What makes a good drum?

Paul Marshall ©2005

This is pure opinion based on my own personal playing style and personal preferences.

This guide is setting out how I identify professional quality instruments with the priorities being sound, function and aesthetics in that order. I am not looking for a traditional heavy skinned instrument but an articulate, responsive and warm sounding drum.

There are really only three main things that are critical to make a good player's bodhrán, skin skin skin. The rest is secondary beyond the ability to support the stresses and provide Tuning.

The standard against which I judge any bodhrán is that of Seamus O'Kane. Other drums will be better or worse, however it is a universal player's drum, globally owned in great numbers and sufficiently consistent in construction and sound for me to use it as a yardstick.

Seamus's 'buttery sounding' Lambeg skins are supremely articulate and full sounding with plenty of attack. They are player sensitive and react very well and with great clarity in all hand positions, particularly in the higher register of the instrument. In the review (upcoming) I give Seamus 9/10 for skins, 8 for construction and, 7 for aesthetics. The O'Kane is the standard professional & serious amateur instrument. Seamus is taking orders again - get them while they're hot, they're lovely. (little bit of Python there)

The Skin

• Let your ear and the stick sound be your guide, if you like it, it's good.
• Soft and supple are good, hard and scratchy are bad but it is possible to over-do it.
• Super soft skins 'out of the box' may have a reduced playing lifespan
• How does the skin react to your left hand? Stiff is bad, easy stretching is good.
• If it has a motif, you're in a tourist shop.

Suppleness balanced with attack are what I first look for in a drum skin. You can go very soft with part tanned or heavily treated heads which reduce stroke clarity but are more full sounding. Skins can be processed by makers to make them more flexible, however it is possible to overdo that processing and the result can be a stretchy skin that more quickly reaches the extent of its physical abilities. Rob Forkner of Metloef has a very effective method for making skins super flexible but with long term bite and Darius Bartlett is up to all kinds of amazing skin trickery, I've seen drums of his (Tommy Hayes' drum) that are 20 years old that still sound great.

The back of the skin where the left hand goes should be as quiet as possible. Eckermann's tabla bodhrán drum skin has a firm, polished and silent finish. A rough drum will become smooth eventually with playing over time or by your intervention in some way. Some light sandpapering and/or buffing can really help.

Lambeg skins are superb because of the evenness of skin having been hand-scraped, there are other thin skins that will sound well but it's more of a lottery. Because of this thinnness, lambeg skins react well to bodhrán makers' processing and perfectly provide that thin, supple skin so much in demand.

A weighted edge to the skin is a necessary contributor to the sound. This usually takes the form of black tape, again a Seamus' influence. Other makers are experimenting with using skin for this (image left) and there is a different more clear sound with a skin applique than a tape applique.

A weighted skin (right) is also an option, again a Metloef feature and tips the hat to tabla technology. I like the sound of a weighted skin but have taken the weights off my drums for now as I'm struggling with placement. Rob now covers the patches with a super thin layer of skin which will make a big difference.

The more 'traditional' bodhráns use thicker & heavyier skins. When new, they feel stiff and sound hard / scratchy. A trad instrument will need to be played in, perhaps for a couple of years before it starts to really move freely and by that time you've invested many hours and much sweat in getting it there. I find that even when played in they don't have the extended voicings of the thinner skinned drums, this belies the trad 'pulse keeping' roots. In my opinion, life's too short and my needs are too immediate to justify that time investment.

The shell.

Bottom line - a shell merely needs to be strong to support the stresses of tuning and playing, anything beyond that is a bonus. You don't need a crossbar. The shell needs to be thin enough to vibrate and help the drum speak, Seamus O'Kane & Metloef have good balanced strong shells.

The tuning system needs to be simple enough to work consistently and accurately, there are systems of increasing quality becoming available. The majority of tuning mechanisms use the inner ring method as shown right.

Tuning should be tool-less - bodhrán makers, work with us here, please. A couple of years ago Rob Forkner started to use thumb screws for tuning, (image left) now other makers such as Hedwitschak have adopted it and taken Design Registration to protect their specific design. Hand tuning drums makes so much sense that I wonder why screwdrivers and allen keys can't quickly become a thing of the past. I ask manufacturers to please fit these as standard as long as your design is not an exact replica of an existing one.

There are other tuning systems of increasing complexity, Darius Bartlett, Eckermann and Erle Bartlett (no relation) use an internal system that pushes up a ring slotted inside the main shell. The bearing edge over which the skin passes is on this ring. This gives a smoother profile and makes the playable area of the drum bigger for the relative shell size. Essentially they all do the same thing in different ways. For my money the toolless system is an obvious requirement.

Aesthetics

Ok so if a drum sounds great, has a really responsive left hand action and is well built then, and only then, can I start getting fussy about how it looks. Seamus's matte black drums do let down the overall package however, the rest of it is superb, Metloef make beautifully finished drums as do Eckermann and Hedwitschak. Check the reviews for images and my individual opinions.

If there is any kind of celtic / beer / book of kells / other logo or other design on the skin apart from the maker's signature or stamp, it's not worth even considering but then I didn't need to tell you that :)

---