Damping the ringiness

[rexmo]

I wanted to share this, see if others find it useful. After sticking a Moongel under the Remo logo on the head of my 16" Remo Djembe, and hearing little effect, I tried a couple of other things.

The idea that the Fiberskyn head needs to be more like goat skin prompted me to rest a 4" toy djembe on the head upside down. While trying to rig this to stay in place when tipping the RD up into a suitable playing position, I hooked a bungee cord on a couple of the tuning lugs.

I didn't really get what I was after for holding the baby djembe mute in position, but when I tried a couple of tones and slaps with the bungee cord stretched across a short chord of the RD head, I found what I was looking for. To my untrained ears, it sounds like it's in the djembe family.

Anyone have a ringy drum to try this on and comment on the sound?

[Erny]

Hi Rexmo,

I just tried your proposal on a 14" black earth, and the ringing is gone, but..

...there unfortunately is an influence on the bass too which depends on the length of the chord. The longer the chord, the more the influence on the bass. A few months ago I tried several methods to get rid of the ringing and this one seemed to be the best:

The paper-trick doesn´t work on a remo (which, I know, is supposed not to be a djembe!). The paper in the bowl influences the bass of my drum but not at all the well-known ringing an pinging.

A few threats higher I described a method but today I found out another very effective one. You just have to remove the head, apply weatherstrip 1/2" wide, 1/4" high (self-adhesive foam, not the rubber one) on the top-end of the wooden bowl and remount the head again. Thus the foam is in the whole zone of contact between the skin and the bowl and this simple method kills any ringing and pinging.

IMHO I guess, that modifications of the bowl do not have a big influence on these undesired overtones, I think it is only a question of damping the skin itself (but this is only my personal experience with my drum)

Regards...
...Erny

After some months, thats what I do know now, the elasticity of the foam is gone and the foam has to be replaced in order to get a better sound again.

Regards...
...Erny

[Trog]

The Nuskyn heads from Remo are suppose to stop alot of the ringing.
I read somewhere else of someone putting a X strip of duck tape on the inside of the head.

[Erny]

Hi,

unfortunately I don´t know the Nuskyn-skins, only the deepskyn.

On the deepskyn the tape-trick works if size and positioning of the tape on the skin are allright. The best position is the area, where the brand is to be found. Nevertheless, the above decribed method, to my mind, is better.

Here you can find a video where the effect of duct-tape in different applications on a 14" Black Earth can be compared:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtYuM4Gz0O0

Cheers
...Erny