@ 00:01 – “we” meaning me and my quarantine beard.
And here’s a more technical note I couldn’t include in the video, lest it become too long and boring:
the cross sticking/rim click sound is produced from the vibration of the hoop and shell, mechanically transmitted to the head via the stick, so from physics and experience it’s clear enough that the biggest impact on your rim click sound comes from your drum, and your drum head in particular.
The stick position makes a big difference as well, because you have to, somehow, make the head vibrate at the same time as the shell, and positioning the pivoting end of the stick here or there has the same effect as playing a common note in the center of the head vs near the hoop.
What the groove wedge mainly does is, physically, attenuating the sound/vibration that’s produced in the hoop and shell when it’s struck by acting as a middleman between those and the stick, lessening the “impact” of the drum shell and hoop a bit.
What the groove wedge does not do instead is producing a different rim click sound by vibrating all by itself, which is (one of) the reason(s) why the rim click sound you get hitting the wedge is still heavily dependent on the drum, drum head, and stick position.
For an interesting experiment hold a stick horizontally like a clave about 1cm higher than your hoop and play a rim click hitting that stick – you’ll notice the sound isn’t all that different from the wedge sound in this video.
Same kind of demo as usual, but this time I also spent a couple minutes describing why the virtues of this somewhat mythical item beyond its sound, as they may not be immediately clear just by just looking at it or listening to the difference it makes.
The snares played are, in order of appearance:
a 13×3.5″ no-name, funky steel snare
a 14×5.5″ Yamaha Stage Custom made-in-Indonesia snare, and
a 14×5″ WorldMax Vintage Classic (see: Ludwig Black Magic)
The rest is a jelly bean set with parts from a MIC Tamburo Formula, a MII Yamaha Stage Custom, and a Mapex Orion, and the cymbals are, clockwise from my left:
14″ Paiste Innovations medium hi-hats
20″ Tongxiang TMX ride
20″ Paiste Sound Formula Full Ride (round logo, made in Germany)
Recorded using two Line Audio CM3 (overheads, about ear height if standing) an an AKG D3700 (bass drum), filmed with a Canon EOS 5d3, and mixed with a bit of EQ on the bass drum mic, which was picking up almost no sound from the snare.
The input gain stayed the same for all drum mics throughout the demo, so you can safely compare the difference in volume as well.
Check out more gear demos and drum videos on my channel, more is coming so subscribe to stay up to date!
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