Best Drum Sound

It's far too difficult to provide a list of the best drummers of all time. Attempting to formulate such a list seems folly since it's nearly impossible to compare different drummers across varying genres and eras. However, I am semi-obsessed with lists so I can't fight my incessant urge to qualify a particular artist by comparing him to his contemporaries. Therefore, I am going to provide a top five list of the "best sounding" drummers. These are drummers who seem to have a keen ear for what sound will eventually make its way to the listener; a profound knowledge for tone, attack, and presence. These are not necessarily the greatest drummers. They have simply captured the essence of a particular sound. However, it should be noted that it typically takes a beast of a drummer to achieve this sonic understanding. For what it's worth... here's the list:

5.) Abe Cunningham (Deftones) - I've always loved the sound of Abe's kit, but I particularly like the sound that he gets out of his snare drum. He uses a fairly large snare drum and tunes the head extremely tight (I imagine he goes through several heads every time he sits down to play (sounds like this girl I once knew)). As one would expect, a larger snare results in a deeper tone; however, the head tuning he uses gives his drum a nice piccolo type pop to accent his bass drum which is tuned quite low. The four toms he typically plays with fill in the scale set by the snare and bass giving the entire kit a lot of character.

4.) Lars Ulrich (Metallica) - For me, Lars has always had the definitive metal bass drum sound. Somehow he gets his bass drum(s) to pronounce a slight "th" sound before the percussive element THumps in. It provides a full, rich bottom to Metallica's sound and has made it unmistakable for decades. During the recording of 2003'sSt. Anger Lars decided to turn the snares off on his snare drum and the result completely distracted from anything else he would play. It completely hollowed out his sound as if he were playing inside of a tin can. This terrible decision almost caused me to remove him from this list; however, he accomplished enough on Metallica's other albums to persuade me otherwise.

3.) Sammy J. Watson (Apex Theory, Mt. Helium) - Sammy J. Watson approaches a rock kit from a jazz perspective as evidenced by his keen sense of his cymbals and the way they accent the rest of the notes he plays. I particularly like the way he uses his tiny (6" to 10") splash cymbals before punctuating a roll with his larger crash cymbals. Granted, a lot of what I've just described has more to do with playing style than tonality; however, I've heard many other drummers record splash accents and have them sound out of place in the mix (too high and pitchy). Sammy's cymbal tone melds nicely with the tuning of his toms. The entire kit is tuned relatively high which gives his playing a nice "punch". While other drummers try to achieve a heavy sound by tuning their drums lower, Sammy lets his playing talk by wrenching the heads down tight and letting them ring.

2.) Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson, Earthworks, etc.) - Every drum that Bill Bruford touches is made to sound as good as it possibly could. Some of his earlier recordings with Yes and King Crimson may suffer from a sound standpoint simply because they were recorded up to 40 years ago; however, with improved recording technology we listeners get a better sense of the subtleties this masterful drummer coaxes from his kit. In recent years Bruford has spent time playing in his jazz quartet, Earthworks, and his sound is quite elegant. The bass drum rumbles instead of attacks: almost as if he were hitting a string, but the real genius is the way his cymbals work with his snare. At times the pieces almost wash together, and then, in an instant, they completely diverge to complement and counterbalance one another. If you couldn't tell already, I think Bill Bruford just might be the single greatest player to ever sit behind a trap set (to reiterate: this doesn't mean he has the best sound). Therefore, I will include a short video of a solo he played a couple years ago with Earthworks... enjoy:

1.) Danny Carey (Tool) - Danny Carey has a wonderful feel for the heavy artillery. The power and presence he projects from his toms and kick drums is incredible. This can partly be attributed to the unique kit that he plays (see video and picture below). Danny has a giant set of drums made from melted down Paiste cymbals. Unlike wood or acrylic walled drums, it takes a little extra power to make these drums resonate. Luckily Danny Carey is a large individual (6'-5") who naturally generates a lot of pop behind his playing. The weight of these drums really comes through in his playing and it gives body to a band that already had plenty. He also provided input in the invention of the Mandala drum, which is an electronic drum that has area sensitive heads. The gaps in Danny's bronze kit are filled with these Mandala drums and enables him to trigger any sample he can dream up. Danny is the perfect example of someone who is completely in tune with his instrument (hell his kit is set up using a GPS unit to tap into his sacred geometry) and his sound is like none other I've heard.