Dampen Drums for Videos

Have you ever had to mime drums during a video during playback? This is a how-to guide to dampen drums for videos. So if you don’t have mesh heads or drum silencing pads, these tips will help you. Not forgetting, how to deaden your cymbals as well! When you reduce the overall volume of drums and cymbals, you’ll hear the playback easier and do a better job miming during your performance.

Dampen Drums for Videos during Playback

More often than not when filming a music video you’ll use playback. Playback is a term you use to have the music (literally) played back to you whilst you perform. So you’ll need a loud enough PA system to accommodate for this. Unless, you want a live performance video of course! Playback is a very important part of the music video process. After all, you need to hear what you’re miming to for an optimal performance right?

Obviously drums and cymbals are generally quite loud therefore you’ll need to control their volume. Not just for you but for the others involved as well. Furthermore by deadening your drums and cymbals you control their volume. Ultimately better for you (and your band mates) to hear the playback.

Incidentally, this is not solely for videos. You’ll see so-called ‘live’ performances on TV where the band will be miming and only the vocalist(s) sing live. You may find yourself indeed in this situation.

Deadened/Muted/Dampened Instruments

Deadened/muted/dampened instruments are instruments that produce little to no noise. This is so you can simulate actual playing whilst filming.

Examples include:

• Electric guitars, you simply unplug.
• A vocalist sings into a microphone unplugged at one end.
• The drummer plays drums with muted drum heads and deadened or silent cymbals.
• Keyboards/Pianos, like guitars, remain unplugged.

and so-on……

In my dampen drums for videos above, you’ll see ways of DIY muting your drums and cymbals so you don’t have to spend a small fortune on any extra products. For example, on the day of recording the video above there weren’t any; mesh heads, drum silencing pads or dead cymbals.

Detuning the Drum Heads

You can achieve a deadened drum sound by detuning the drum heads completely loose. It’s as simple as that! In my dampen drums for videos above, the top/batter side heads are completely slack, devoid of any tension. This reduces the overall volume of drums enough for me to hear the playback easily. You can always detune the resonant/underside drum heads as well but you don’t have to.

The advantage of this method is that it still looks like you are playing on real tensioned drum heads. Drum silencing pads, for example, can look fake to someone with a keen eye. So if you want to LOOK authentic, use detuning the drum heads instead.

Cymbals

When you place cymbals on top of each other they absorb each others vibrations after being struck. This restricts the sound waves they’d otherwise normally produce. You drastically reduce their volume and visually it looks like your striking the one cymbal.

You can of course hire or purchase a set of dead cymbals to help dampen drums for videos. Or, you can bring a spare set with you and do what was done in my Dampen Drums for Videos video above.

If you don’t have any spare cymbals knocking around then you can always use the trusty gaffa tape. If you stick enough of it on the cymbal it will restrict the vibrations and deaden the sound.

So good luck with your next video and I hope some of these DIY tips have helped!

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