What this post covers
Churchfront has some quality content up for grabs when it comes to drum sets for worship. In this post, we’re going to walk you through the different building blocks of creating a great sounding drum set. This is specifically for worship leaders out there who want to provide an excellent tool for their drummers. Be it volunteer or contract drummers, we want to make sure that they are set up for success.
We want to be clear at the top of this post that the type of drum set a church builds really depends on budget that's available. Also, the drum set could depend on the specific genre or style a church is going for. The genre we're focusing on today is the typical modern worship rock genre.
This post is jam-packed with tons of valuable info on how to build a great drum set for worship, so here’s the road map to make navigating this post easier.
Who is Noah DeBolt?
Choosing a Kick and Toms
Snare Drum
Drum Heads
Tuning
Hardware
Cymbals
How to Mic Drums
Want the exact same gear seen here and other recommendations for your Worship Ministry? Download Churchfront’s Worship Ministry Toolkit. It’s free, and all the best Worship hardware and software is conveniently curated in one spot.
Who is Noah Debolt?
Noah is based in California, and he attends Vineyard Anaheim Church, where he plays drums every single Sunday alongside Jeremy Riddle. He's a worship leader you may or may not have heard of.
Noah has a ton of experience under his belt. He tours with Jeremy and the rest of the team regularly when they're able to tour in non-pandemic situations. But he's been able to dedicate a lot more time recently to his YouTube channel as well as his online membership platform for worship drummers. Follow him and subscribe to his channel if you want to continue to receive some great quality content around worship drumming.
Choosing a Kick and Toms
The following post is an edited transcript from an interview between Jake Gosselin and Noah DeBolt. The full interview (including demonstrations) can be viewed using the YouTube video above.
Jake
Noah, let's go ahead and dive into the first step when it comes to selecting the shells for our drum kit. What should we be thinking about as we're shopping for a shell pack for our drum kit?
Noah
For shells, we're going to be mostly looking at the kind of wood you want to be using, sizes, drumheads, and all that stuff. But we'll start with just the wood.
The first wood we’ll look at is from a Gretsch Catalina Club, which is a mahogany drum set. For me, in the worship world, mahogany and maple are the main two kits you want to be looking at. This is because maple has even highs, even mids, and really pronounced lows, which is what we want. You want there to be a lot of low-end in the shells that you're picking.
Honestly, mahogany is my favorite because it has muted highs. That means there’s not too much attack coming out of the drums. And then there are the even mids and really warm, rich lows. That’s why I love mahogany. Especially with worship, it just helps to have drum shells that can breathe really deeply in those lower spaces in the frequency range.
Maple is your all-around kit, like If you're using it at church for a youth group or Sunday service. It can do everything. Mahogany, in my opinion, is specifically for better high-end kits for church.
There are other kits out there like poplar kits or birch kits. They're not bad, but they're not my favorite just because they tend to have more attack on the drums. The high end of the frequency is going to be outrageous. I tend to stay with drums that favor the low range in the frequency range. So, that's why I like maple, mahogany, etc.
Jake
Is that because the genre of a lot of worship songs lend themselves to that for modern worship having a darker tone?
Noah
Yeah.
Jake
Why those darker tones?
Noah
It’s a rock trend in general. When you think of jazz drumming, jazz kits will typically be birch or poplar kits because they want to cut through the mix a little more. Instead, with a bass drum, floor tom, rack tom, etc., you want them to sit near the mid and low frequencies. That's just where they find their groove.
Jake
Then when you go about shopping for a shell kit, do you want to even be concerned about a snare shell at this point or do you just want to focus on the kits? I know when you're looking at different online retailers, there are three piece and four piece kits out there. Are most drummers getting a kick and toms together and then getting a snare separately like the setup we have here? What's the trend you're seeing?
Noah
Yeah, I would say that would be the most popular thing. Get a kick, floor tom, rack tom, and then get the snare drum separately. Usually, the snare drum that will come with a shell pack will be the same wood. For example, with a mahogany snare, we don't really want a warm tone with the snare drum. We want that to contrast the warm tones of the rest of the kit. We want the snare drum to be a bit brighter and a little more in your face. I would suggest buying the shell pack separate from the snare drum.
Jake
On this kit we have a kick, high tom, floor tom, and sometimes I've seen an additional floor tom on worship drum sets.
