dales drumming over the years on record...

[TheSwingSet]

i have been getting myself ready for the show on friday here in nyc and after re-examing all of the melvins albums, and as a fellow drummer i have noticed a difference in the sounds of dales kit throughout the years. now of course i realize with different producers the overall albums will have a different sound...but i remember reading somewhere during the trilogy that dale was using a smaller setup to record(maybe for only the bootlicker) does anyone have any info in his recording setup....to my somewhat knowledgeable eay it sounds like h.a.t was a smaller setup that his live set(which is fucking sick)...any info on dales kits would be appreciated...
withlove.
withteeth.
sirswing

[Binkard and Friends]

Well this thread is old as shit but I'll answer it anyway.


Dale, as with most drummers, does use a smaller setup in the studio. Smaller drums ultimately have more tone, and can be engineered to sound large and powerful in the studio whereas massive drums (such as his deep snare, giant bass drum, floor tom-size tom tom, and his gong bass) would sound muddy and be hard to mess with.

His set up has always been the 4 piece "punk" drum set, but much larger. I believe his bass drum and tom tom are custom made because of their giant size, as are some of his cymbals. He has a 26 inch Paiste RUDE ride, a 20/22 Paiste RUDE crash, and a very large Paiste China Trash Cymbal. He has always had a Iso-bell placed very high on the kit, and a set of 10 inch ribbon crashers or "traps," which used to be hooked to the rim of his floor tom, but now appear very rusted connected to his tom tom. He also has a worn out roto tom rim placed above that. Ever since Hostile Ambient Takeover, he has used a 8 inch splash cymbal, which can be heard in songs like "Dr. Geek" and "The Bloated Pope."

On Bullhead, Dale put cracked cymbals on top of new ones to get a very unique sound. Check out the cracked Iso -bell in "Your Blessened." The drum solo at the end of Bullhead is only the beginning of his abilities, but is nonetheless great, and shows his great time keeping skills.

Dale has always been a hard-hitter, especially during the early days. He's a very powerful and creative drummer, and his lack of conventional playing makes the Melvins' music interesting. I can bet you will never here a drummer use a ribbon crasher, especially the way he does, and you will never here anyone interpret heavy music drumming quite like Dale.


There you go.

[FartLips]

and he uses regal tip quantum 3000's w/ nylon tips.  at least that one night, but drummers are fickle.

[Smellis]

"MELVINS TOOTHPICK"

[Ron Maiden]

as far as sticks, he threw one to me and i fucking caught it! i was in front at a white zombie concert, i yelled out Dale, can i get a stick and he tossed it and sure as shit right to me. that was cool.

its really thick, im a drummer and i couldnt tell you what size it is.

as far as drummers using traps, check out the drumming on Theory of Ruin(Alex Newport, ches smith on drums) the drumming on both releases is fucking bad ass. very unique and hard hitting. off time. if your a drummer, you'll deffinately like it.

[Jem]

On their last tour to Australia he was using much thinner sticks. No shit i'm pretty sure they were 5Bs! and i remember reading a review that spoke about how he changed stick size for different songs. Well i went and sat behind his kit at Ding Dong (australia) and they were all 5Bs.

a mate of mine has a stick of his from their Honky tour of australia and it is the biggest stick i've EVER seen. way thicker than anything you can find in a shop. so he guess he changes round a bit.

He only had one ride when i saw him. I always figured he'd have two. and it was a 2002 not a rude.
he had the ribbon crashers of course (or crash plates i think you can call them aswell) but he also had this rather small round, rusty looking piece of metal with two bars going across it. Does anyone know what that is? he uses it in the "she don't care" bit of Queen. it's not half a roto tom. much dirtier and more musical. i've always found the roto tom thing a bit clean.