If you’re new to playing the drums, you may be finding all the parts confusing to learn. That’s completely understandable as drum sets are large and full of different things. Learning each of their names typically takes some time.
In this guide, we’re going to break down every aspect of a drum set and make it easier for you to learn and understand what each thing does. Every drum has a role, and it’s now your role to learn what those are. Welcome to Drums Anatomy 101.
The bass drum is the largest drum in every setup. It’s the one drum that lies longways along the ground. All drum setups are built around the bass drum, making it the central piece of a drum set.
Bass drums produce the deepest tones since they’re the largest drum. All bass drums have a pedal that connects to them that allows you to play them with your foot. We could do a whole breakdown on bass drum pedals. But for now, just know that it’s a metal pedal that connects to the front of the bass drum. It has a beater that connects with the batter head to make a sound.
Bass drums can range from 16” to 26”. However, the most common sizes would be 20” or 22”. Anything smaller than that would be considered as a compact bass drum. Anything bigger would be a specialty bass drum used typically in rock music.
When looking at a drum set, you’ll notice that the bass drum is the only drum that doesn’t have metal hoops around it. Bass drums use wood hoops as wood is better to rest on the ground than metal is.
The snare drum is the next most important drum in a drum setup. It’s the drum that gets played the most after the bass drum. It’s typically set up to the left of the bass drum pedal. A snare drum needs to be placed on a snare drum stand, and that stand needs to be raised to an appropriate height.
Snare drums have that name because there is a set of snare wires attached to the bottom of the drum. These wires vibrate on the bottom drumhead to produce a particular sound. When you turn the wires off via the snare throw-off, the snare drum will produce a similar sound to the rest of the drums. The snare throw-off is the lever mechanism on the side of the snare drum.
Most snare drums are 14”. You commonly get 13” as well, and less commonly get 10” or 12” snare drums.
You could play a whole gig with only your bass drum and snare drum, so these are the most important drums to learn about.
The rack toms are the drums that get placed above the bass drum. There’ll be a different number of rack toms depending on what drum set you have. However, there’ll most commonly be two of them, and they’re called the high tom and the mid tom.
The high tom is the smallest drum of the whole drum set. High toms range from 8” to 12” with the most common size being 10”. Since the high tom is the smallest drum, it produces the highest tone out of all the drums. It gets placed slightly to the left of the bass drum surface, just above the snare drum.
The middle tom gets placed to the right, diagonal to the snare drum. Middle toms are either 12” or 13”. The most common size is 12”, and you’ll only find 13” middle toms in older drum sets.
If a drum set has more than two rack toms, drummers will then refer to them as tom 1, 2, 3, etc.
The floor tom is the big tom that gets placed to the right of the snare drum and kick drum pedal. Floor toms are the biggest drums next to the bass drum, and they have the deepest tone out of all the toms.
Floor toms can range from 13” to 18”. The most common sizes are 14” and 16”, though. Floor toms have music deeper depths than rack toms, adding to the low tones that they produce.
While a snare drum has to be placed on a stand, a floor tom has its own set of legs to rest on. These legs can be raised to an appropriate height for the floor tom to be played comfortably. Typically, adjusting the floor tom to be the same height as the snare drum is a good place to start.
Some drum setups have more than one floor tom. The second floor tom gets placed either to the right or slightly behind the first floor tom.
Now that you know about all the drums, let’s move on to the cymbals. Cymbals are a bit trickier to learn as there are more types, and not all types get used in every drum setup.
The hi-hats are the most important cymbals as they get used the most. Hi-hats come in pairs of two and they’re referred to as the top and bottom hat. These cymbals are placed on a hi-hat stand.
The bottom hat gets placed facing upwards and the top hat attaches to a thing called a clutch that holds it on the rod from the hi-hat stand. The top hat then moves up and down thanks to the pedal at the base of the hi-hat stand.
Drummers will hold the pedal down to play a tight hi-hat sound and leave it a bit loose to play a more open hi-hat sound.
Hi-hats range from 12” to 16” with the most common size being 14”.
The hi-hats are placed to the left of the snare drum to allow your left foot to rest on the pedal. Most drum setups have one pair of hi-hats. Some drummers use more, and those are referred to as auxiliary hi-hats.
Crash cymbals are the next step up in size after the hi-hats. These cymbals are larger and have thinner edges. They’re intended to be crashed on by drumsticks, hence the name. The primary placement for a crash cymbal is just above the hi-hats and to the left of the high tom.
However, most drum setups have more than just one crash. Crash cymbals have a wide range of sizes and sounds, so drummers will place a few of them around the kit. Some drummers will use as many as 5 while most drummers use only 2 in a simple setup.
A drummer that uses 2 crashes will place the second one to the right of the floor tom typically.
Crashes mostly get played by hitting the stick across the shoulder of the cymbal. However, larger crashes produce a pleasant tone when hitting the stick on the surface. That’s mostly what you do with ride cymbals, though.
The ride is always the largest cymbal in a drum setup. It gets placed somewhere to the left of the middle tom or floor tom. Most of the time, it gets placed in between those two drums.
Rides range between 20” and 24”. There are three vital parts of a ride cymbal. These are the shoulder, the bow, and the bell. The shoulder refers to the edge of the ride. Some rides have thin shoulders, allowing drummers to crash on them the same way you would with a crash cymbal. Rides with thicker shoulders don’t allow this as the sound is too heavy and aggressively unpleasant.
The bow is the surface of the ride cymbal. That’s where most of the playing gets done, and it’s the main purpose of a ride cymbal.