Why would one want to have an additional floor tom?
Noah
Yeah, I think that's just more of an accessory than it is a necessary piece. I think it helps when you're getting into more floor tom sounds, like if you're playing more Bethel sets or things like that. Their songs tend to favor the floor tom a lot more. Having more versatility and a deeper floor tom adds a ton more low-end to the overall sound of the drum kit. It's definitely not necessarily, but it is an added bonus if you can get that.
Jake
Now let's talk about sizes of these different shells. What are the pros and cons of going with a larger kick vs. smaller kick? What about toms? Can you talk us through that?
Noah
Yeah. I think in terms of bass drum size (I think we have a 20 here) I'm in favor of bigger sizes, up to 24 being possibly the max. Again, it just gets you a ton more low-end in the mix.
The 24s are great, and you get a lot of low end. But you can start to miss out on some of the punchiness. If you're doing a two mic setup in the kick, then you can make up for the punchiness by having a kick in mic. But if you don't have that option, then a 22 kick is probably a better idea because you can still get a lot of the punch and still get a lot of low end out of it without having to sacrifice that.
For rack and floor tom sizes, I think this is a 12/14. I typically would do like a 13 by 9 on the rack tom and a 16 by 16 on the floor tom. Those tend to be just classic rock sizes in the way they blend really well together. Especially with the rack tom and floor tom, you want them to be working with each other versus against each other. The sizes can matter there.
For me, if we have a 12 and a 14 like we have here, it's hard to get much pitch differentiation between them. If you have a 13 by 9 and a 16 by 16, 16 by 16 will be really low. Then 13 by 9 can be still in the medium to low range, in terms of frequency. But they will still sound much different than the floor tom.
Snare Drum
Jake
We've covered kick, the high tom, the floor tom, what about the snare? The snare you brought is actually your own and did not come with this drum kit. Tell us about the snare you have here.
Noah
I have a Ludwig Black Beauty 14 by 6 1/2 and a half. This thing is my baby. It's literally the best. It’s an all-brass snare drum. Because the rest of the kit is low, warm, and rich, like mahogany or maple, you want the snare drum to contrast that really well.
Typically, you want a metal snare drum, and that’s typically what I go for. You can do brass, aluminum, titanium, have your pick. But for me, I love brass. It has an even amount of highs, mids, and lows. It can cover the whole spectrum and it can really do anything.
This size is 14 by 6 ½, and I can tune it up, I can tune it down. It can do anything. It's the workhorse of snare drum sizes. I've also seen a lot of worship drummers have 14 by 8 size snare drums, so that means it's just a lot deeper of a snare drum. I'm not opposed to it, but I'm also not a fan of it. The 14 by 8 is a one trick pony. It can do the fat snare drum thing really well, but that's all it does really well. Whereas, for me, a 14 by 6 1/2 can do the fat snare drum thing really well too.
Jake
What's the cost for a snare like that?
Noah
This one is around $700 to $800, which is definitely the top end of the spectrum. But there's a bunch of offshoots of this very snare drum like a Pork Pie Bob. Ludwig makes the Black Beauty into a black magic, too, I think. There's a ton of offshoots that have a brass shell and that are similar to this. But for me, this one gets the cake.
Jake
In terms of investing in a drum kit and the shells, I know this Catalina Club kit was around $700 to $800 for just the toms, the kick, and the snare that came with it. Then this snare is about $700-ish just itself. Are snare drums something that's worth investing a bit more money into in themselves for a bit more of that quality sound?
Noah
Totally, yeah. Honestly, the snare drum and kick drum are the two things in rock and in worship that you're physically hitting the most often. You want them to probably be the best, you know what I mean? For a snare drum, it's definitely an investment there. But if you get a well-crafted snare drum, it'll last you for years if you just take care of it. Then the other pretty big investment would be cymbals as well, because you're also hitting those a ton.
Drum Heads
Jake
We've covered all the shells. Let's talk about the heads and any additional accessories you have on the heads of the shells to influence the sound.
Noah
Starting with the kick, you definitely want a two-ply kick drumhead. You want this at least on the batter side just because you're going to be kicking the crud out of it. You want something that's going to be really durable and punchy for you. On the resonant side, I’m not too particular about that. Maybe just get something black so it looks good.
