Blue Stars Bassline 2015

[pandadrummertech]

Just quick question!
Does anybody happen to know how the blue stars muffled their basses this year? Their drums sound so good! I can see the weather stripping, but I am not sure the weather stripping is making contact with the head. Anybody care to answer? I really want to tune the basses at the school I tech at with that sound. When I muffle and the weather stripping touches the head, it sounds much drier than the Blue Stars bassline!

[joe356]

Judging from a quick view of a video, I'd bet they are using internal foam muffling, and would be shocked if that muffling isn't making contact with the head. Its a pretty common practice. Coats, Cavaliers, Spirit, BK just off the top of my head all muffle that way. The key is using different sizes of foam for different sizes of drums. If you've got it in the budget, I'd highly recommend you get your foam from bassmuffling.com. They will send you precut strips of foam based on the size of your drums, and there's even a video on the website demonstrating how to apply the muffling. The beauty of it is, the foam attaches to the shell, not the head, so next time you need to change heads, no need to re-muffle.

Keep in mind, drums will sound VERY different up close than they do from the box. Also, how the heads are tuned, as well as how they are being played will have a lot to do with resonance and projection.