History of Drum Kits & How Technology Has Developed Surrounding Drums

​Despite being a common part of most music genres in the local music scene in Scotland, what we know as the modern drum kit has only been around in the last 100 years or so. In fact, before 1900, all percussion was done by individual parts. That means one person would be on the cymbals, a second would be focused on the bass drum, and a third on the snare. It wasn’t until then that they decided it was also cheaper to play single drummer than multiple. When the idea first came around, there was the term “double drumming”, which took one percussion player, and had them playing the snare and bass together at the same time. The bass was turned so that the head was facing the sky. This in turn meant that it was played with a different technique, needing to be struck downwards with a beater, whilst still using drumsticks for playing the snare.

 

About 10 years after the new century, the first pedal to accurately play the bass drum was invented. This meant that they could focus their hands on the snare and implement hand-eye coordination including legs now too.

 

Again, around 10 years later, they started adding in different percussion instruments into the mix, being blocks of wood, cowbells, various cymbals and more different percussion instruments to maximise the creativity and versatility.

 

Around the 30s, a new layout was introduced. We got the introduction of the Hi-Hat cymbals. This, combined with smaller drums named “toms” created the new normal for drum kits. Over the 20th century, it progressed into featuring the following standard design, with sometimes changing for certain genres:
Snare + Bass + High Tom + Mid Tom + Low Tom + Hi-Hat Cymbals (+ Stand) + Crash Cymbal (+ Stand) + Additional Crash Cymbal (+ Stand) + Ride Cymbal (+ Stand)

 

This same setup is used today across pop, rock, metal, jazz, and so many more genres, and was mass produced by several companies as being the newest versatile way to play the drums. However, while there was the physical acoustic drum kit on the rise, technology started to come around too.

 

Despite remaining mostly the same, the biggest change which helped the production of these drums was the heads that cover each of the drums. They were originally made out of animal skin, and a change was made to make them into a new artificial material that helped make them more durable too. This has been the biggest change. Since then there have only been minor changes like improvements over materials.

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One thing crept up, following the generation of classic rock, metal and following on from the beatles. A new technology slowly arrived, starting with the Simmons Electronic Drum Kit. This was the first ever hexagonal drum kit, and made news coverage from sources like the BBC, and became a huge technical shift for drummers. It gave a new tool for drummers to start using. They could hit any individual drum and hear a noise that they’ve set up beforehand, whether it is a drum or something else. These pads were an incredible invention. Not only could they play anything when struck, but there was a very high sensitivity too. They were also said to allow faster playing, as the material gave more bounce than a standard drum head. This helped birth faster genres too.

 

Now, despite these hexagonal drums being created, there was technology as early as the 1930s for the drums. The Rhythmicon was essentially the first drum machine. It took rotating discs to create a unique rhythmic pattern, such patterns that were deemed impossible to play by hand. It didn’t ever become a mainstay though as it was created before other technologies were around to utilize it properly. Around 1950, having your own rhythmic tracks finally was easier to do for the public. One used mixing tape that had recorded parts on it, which helped to become one of the earliest sampling devices. Another a few years later went back to using rotating discs, which was powered by a vacuum, to essentially play different audio clips. This was aimed towards musicians who never had someone to play the drums with them and gave them the equipment to do so, having rearranged rhythmic beats already programmed. If we jump across another 20 years, we see the change to electronics rather than mechanisms. These new inventions became very popular, but equally still were very limited in terms of what they could do.

 

Towards the end of the 70s, the Roland CR-78 was invented. This was the first ever drum machine that was able to be programmed to hold any groove or beat they wanted to within it. This opened the doors for a lot of creativity, finally giving more options to experiment and be creative with a wider range. Interestingly, this same machine was used by the world-famous Phil Collins in the first ever hybrid setup. He used this for the track “In the Air Tonight”, which featured a mix of Collins playing the drums along with this track. Roland kept their name popular and released some of the most famous drum machines, including the Roland TR-909.

 

The 80s introduced a new device which took the initiative to further itself from standard drum machines prior where everything worked set and allowed the musicians themselves to use different pads that were sensitive to the touch to play their own beats and rhythms, bringing an element of human feel back into the music.

 

A large number of drum machines have been implemented across the different DAWs, including Ableton which was heavily used for this project. There are still physical drum machines out there however, especially in Scotland, and a lot of producers still use these to create a more hands-on approach when creating music, something many feel is missed due to the implementation of DAWs themselves, further proving that the battle isn’t internally surrounding technology, rather it is about how we continue to use it in our own ways in order to keep the love of music around forever.