For the floor tom, I think we're running an Emperor Vintage Coated on this. I love the Emperor line from Remo just because it's a two-ply head. I basically love two-ply on every drum. It's really durable and it's a bit more dead than some of the other drumheads that Remo makes. I definitely like these because when we're playing rock, we don't want ringing floor toms. That just doesn't really make sense in terms of the sound spectrum.
Jake
So the coating on these heads helps dampen and mute the tone a little bit?
Noah
Honestly, for coating vs. not coated, I don't have too much of a preference. I don't really know how big of a difference that makes. I'm sure some people think it makes a big difference, but I don't think it makes that big of a difference, just from my experience. But the two-ply definitely makes the biggest difference in terms of how much a drum will resonate.
Moving on to the rack tom, we have an Emperor Vintage Coated. I typically like to match heads here on the toms. It’s a two-ply, deader drum head. This helps us even out a lot of frequencies there.
For the snare drum, this one is definitely really important. I've gone through the whole gamut of snare drumheads and I've found that the Remo Powerstroke P4 Coated is probably the best one that we use. It literally does everything you want. But honestly, it's like a really dead sound. For finding a big fat snare drum sound, it's perfect in my opinion.
For resonant heads for the toms, I would just get a one-ply like the Remo Ambassador, typically clear. I don't know if a coated will make the difference on the bottom head. But for me, clear does it. For the snare drum resonant head, I just have a Remo snare side on the bottom head, and that works great.
Jake
Then you have a few things on the actual tops of the heads here too. I see some gels and a ring around the top of this. What are those doing?
Noah
Yeah, so those are basically just dampening any unwanted frequencies that you want. Basically, sticking something on the drumhead will just help stop the drumhead from vibrating as much as you want it to.
If you get a Moongel and stick it towards the center of the drum, you're going to find it really deadens the drum because there are less frequencies that are rumbling through the head. If you stick it further toward the outside of the drum, you'll get a lot more openness and a lot more frequencies ringing out. You can experiment. Honestly, you can use anything from duct tape to toilet paper to mimic the Moongels we have here. Anything that will dampen it.
Typically, you want some dampening on the drums. This is because, as they stand, they won't mute out all the overtones that you want. Especially if it's not tuned right, you'll get a lot of wonky things happening. You almost always need the Moongels or something to help kill those overtones.
For the snare drum, in addition to having a Moongel on it, I also stick a Remo Richie Ring around it. That literally does the same thing we've been saying. It just mutes all the overtones. Especially with the snare drum, I don't like it to be wide-open and ringing a ton. I like it to be pretty dead and just have one note. I just think that makes the most sense in the terms of the soundscape of worship music.
Jake
Can you give us a quick before and after of how dampening works?
Yeah, absolutely. I think the snare drum is the most drastic one, so I'll start there. No dampening at all, just a wide-open snare drum.
Now, I have it tuned well, so you don't hear any crazy frequencies fighting with each other. But there's still some ring in there. But with the Remo Richie Ring and the Moongel on it. It's pretty dead.
The snare wires are also really important on the snare drum because you want a lot of snare response. We really want this snare drum to stand out in the mix. I typically run a 42-strand on the bottom and I think what is standard is a 20-strand. There's a pretty big difference there. With a 20-strand, you're just not going to get as much snare response, there's not going to be as much rattle on the bottom of the snare drum.
I think anything above 20-strand is really ideal in getting that fat snare drum sound. Especially when you tune the drums lower, there’s typically less snare drum response because there are less frequencies rattling the snare drums. You definitely want to have the bigger snare drum wires on the bottom. Similar with muffling rack toms, floor toms, with Moongels and stuff.
It's honestly really good to be putting a pillow or a blanket inside of the bass drumhead in order to dampen a lot of the overtones of the bass drum because there are a lot of overtones there. Depending on where you place it, you can place it to where it touches both sides of the bass drum or touches the batter and the Resonant head. Which will give you a pretty punchy sound. Or you can let the Resonant head just ring out by not placing it against that. But that's also a really important thing.
Tuning
Jake
My next question is about the importance of being able to tune a kit properly. I would consider this kit to be a beginner to intermediate shell pack that we have here. But it seems like a lot of the tone comes from the drummer's ability to actually tune these heads. Can you speak to that a little?
Noah
Yeah. Source tone is so important. It is literally everything because you can have the best gear and it could still sound really bad because we just don't know how to tune it.
