THUNDER DRUM

RUMBLE CHAMBER

A Thunder Drum is made with a spring attached to the skin, so when it is shaken the spring moves and creates a continuous resonance through the body of the instrument. This results in a sound very much like thunder. The drums come in various shapes and sizes, and are sometimes known by other names such as Thunder Tube, Spring Drum, or, Thunder Maker.

For this instrument we recorded a variety of rumbles, peals of thunder, strikes, and special effects using contact mics. As the samples were intended to be manipulated, pitch shifted and mangled, the recordings were made at 96 kHz. The sounds can be pitched very low and still have some interesting high frequency content when working at full resolution.