Take out the pillow, man

DANG! But I like the pillow. Shoot.

The only way this tom will sing is if I tension it tighter than I usually tension a drum. That's gonna be strange for me, but I guess I will have to adjust........unless.........someone has a better way.

I Had the same thing with the tom on my red sparkle Kent set. It's not the heads or the tuning, it's the weight of the tom, which is all on that little spot where the tom mount is, likely distorting the shell.

I was given a bunch of suggestions by forum members here, all great ideas, but in the end none of those worked. I ended up buying a RIMS style mount and hanging the tom off the cymbal stand - the problem is gone now.

RIMS?! But it's a vintage Ludwig kit. I can't do that to it. It there a support system that's near invisible to the audience? That would be a viable option.

No, there's not, but I've since taken to using Pearl Optimounts. Yeah, it's a BIT of a change in look, but I want the SOUND, from ten feet away, no one will be checking the MOUNT. both RIMS and Optimounts are 100% reversable too, so no damage done.

I used RIMS for MANY years, but ever since I found an Optimount in the breakdown lane on southbound RT 95, I've been a convert. (wait . . . WHAT?? :eek:)

It's FAR easier to make 'em stable as they grip the lugs on top AND bottom. And they don't become a problem when it's time to change heads.

I would shim the RIMS with extra rubber washers so they wouldn't move quite so much, although it worked GREAT it was quite a chore to change heads.

You WILL have to drill one hole in the Optimount as Pearl didn't have the insight to make the mounting plate Ludwig friendly. I found it very easy to do.

I have one on my Ludwig Black Cortex kit, and one on my Clear Ludwig Vistalites. I most likely will put them on all the rest of my kits too as I REALLY like them better than the RIMS now.

Well, there's always the old standby Tom-In-A-Snare-Stand route. I did that originally but found that even that choked the drum a bit. Kent's are very sensitive drums.

If you tune it lower (the way you prefer) and you don't use the mount, does it sing then? I found that just holding the drum by the top hoop and playing it allowed it to really sound open, while sitting it in the snare basket killed the ring a bit. The RIMS mount is just like holding it by the top hoop.

Anyhoo... I all comes down to what matters more. The look, or the sound? For me, it will always be the sound.

Besides, vintage drums rock... vintage hardware... not so much.

I've had similar issues with my 3-ply kit as well......although sometimes the issue would be gone on its own....I found a couple of things worked to make them more resonant.....believe it or not, the angle of the tom tilt has a lot to do with it....the more stress that's put on the shell the more dead the drum will sound. Also, I found that if I fine tuned the drum while it was on its mount I could get the drum to sing more.....try these to before resorting to buying a RIMS type mount.....also, sometimes head choice has a lot to do with it. BTW, the 3ply drums do favor being tuned higher....you'll find the sweet spot....you may have to live with higher tuning than you like though......

Found this out. I don't play drums tuned this high, but I will learn.

It's odd, I've owned and played many many kits from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and on. My first kit was about a 62 Ludwig Red Sparkle. Always had several kits coming and going my whole life. Of course, they weren't 'Vintage' kits back then. They were 'New' and I loved 'em. Now, I REALLY love them. Strange how that works.

Well....I bet your ears weren't as dissearning as they are today...LOL! I've found if you set them up Stewart Copeland style, almost flat, that they dont stress on the mount bracket as much and they resonate better. Tuning the bottom head is harder with the drum mounted, true.....I usually end up on the floor in front of the kit to fine tune the resonant heads and then go back up to the rest of the kit to tune the batters.....its more of a pain, but it gets the best results. Also I've found with 3plys that if you tune the heads the same top and bottom you'll get more resonance than if you tune the reso head higher than the batter. This way they are sympathetic to each other. Not quite the way the big bands or Bonham did it, but it seems to work best for these drums.

One last thing.....Are you using Ambassador over Ambassador (or G1 over G1)? Recently I've tried the old Emperor over Ambassador (G2 over G1) combo and found they still have good resonance, but with the lower tone.....and they are tuned a bit higher than I had with the other combo, yet still sound lower in pitch.....just a thought...

I bet you found your 6plys a lot easier to tune and keep the resonance... ;)