How to Keep Drums From Echoing
Echoing drums can ruin a song or performance. Echoing drums can not only sound bad, but they can also make the snares on your snare drum buzz further, creating additional unwanted noise. Luckily, there are techniques you can do to control the echoing. The goal is to lessen the echoing without completely choking the sound. Thus, keeping the drums from echoing requires trying a few different methods until you find the one that you think sounds best.
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Instructions
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Place a pillow inside the bass drum, pressing part of it against the drum head that is struck by the bass drum beater. A pillow is a common way to muffle a bass drum. You can buy pillow-like products from drum manufacturers, but a pillow works just fine. Experiment with the position of the pillow until you get the bass drum sound you like best.
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Tune your drums, using a tuning key. Sometimes, echoing comes from the drums being out of tune. Don’t forget to tune the bottom drumhead too, making sure it syncs up nicely with the top drumhead.
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Place drum rings on the toms and/or snare drum. Drum rings are products made by drum manufacturers that rest on top of the drums, providing muffling. However, because they cover the entire edges of the drum, they make it difficult to play there. They also may be too much muffling. If so, try other options.
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Place little squares of duct or masking tape on the drumhead near the edge of the drum. Do this two or three times, putting a square in a different corner of the drum, depending on how much muffling you want. Unlike drum rings, these give you more control over how much muffling you want. However, they can leave sticky stuff on your drumheads.
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Place a cotton pad, such as circular ones used for removing makeup, on the drum and tape it down, using duct or masking tape. You can also place tape on top of the pad and then connect it to the drum by attaching the other end of the tape onto the rim of the drum. This prevents sticky substances from getting on your drum, but does put some sticky substance on your drum rim. Like using just tape, this gives you more control over muffling than drum rings. However, the cotton pads will wear out and fall apart, so you do have to replace them periodically.
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Place squares of tape or cotton pads on the bottom drumhead, as your bottom drumhead also contributes to echoing.
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