Jake
Imagine if you had like a $6,000 Taylor Gibson guitar and it's not tuned properly. It's like the same exact thing. But we don't think of it that way because drumheads aren't often associated with pitch and tuning in an intuitive way. I think for worship leaders who are listening, it's just as important to tune your drum set properly as it is to tune your guitar properly.
Noah
Yeah, absolutely. Because if you're planning a jazz gig or something, your drums are going to be tuned significantly different than if you're playing rock or worship. It's really imperative that the drummer knows and learns how to tune the drums. Honestly, there's a ton of YouTube videos on it and everybody has their own way of doing it.
But I think the best way to tune for me is by using this device called a tune bot, which literally tells you what frequency each drumhead is resonating at. Actually, it tells you what each lug is resonating at, which is even better. This is because you want each drum by itself to be in tune with itself. You want each lug to be in tune with all the other lugs, resonating at the same frequency.
Hardware
Jake
Let’s move on to hardware. What is hardware and how does someone get the right hardware for a drum kit?
Hardware is basically the things that hold up all the other things. So, it's the cymbal stands, the floor tom legs, the snare drum stand, the bass drum pedal, and the hi-hat stand. It's really important that we don't go too cheap in this area. You want to get good quality standards because they will last you a really long time.
You just want a lot of good things that keep your gear out of harm's way, basically.
The most important thing, out of all the hardware, would be the kick drum pedal. I definitely think that's an area where you want to spend $200 to $400 on a really good kick drum pedal. This is because that's one of the things that the drummer is going to be hitting the most often. So you want it to be something that's really solid and really sturdy and is going to hold up the test of time.
Jake
Here we have the DW 3000 series hardware. I think it's a good middle of the road. It's not the cheapest, but it's not the most expensive.
What's the pedal you use in your kit?
I use a DW 5000, which is just a step above this one. For me, that one is the layman's professional drum pedal. It's really good. It's not as classy as the DW 9000, but it's got all the gimmicks. It's honestly just feels really good. The DW 3000 is also really incredible. I think it's got a few less features than the 5000, but it honestly is still a great pedal.
Cymbals
Jake
Moving on, we're going to talk about a very important part of the drum set, and that is cymbals.
Noah
Yes, cymbals are one of the most important parts of the drum set because, honestly, you're just hitting them a ton and they have a lot of resonance. They carry a lot of weight within the drum set. You definitely don't want to skimp on this area. Basically, what you're wanting to go for is typically bigger, thinner, washier cymbals.
This is different than a lot of other music. A lot of other music features pingy, articulate, or heavy, thick cymbals. Instead, for worship, the way I think of it in my head is like you want the cymbals almost blending with like the electric guitars in the frequency range.
Size is very important here. For the ride cymbal, I typically go 24-inch ride. I typically won't go below 22 inches. But wherever you go with the ride cymbal kind of dictates the rest of the cymbals you're going to buy. This is because you want them to all be evenly matched and even in temperament.
If I'm getting a 24-inch ride, that typically means my left crash over here is going to be 22 inches. But if you're getting a 22-inch ride, you're probably going to want a 20-inch crash. Then for hi-hats, if I'm getting a 24-inch ride, I'll typically have 17 inch hi-hats. I know that's huge. Those are like almost crashed cymbals, but they really blend really well in the grand scheme of things here.
Jake
Having that darker tone to your cymbals, the washier tone, also helps prevent an overwhelming number of cymbals in the mix that you often hear. It's a headache for a lot of worship bands and churches. For example, if you have a 65-year-old grandma saying, "Oh, the drums are too loud," she's probably right. It's because maybe the cymbals are just super bright and that's what's really harsh for people.
These are Heartbeat cymbals. Why do you prefer Heartbeat versus some other brands that are out there?
Noah
Yeah, Heartbeat is awesome. They make really church-specific cymbals, which is great. They have the best customer relations.
Their cymbals are just really well tailored for worship. They're exactly what I was describing earlier: washy, dark, very mellow, and they make bigger cymbals that serve worship drummers really, really well. There are definitely other good cymbals out there. There's Dream, Meinl, or Zildjian. Even a cymbal company like Istanbul is a great company, but their price point is almost outrageous. I used to use Istanbul's and when I cracked them, I was like, "Okay, I can't spend $500, $600 on a ride again."
