Grrr! Church Just Bought a Drum Shield

[KingRazor]

I've played church rooms as drummer. There are tons of ways to tone down the drums without a shield. Technique is number one, heads with some type of control rings or moon jell and dryer cymbals. Even different sticks can help. I think that they are trying to control the perception of a problem rather than a problem.

The problem is getting the drummer to do any of that. Hasn't worked at my church, with any of our drummers. The cage was the only real option, and even then that doesn't help much.

The drummers have calmed down a bit, so the levels are manageable, but still not ideal. The cymbals especially can still get out of hand.

 

[Munjibunga]

You need this.

 

[mccartneyman]

The problem is getting the drummer to do any of that. Hasn't worked at my church, with any of our drummers. The cage was the only real option, and even then that doesn't help much.

The drummers have calmed down a bit, so the levels are manageable, but still not ideal. The cymbals especially can still get out of hand.

I sympathize. We also tried everything -- smaller drums, Hotrod stocks, towels over the heads. Only thing that absolutely works is having a drummer who can play without bashing the crap out of things. That takes a trained rummer.

 

[sdenney78]

I sympathize. We also tried everything -- smaller drums, Hotrod stocks, towels over the heads. Only thing that absolutely works is having a drummer who can play without bashing the crap out of things. That takes a trained rummer.

A highly trained drummer is Definitely the first and best option. However, those don't grow on trees. That's the reason for this post.

 

[MNAirHead]

The biggest obstacle to getting good sound at church is that the really old people usually sit right up front so they can hear better. They also don't like loud music.

Funny --- never thought of it exactly like this.

 

[mccartneyman]

Funny --- never thought of it exactly like this.

It's not necessary to play loud to sound good. Until bands started using massive PA systems in clubs in the 70s, it was possible to play with no PA support in moderate sized clubs and sound good without blowing everyone out in the front rows. Anyone on TB over the age of 55 will testify to this.

 

[capnsandwich]

You need this.

That looks expensive. Most churches would probably see that and say, "There's got to be someone in the church who could build that out of stuff from the Home Depot for half of what that would cost."

Actually, our set up is very similar looking to that except that ours is round and has carpet around half of it, not just the back. I do like that design better.

 

[camthebassman]

Outside of the US government, I've never heard of so much effort and money spent to solve an unsolvable problem...isolation chambers for drums and amps?...live rock bands in a church built for vocal acoustics...with an audience as quiet as a mouse, and sober...and it's too loud??...people complain?...really!!!...ridiculous situation.

Here's an idea...Use the isolation chambers and the $million gear for multi-track recording the show on Saturday morning...don't forget the click tracks because we can't keep aboslute time to anything better than 10^-12. Fake the live show and play the recording through the PA at some level that won't cause grandma's hearing aid to melt, yet still gets the pre-teens excited. Everyone's happy and can focus on more important things...

Sorry for the rant, but I find the whole idea of rock n roll churches to be a contradiction, on many levels.

 

[blastoff99]

Outside of the US government, I've never heard of so much effort and money spent to solve an unsolvable problem...isolation chambers for drums and amps?...live rock bands in a church built for vocal acoustics...with an audience as quiet as a mouse, and sober...and it's too loud??...people complain?...really!!!...ridiculous situation. ....

Your premise could be a tad flawed. Many churches built over the last 20 years weren't designed for specifically for vocal acoustics, so a rock band isn't necessarily any worse than other things, just louder. My church, for instance, was designed to be a functional box. It looks (and sounds) like a Costco with carpet.

Our congregation is not particularly sober or quiet, nor are they told to be. They're really pretty good singers... assuming I can get the vocals over the drums so they can hear the leaders. And they're not complainers, not even the elderly folks. It's 92dB at the back of the house where I am, and in over two years of doing this every third week, I've had exactly one 'noise complaint' and it was a "NOT LOUD ENOUGH!!!" (And it came from the pastor.)

Let me be clear: if there's anybody complaining here, it's me.

And, to the OP: You're probably wondering how your thread got hijacked quite so badly. Sorry about that.

 

[mccartneyman]

Outside of the US government, I've never heard of so much effort and money spent to solve an unsolvable problem...isolation chambers for drums and amps?...live rock bands in a church built for vocal acoustics...with an audience as quiet as a mouse, and sober...and it's too loud??...people complain?...really!!!...ridiculous situation.

Here's an idea...Use the isolation chambers and the $million gear for multi-track recording the show on Saturday morning...don't forget the click tracks because we can't keep aboslute time to anything better than 10^-12. Fake the live show and play the recording through the PA at some level that won't cause grandma's hearing aid to melt, yet still gets the pre-teens excited. Everyone's happy and can focus on more important things...

Sorry for the rant, but I find the whole idea of rock n roll churches to be a contradiction, on many levels.