The bell is the centerpiece of the ride. It produces a bright pinging sound. When buying a ride cymbal, drummers will see the sound of the shoulder, bow, and bell to establish how much they like the cymbal.
Splash cymbals are small cymbals that get placed around the drum set. They’re not as common as the previous cymbals, and many drummers don’t even like them. They range between 6” and 12” in size.
Since they’re so small, they produce high-pitch sounds that are fairly short and stiff. The tighter you tighten the splash, the stiffer the sound will be.
They’re great when being used as accent cymbals to play in certain drum parts, but they definitely don’t have the wide uses of crashes and rides. This means they’ll be played the least in a drum setup.
The placement of splash cymbals varies. Some drummers like to place them upside down on the same stand that holds the crash cymbal. This stops them from having to use another cymbal stand. Other drummers will connect boom arms to stands that are already there in order to set the splash cymbal up.
A china cymbal is a big and aggressive cymbal that looks as though a crash cymbal has been turned inside out. Chinas have very aggressive and trashy tones and they’re mostly used by drummers who play heavy music such as rock or metal.
They range from 10” to 22”. The bigger a china cymbal is, the more heavy and aggressive the tone will be. The sustain will also be much longer.
Chinas can be placed anywhere around the drum set, but you’ll find that most drummers place them to the right of the floor tom. This allows them to whack their china quite hard with their right hand.
This term refers to any cymbal that doesn’t fit the above categories. Effects cymbals are unique cymbals that produce varying tones. A common type of effects cymbal is one that has several holes drilled into it. The more holes that are drilled, the trashier the cymbal will sound.
Another type of effects cymbal that is very popular at the moment is a stack. This refers to when two or more cymbals are stacked on top of each other to produce a unique sound with a short sustain. Stacks sound mostly like hi-hats. However, their tone is a bit looser.
Effects cymbals are very commonly found these days. Some stacks can be bought by cymbal brands. Although, most drummers create their own stacks from cymbals that they already own.
Hardware refers to all the metal parts that hold the drums together. We’ve already touched on the snare and hi-hat stands, but there are a few more parts to mention.
You get standalone hardware like cymbal stands and drum thrones, and then you get built-in hardware which is all the metal parts around the drums.
Cymbals need to be placed on cymbal stands. The two types of stands are straight and boom stands. Straight stands are erected straight up, and have a tilting mechanism at the top to angle the cymbal. Boom stands have an extra arm that adds a lot more adjustability.
The drum throne is another important piece of hardware. It’s what drummers sit on. All drum thrones have unique surfaces and can have their heights adjusted to suit the drummer’s preferences.
The last pieces of hardware to mention are the tom mounts. Depending on what drum kit you have, the toms will either be mounted to the bass drum or to cymbal stands.
When the toms are mounted to the bass drum, the mounts stick into the surface of the bass drum and attach to the sides of the toms. When they’re mounted to cymbal stands, you attach the toms to a piece of hardware that latches onto the stands.
While we mentioned most of the typical diameters of all the drums above, you should also know about depths. When looking at drums, you’ll see that some are much deeper than others. So, you measure the size of a drum by looking at the diameter as well as the depth.
Here are all the typical sizes of toms:
8” x 7”
10” x 8”
12” x 9”
13” x 9”
14” x 12”
16” x 14”
16” x 16”
Here are the typical sizes for snare drums
14” x 5”
14” x 5.5”
14” x 6”
14” x 8”
Drums can be categorized into 3 main categories. These are the drums, hardware, and cymbals. The drums are all the shells in a drum setup. These are what produce all the big sounds and effects. You get the rack toms, floor toms, bass drum, and snare drum.
The cymbals are the metal discs that surround a drum setup. These produce tones that are more resonating than the drums. The main cymbals are the hi-hats, crash, and ride.
Hardware is what holds the drum setup together. Drums and cymbals are placed on metal stands. The stands are highly adjustable, allowing drummers to get unique setups that are suited for them.
Drums are very cleverly designed. Each part of a drum affects how the drum feels and sounds. The main determining factor of sound is the wood that is used for the shell.
Then the type of metal hoops and drumheads used add to the overall tone of the drum. The cool thing about drums is that many of these things can be changed. You can swap drumheads and counter hoops out to get a completely different sound if you’d like.
The surfaces of drums are called the batter heads. Batter heads are where you hit the drums. The other sides of drums are called the resonant heads. These two sides work together to produce the overall tone of a drum.
The batter heads absorb the impact of a drumstick and then the resonant head produces a resonating tone. You can tune these two sides to get a specific tone out of the drum.
The best way to get a fantastic sound is to equip a drum with high-quality drumheads on each side.
The five parts of a single drum would be the batter head, resonant head, shell, lugs, and hoops. All these parts play a role in how a drum sounds. The lugs are used to tighten the heads to the drum while the hoop determines the timbre of the drums.
The main types of hoops are die-cast and triple-flanged hoops. Die-cast hoops are used in more expensive drum sets while triple-flanged hoops are the standard.
It’s very important to know all the parts of a drum set and the types of drum as it makes learning easier when going through different teaching material. It also makes buying a drum set easier as you know exactly what to look for.
While it’s beneficial to know what each drum is called, it will also help tremendously to know how different woods affect sound and how cymbal qualities differ.
Founder of TheDrumNinja
I’m crazy about drums, it’s been my passion since I was 12 years old. I played in numerous bands going through different styles like Rock, Progressive, Pop & Jazz-Rock. After being featured in major music publications (Drumeo, Guitar Guitar, AudioIssues, MusicThinkTank) I started this website to share my knowledge and create a resource for drummers of all levels.
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