For me, the Heartbeats are priced at like such a good price point. Like this 24-inch ride is like $365. It's pretty affordable for churches. It definitely checks all the boxes, it fits the church budget, and it works really well with worship music.
For sticks, I use Vic Firths. I use Peter Erskine signature ride sticks. Peter Erskine is a jazz drummer. I did jazz band in high school and started using these drumsticks, and I’ve just loved them. When I started playing more rock and stuff, I was like, "I'll probably change drumsticks." But these honestly work still. They're not thicker drumsticks. They're in between like a 7A and a 5A. But they last longer than any other drumstick I've used, and I hit pretty hard. So, they work really well.
How to Mic Drums
Jake
Let’s talk about micing a drum set. Now, more than ever, as more of our churches are coming online, we're having to create some great broadcast mixes out there. Micing a drum set, sound reinforcement on drum set, is really important. It's really important to get great source tone.
But talk us through things to be considering as you mic a drum kit. This one in particular is the Audix drum kit. We're going to link all this stuff down below the video for you guys to check out. We have an Audix kit with an SM57 on the snare. It's pretty simple setup.
What do we need to keep in mind in terms of the types of mics we're using and placement?
Noah
I love Audix microphones. We use those primarily when we travel. The SM57 on snare drum is classic. It can do anything.
The main thing is mic placement on the kick drum. You want to be really careful that you're not too far away from the kick drum but not too inside of the kick drum. Obviously, this depends on if you're micing inside the kick, outside the kick, or both.
But I think probably the biggest thing with drums is phasing. Granted, I'm somewhat new to recording drums, so phasing has been something I've been learning. But you want the overhead mics equidistant to the center of the snare drum because the center of the snare drum is the loudest, most vibrant thing of the drum set.
You just want to make sure that these frequencies that are getting picked up in these microphones aren't canceling each other out. Mic placement is really important there. The same principle is important for snare drum mics too. You want the bottom snare mic and the top snare mic to be in phase with each other. This is because, you don't want to have them canceling each other out. It really just defeats the point of view miking them in the first place.
Jake
I do want to walk you guys specifically through the exact miking setup we have here, in case you want to replicate this at home.
We have the Audix drum kit. On the kick drum, we've got that kick drum mic in there. It's actually common practice to have a secondary mic on a kick drum. That's the Shure mic, right?
Noah
Yeah. It's a Shure 91A and goes inside the kick drum. It's a flat microphone that you'd put on the pillow or the blanket that's inside of the bass drum. Then you basically get to mess around with the mix between the kick out and the kick in. The kick in is going to get a lot of attack and the kick out is just going to get all the low-end warmth.
Jake
Then next we have the tom microphones. Again, these are the Audix ones that come in a kit. These are D2s here. It's convenient because they come with the clips to clip right on the rims and the shells here. You don't have to have additional mic stands.
Then, as you already said on the snare, we have two microphones. We have the top microphone, which is the Shure SM57, then the bottom one is another Audix microphone that came with a kit.
Why would you want a bottom snare and a top snare mic?
Noah
Similar to the kick drum, you want a kick in and kick out. In other words, you get the low end on the outside and the punch on the inside. With the snare, you really want a lot of snare response. That's what makes the snare drum a snare drum. The top mic will typically not pick up too much of the snare wires. It typically picks up more of the low mids and all that goodness. Having a snare bottom mic will just pick up solely all of that high end snare wire sound.
Jake
The overheads are condenser mics. I believe with condenser mics, they're just going to be more sensitive and clearer with a lot of the detail with the cymbals on the higher end of the frequency spectrum.
The other microphones are all dynamic microphones, meaning that these microphones are intended to be placed really close to the source of the instrument. They're not going to pick up a bunch of sound everywhere else, because these mics typically have noise gates on them.
Wrapping Up
There you have it. We've walked you through how to go about building a worship drum set. Remember that it’s not necessary to get exactly what was covered here. A lot of principles come into play, like budget. But hopefully this can help point churches in the right direction.
Noah teaches private lessons and also runs an academy with a bunch of online pre-recorded video courses for modern worship drummers, so subscribe to Noah’s YouTube channel for more drum resources. And don’t forget to download the Worship Ministry Toolkit to access all of the gear listed here.
Happy drumming!