Sleishman drums

Looks like someone finally figured it out.

After all these years one of the reasons I believe the company has not caught on is for the very reasons displayed in the presentation - the way the heads are tensioned. Having both batter and reso heads tensioned the same produces a sound, but too many drummers like the feel of different tensions between top and bottom, and the sound or tone that produces. Especially is that the case with snare drums.

Not sure it helped him to just tension 5 lugs, though, but there again, it isn't rocket science. 5 lugs produced a good overall pitch. That might say something for the system, itself; the rigid ring.

I have always loved the look of Arbiter drums, and Sleishman, and Penguin drums. I like the 'no lug' look. Sleishman has a tube lug look, actually. In terms of sound if Pearl made a free floating drum set based on their design of the system I think it would go over well because of the greater tensioning options.

I cannot say I have heard Sleishman sound different to any great degree, though. The idea is a drum with a more open sound. I am not one to appreciate the pitch levels he played the set at. Way too muddy for me.

I'm in TOTAL disagreement! The drums resonated throughout the total
range of pitch by tuning any lug at random. The secret behind this as
he explained is the tension is designed to stay even all the way around
no matter what. Tuning should ultimately be in the the final, overall pitch,
tone and resonance of the drum once the tuning is done and not in the fact
that you can't offset the pitches between heads. Who's gonna care about
that when listening to a CD or while watching and listening to a live concert?

I don't think it was muddy at all, maybe a little compressed due to the mic
setup but the drums sound fantastic as far as I can tell in this clip. They
haven't caught on because just like the magnet pedals, they're not as readily
on the market as what we see normally. I'd love to try a set of these for sure.

D. Slam wrote:I'm in TOTAL disagreement!  The drums resonated throughout the total range of pitch by tuning any lug at random.  *******Indeed. It's a nice system. My point was that he only tensioned 5 lugs, not six.

The secret behind this as he explained is the tension is designed to stay even all the way around no matter what.  Tuning should ultimately be  in the the final, overall pitch, tone and resonance of the drum once the tuning is done and not in the fact that you can't offset the pitches between heads.  Who's gonna care about
that when listening to a CD or while watching and listening to a live concert?******* Well, are you referring to the audience, or the drummer? I am speaking of the way many drummers tension their heads, especially the snare heads. Most times I have read articles on how drummers tune/tension they mention reso heads being higher or lower in pitch/tension, which effects the way the drum can feel upon impact, especially with snare drums. I tend to tension toms for feel more than pitch. The sizes will go wherever they naturally will for pitch. Someone like Simon Phillips, in an interview I read, would like the Sleishman system seeing he uses double Remo ambassadors, and tensions them the same. And his Tamas always sound good.

I don't think it was muddy at all, maybe a little compressed due to the mic
setup but the drums sound fantastic as far as I can tell in this clip.  They
haven't caught on because just like the magnet pedals, they're not as readily
on the market as what we see normally.  I'd love to try a set of these for sure.

******I have always thought drums pitched way down low sound muddy, regardless of size. Dble ply heads tend to help that with more attack in the sound, than low end rumble. I believe Sleishman's been around much longer than Drumnetics, late 1970s, though I'm not certain when he began his free-floating system for drums. Seems I can recall ads in Modern Drummer way back. I reckon they sell well in Australia. Like Brady they are pretty high end, which limits sales, too. Don't get me wrong. I wish them well. I just didn't hear anything in the video that sounded different than other drums. If the simplicity of tensioning is what drummers want they will become far more accepted and used.

hm. well, that post came out kind of weird.

Asaph,

They sounded like drums! What I did notice that was different however
was the way the resonate tone stayed with the drum from a very low
tuning pitch to a very high one. He even tuned one of the nuts loose to
the degree that he could shake it with the drum key, and no matter what
tension and pitch the head was set at it never went flat. And that was
even after not being able to use one of the lug nuts because the mic was
mounted on it. I have never seen this done with a standard drum. You
generally work to get the tension as even as you can around the drum
to get a decent pitch, tone and resonant factor going. The tones were
very precise, even and with a nicely defined resonance. We can tune a
drum to whatever pitch we want.

Again.... I wish I had access to a set of these. As far as the concept is
concerned I think they've struck gold. Whether or not it catches on, who
knows?

"They sounded like drums!" D.Slam

Indeed! Kind of my point with the entire discussion of drum sound.

What is odd is that I have seen others do very simple versions of the 'unitune' idea and have been roundly slammed and made light of because of the lack of being able to pitch both heads independently. DIYers have come up with ideas and those who are also DIYers have said 'cute' but not a real drum.' Well, sounds like a nice drum to me.

Like I said for myself I like to tension reso heads just to where it keeps a nice tone, just getting wrinkles out. Then I tension the top head more tight because I like the extra bounce. If I tensioned the drum with a uni-system I could not get the sound and feel I like, and it is more pronounced with half toms, which are my favorite sound and feel. The interaction of air between heads in a shallow drum is faster. I tend to notice very small changes. Someone like Bozzio, tuning to actual notes, might like a uni-system, if feel is not a factor. But on a snare drum where feel is a huge factor, tensioning both heads equally really narrows down options on snare response and overall feel.

It is certainly a fast system. Can't find fault with that.

That's why I believe Pearl could make a set that would fly, with their ring system. Maybe it's a patent thing. Although I wonder how Pearl can make snare drums. Maybe it is just a matter of what Sleishman's tension ring is and does, in which case Pearl could make entire free-floating sets. If Sleishman did catch on, Pearl would be right behind them.

Personally, I would like to have seen young Sheishman take any other make of drum and tap on a shell, and then tap on the shell of one of theirs to hear any actual resonance difference. Despite lugs all over a shell, just clamping down two membranes on it tends to deaden it quite a bit. Sleishman could prove their point by simply tapping on fully dressed shells of theirs and other companies.

There's a lot of ... fear in the industry. No one wants to outright state something different about their drums if they have to make dead-on comparisons. So, hype becomes the normal mode of advertising.

I may be very wrong, and that's fine. I want to learn all their is about drums and their characteristics. But having owned a Pearl free-floater I could not say their drums had any more resonance to them than snares by other manufacturers or ones I have made. That's what showed me clamping two plastic membranes down on a shell can really mute it. Now, with a thicker metal shell, like aluminum, you might notice a difference because of the bell-tone aluminum has by itself. Wood, not so much.

I just didn't hear anything in the video that sounded different than other drums.

My point being, when I said: "They sounded like drums." was
I can recognize the sound of a drum regardless the quality of
any given drum. It's either going to have a good "drum" sound
or a bad one.

I don't recall ever making the argument that they sounded
different than say another drum set of the same quality. I
am only impressed with the easy tuning concept and the fact
that the drums never goes flat at any point of the tuning
spectrum... And the drums do sound great. Icing on the cake.

Agreed.