Tama Bell Brass

ukecraze

Borrowed an 80s Tama Bell Brass 14x6.5 for a session and stumbled into something weird/cool: rotating the drum in the snare stand radically changed the rimshot pitch and decay. Not just “a little more choke” different-like two very different instruments.

What I did:

Die-cast hoops, medium-high top, fairly tight reso, 20-strand wires, basket arms just kissing the bottom hoop.
Rotated the drum so the throw-off alternated between being centered on a basket arm vs centered between two arms.
Used a phone spectrogram while hitting consistent rimshots and center strokes.

What I heard/saw:

With the throw-off centered on a basket arm, the overtone “ping” around ₇₀₀ Hz dropped a bunch and the overall note got drier/shorter.
Rotating 30-60 degrees brought the ping back and the decay lengthened, with a noticeable shift in rimshot pitch.
On my maple and brass snares this effect is subtle; on the Bell Brass it’s dramatic, like the cast shell’s stiffness is creating stable node patterns that the stand either clamps at a node (drier) or an antinode (ringier).

Questions for Bell Brass owners/engineers:

Do you deliberately align the throw-off or a lug over a basket arm to “voice” the drum? Any go-to positions that consistently dry it up without killing the body?
Have you A/B’d different stand contact styles (thick rubber vs thin, nylon tips, 3-point vs hoop cradle) specifically on Bell Brass? Which preserved the low-mid punch while taming the high ping?
Has anyone tried a RIMS-style/floating snare cradle with a Bell Brass to decouple the shell mass from the stand? Worth it or overkill?
Hoop swaps: does going from die-cast to 2.3mm triple-flange on this shell reduce the stand-rotation sensitivity, or just make everything ringier across the board?
Recording angle: do you notice the “rotation voicing” more in overheads/rooms than the close mic? I heard the character shift most in rooms.
Micro-tuning: tiny reso changes (like 1/8 turn) seemed to move the “sweet” rotation spots. Is that expected from shell mode interactions, or am I chasing ghosts?
Wires/heads that keep the Bell Brass thump without turning into full-on Black Album ping? I liked Controlled Sound X over Hazy 300 with 20-strand PureSound, but I’m open to recipes that play nice with this rotation trick.

If you’ve mapped node lines on a Bell Brass or have a repeatable “basket alignment” method for consistent results, I’d love to hear it. Bonus points for frequency plots or quick clips. This feels like a free tone knob hiding in plain sight.

harmonyhunter

Hey man, that's a killer observation on the Bell Brass-I've got an '84 model and yeah, the cast shell's rigidity makes it super sensitive to stand contact. I always align the throw-off right over a basket arm to dry out that 700Hz ping without losing the body; it clamps the node just right and gives a more focused crack, especially in a live room.

On stands, I've A/B'd a Puresound basket (thinner rubber hoops) vs. a basic Gibraltar- the Puresound tames the highs better while keeping the low-mid thump intact. Haven't tried RIMS on mine, but it seems worth it if you're gigging a lot to avoid that rotation variability.

For hoops, triple-flange does make it ringier overall but less position-sensitive; I stuck with die-cast for the punch. On heads, your Controlled Sound X setup sounds spot-on-I've had luck with a Coated Ambassador over a Hazy 300 with 30-strand Blasters for even more controlled decay. If you get a spectrogram of those alignments, share it; I'd love to compare notes!