[cardy31]

I am a former pro drummer (now a programmer which is why I hang out here)

The wood definitely matters. Beginner kits are usually made out of poplar and even with good heads and tuning they just sound bad compared to a kit made with a wood known to sound better. Maple and birch are quite popular, oak, bubinga, and ash all make appearances on high-end drum sets. I used to work in a music store and saw a lot of drum kits come through, and high-end kits even with the same heads and tuning as low end kits do just sound better.

Also, in the rest of musical instruments, particular woods are valued for their acoustic properties especially on string instruments. So I don’t think it is that far-fetched to say that it makes a difference in drums too, unless you also want to argue that an acoustic guitar made of particle board vs one made of maple are the same. (They do not sound the same at all)

[yakshaving_jgt]

I don’t think the shell material matters in most rock drumming.

If all your drums are wearing pinstripes and are covered in moongel, your bass drum has a duvet in it, everything is close-miced and heavily EQ’d, etc, I’ll bet there’s no discernible difference between exotic wood types, or even other shell materials.

Nobody can tell that Danny Carey’s shells are forged from melted down Paiste cymbals. After all is said and done, it sounds the same as his older bubinga kit.

Most of the sound is going to come from heads, tuning, technique, microphones, mixing, the room, etc.

Hell, I bet even the bearing edge accounts for more sonic difference than shell material.

[DonnyV]

This is semi-true. It all depends on what kind of music you are playing and how the kit is being mic'd. If you are close micing a kit. Then it really doesn't matter what the drums are made of. I have an old 1984 Tama kit with shit wood. But since I play rock and close mic it. It sounds great on recordings. Now the one thing you can't fix with close micing and EQ is your snare. No matter what I did I couldn't get any of my snares to sound good. I finally got a custom hammered brass snare and it made a HUGE difference. Now if I wanted to do rock but capture more of the drums natural sound. Like the low tones of the rack and floor toms or the front of a bass drum with no hole in the head. You really need to have drums with top notch wood. Plus you combine that with a good high ceiling room. You get some really nice sounding drums.