Want to learn different ways to make your drum kit quieter for apartment practice? In this article, I’ll discuss nine different ideas on how you can quiet drums.
Whether you need to practice in dorm room, in your apartment or an unplugged performance, this guide is for you.
How to Make Acoustic and Electronic Drums Quiet
1. Mesh Drumheads
Installing Mesh Drumheads is a relatively cheap and effective method to make your drums quite, especially if you live in an apartment. Mesh drums heads have various advantages: they can be made tighter or loose, and they also feel more realistic, unlike the other options.
Consider Remo Silentstroke for your drums. These drumheads are available in sizes, meaning you can fit your drum in them. All you need to do is replace your drum’s batter head and let the resonant stay as it is.
Mesh drumheads retain every tone of the individual drum as it drastically reduces the drum noise.
2. Use Drum Mutes
Drum mutes are rubber pads that are placed on top of the drumheads. These sound dampening products like SoundOff by Evans Drum Mutes come in either pack or separately for you to set up on your own.
The rubber pads are made of high-quality material, and they are specifically designed to make drums quite. Even though they are not quite effective, the pads reduce the drums to a higher degree enough to please your neighbors.
These pads are easy to attach to the drums and to remove. They are affordable.
3. Try Changing Your Drum Sticks
In most cases, the size of your drum sticks could be a great contributor to the amount of noise produced by the drums. So it makes sense if you go for smaller sized sticks.
Alternatively, you can swap for rods or even brushes, and you will notice how significantly the noise reduces.
An example of a low volume rod is the Steve Smith Tala Wand. These rods contain a foams center that is surrounded by wooden dowels.
Though the rods sound different than the drums, they still manage to provide a pleasing tone while reducing the noise.
4. You can Muffle the Bass Drum
You can quickly dampen the sound from your drum without spending a fortune. Think outside the box. Here are a few tips to help you out.
- Put heavy towels in the drums. Heavy towels will help with absorbing noise. Remember to go for the thicker towels. A thicker mat is also good at sound deadening.
- You can reduce the bass drum by stuffing it with heavy blankets
- You can also lower the sound of your drums by putting a layer of sheets under the drumheads. It also includes between the drumhead and the bearing edge.
- Look for the old drumheads and lay them on top of your drums upside-down. Though not effective, this method will moderately reduce drum noise.
- You can also remove the resonant heads. This method is not recommended for long term sound reduction method, but it reduces noise to a higher degree.
Cut some huge hole on old drumheads then use these drum heads as your resonant drumhead. The holes on the drum heads will help minimize the noise produced.
5. Electronic Drums
Unlike acoustic drums, electronic drums are much quieter. So if you plan to reduce the noise from your drums, this is the way to go. Even though they are expensive, they are more durable than rubber pads
Electronic kits have been around for a while now; they have also improved in quality from what they were a few years ago.
Yamaha DTX electronic kits are among the best electronic drums. They are also padded, which means they are much quieter, unlike the other types of drums. There are also different types of electronic drums, such as Roland’s electronic drums, which come with mesh drum heads.
You can go with one of the two options if you want to minimize the noise in your apartment.
6. Fill up the drum room
An easy way of making your drums quite is filling up the drum room with furniture or other items. An empty room creates echoes, which will add to the already existing drum noise.
Filing up space with couches, bookshelves, and other items will reduce the echoes. The drumming noise will be easily absorbed by the furniture hence minimizing the noise that might leak out.
Consider adding a carpet tor acoustic soundproofing mats on your wooden floors. The mats are at least 2mm thick. The thickness of the mat makes it easy to absorb noise from the drums. Therefore, you won’t have to worry about disturbing your neighbors.
7. Get low volume cymbals
Cymbals are capable of producing too much noise when you hit them. For this reason, you need to get low volume cymbals.
Low volume cymbals are much effective at reducing noise, unlike the regular cymbals. If you are always practicing, then you need to get a low volume cymbal. The low volume cymbals come with several tiny holes that help in noise reduction.
An example of a low volume cymbal is the Zildjian L80. These Cymbals contain a set of L80 low volume cymbals with an addition of a mesh drumheads, which are all critical at reducing noise.
8.Have a Good Dynamic Control
In some cases, the problem may be your dynamic control. Besides reducing noise, adopting a good dynamic will significantly reduce the amount of noise produced.
You will become a better drummer when you can control how you hit the drum, whether hard or soft.
9. Talk to your Neighbors
If all the other options don’t seem to work for you, you can try having a conversation with the neighbors. If they are reasonable people, they are going to understand.
However, you both need to agree on the time that works for both of you. Tell them that you passionate about music and that practicing is essential for your music career.
You can plan to practice when the neighbors are not around. However, you need to give them your phone numbers so that they can warn you in case of any changes.
Your neighbors will likely understand when you politely ask and also when your mind about their peace of mind.
On Ways to Make Drums Quiet
Have other tips on how to make drums quieter? Get in touch with us. Above are some of the tips on how you can silence your drums.
But my best bet I would recommend you to purchase an electronic drum set and ditch your acoustic drum if you want to practice quietly.