Churches see having contemporary music as a marketing (or what they prefer to call evangelizing) tool, and rightly so. In my experience, a few people will leave the church any time there's a change in approaches. Lots of people walked out on the first folk masses. Many churches solve this problem by providing two different services --a quiet "traditional" service and the rawkish rockish service.

However, I don't buy the argument that music presentation is uncontrollable. It can be controlled with musicians and church leadership willing to bend. Musicians have to be willing to sacrifice a bit of volume, but church leaders have to be willing to tolerate a little louder music. There is a happy medium. There are ways to allow a guitarist to crank an amp, yet isolate it, just as you can isolate drums.

 

[drummer5359]

A highly trained drummer is Definitely the first and best option. However, those don't grow on trees. That's the reason for this post.

Maybe I can find a female highly trained drummer and we could reproduce...

 

[1954bassman]

You need this.

Thats what my church uses. works great. Drummers apparantly cannot play soft. Maybe 1 out of a 100.

 

[Schmorgy]

The cage seems like a good idea until you're the poor rat bastard that has to play in one. All the sound everyone else doesn't hear gets reflected back at you in a fraction of the space.


Imagine having to play in a cage like that surrounded by PAs and your cabs. You'd see bassists and guitarists bailing from there pretty quick.


Good drumming technique will do more then dampeners ever will. I get it's a church, but it's attended by people, and people are capable of being good musicians. It's not like you're limited to the bottom of the barrel when the odds are that at least SOMEONE in there plays in a band professionally. It may be a volunteer position, but that's no reason to be overly lax on who you hire.

 

[Jhengsman]

Good drumming technique will do more then dampeners ever will. I get it's a church, but it's attended by people, and people are capable of being good musicians. It's not like you're limited to the bottom of the barrel when the odds are that at least SOMEONE in there plays in a band professionally. It may be a volunteer position, but that's no reason to be overly lax on who you hire.

No, the odds are of there being a professional musician, much less a drumer are not that high. The average church has regular attendance of about 75, from which they draw a team of about 8 people.

 

[two fingers]

No, the odds are of there being a professional musician, much less a drumer are not that high. The average church has regular attendance of about 75, from which they draw a team of about 8 people.

This exactly. At my church, I am the only one on stage with any gigging experience whatsoever. The others are coming around, but there's a learning curve. Again, they don't have a "roll with it" attitude yet (which only comes from years of having no choice but to roll with it).

 

[walterw]

The cage seems like a good idea until you're the poor rat bastard that has to play in one. All the sound everyone else doesn't hear gets reflected back at you in a fraction of the space.

i think the idea is IEMs for the drummer, or yeah it would be a blistering bounce-back hell in there.

 

[KingRazor]

The cage seems like a good idea until you're the poor rat bastard that has to play in one. All the sound everyone else doesn't hear gets reflected back at you in a fraction of the space.

I know 6 different drummers that have no problem playing in a cage. It's not a big deal, really.

Good drumming technique will do more then dampeners ever will. I get it's a church, but it's attended by people, and people are capable of being good musicians. It's not like you're limited to the bottom of the barrel when the odds are that at least SOMEONE in there plays in a band professionally. It may be a volunteer position, but that's no reason to be overly lax on who you hire.

Out of the 300 people in my church, not one of them is a professional musician. I know each member of the worship team personally and none of them play outside of church.

A church intern with a workable sense of internal rhythm and a lot of passion is better than no one, even if they hit the cymbals too hard.

 

[lastnotleast]

I think people use a drum shield because they think they look cool. They do not.
The only way to totally control the stage volume from a kit is use electronic drums.
If the drummer is a professional, he/she knows how to set up the kit properly and play appropriately for the venue (fat chance).
Last resort is to use a drum machine.

 

[jaywa]

Update...

Used it yesterday for the first time. Didn't seem to bother the drummer. I asked my wife (who has good ears and has learned how to "listen like a musician" after being married to one the last 13 years) if the FOH sound was any better and she said "not really".

Considering the shield got put up between the time we practiced and the Sunday morning services, I'm sure our FOH guy didn't have any time to re-mix the drums at the board to account for the shield. So without being out in the house to tell, it's possible the drums may have actually sounded worse than pre-shield. But hopefully they can get that dialed in soon.

 

[sdenney78]

Update...

Used it yesterday for the first time. Didn't seem to bother the drummer. I asked my wife (who has good ears and has learned how to "listen like a musician" after being married to one the last 13 years) if the FOH sound was any better and she said "not really".

Considering the shield got put up between the time we practiced and the Sunday morning services, I'm sure our FOH guy didn't have any time to re-mix the drums at the board to account for the shield. So without being out in the house to tell, it's possible the drums may have actually sounded worse than pre-shield. But hopefully they can get that dialed in soon.

What all does the shield consist of? Do you only have a front shield, or do you at least have an absorption panel behind the drums to catch the reflected sound? If you don't have the absorption panel, then that may be why you can't hear a difference. An outdoor setting would probably be the only time you could do without the back absorption panel.