system, tuning and drum shell combinations.Chapters00:00 - Introduction01:09 - Drum Heads01:44 - Mersenne's Laws04:05 - 1 and 2 Ply Drum Heads05:45 - Damping Systems07:10 - Centre Dot Drum Heads09:27 - Choosing Your Timbre11:44 - Selecting Your Drum Shells14:25 - Optimising The Whole Kit19:41 - Tuning The Kick DrumProfessor Rob Toulson BiogRob is Director of RT60 Ltd, who develop mobile apps for musicians and sound engineers. RT60’s iDrumTune Pro app assists drummers with learning the skills of drum tuning and has been the number one music app in over 100 countries since its launch in 2012. More recently, Rob and RT60 developed Songzap, which simplifies the process of recording and capturing musical ideas, enabling songwriters to focus exclusively on their creativity.Rob stared his career as a mechanical engineer with a doctorate in digital signal processing, before following his passion and moving into the field of music technology and specialising in percussion acoustics and audio software development. Rob has held a number of academic research roles in his career, including Professor of Creative Industries at University of Westminster and Director of the CoDE Research Institute at Anglia Ruskin University. Rob’s also a successful musician, music producer and sound designer, having worked with many artists including Talvin Singh, Wilfy Williams and Mediaeval Baebes, who have previously topped the UK Classical Music Chart.Rob is author of a number of music related books and articles, including ‘Drum Sound and Drum Tuning’, published by Routledge in 2021, and co-editor of the ‘Innovation In Music’ book series, which is also published by Routledge. His sound design work has been included in films by BAFTA Winner Shreepali Patel and has been showcased at Glastonbury Festival, The V&A and The Natural History Museum.https://www.robtoulson.com/https://www.rt60.uk/Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts Get a print or digital subscription to Sound On Sound magazine.