The age-old battle of internet tryhards – is sound in the hands? The question is absurd, of course – there are exactly three sounds that are in the hands: clapping, snapping, and hand farts. Everything else is a combination of your hands and something else – strings, wood, electricity, butts.
The thing they’re really saying is that a good player can sound good regardless of the quality of gear, and no amount of good gear will make a bad player sound good. Last year, Glenn Fricker put the saying to the test, Mythbusters-style with his video Is the sound really in the hands? in which he determined that on the guitar, at least, the player made a huge difference in the tone.
Now he’s back to see if it’s also true of the drums.
I think the differences were even more obvious on the drums. There’s so many different sounds you can make, but a limited number of pitches on the drums, so when you hit a drum or cymbal differently the contrast is easier to detect.
But that’s just my dumb opinion, what’s yours?