Bass drum

The bass drum is used to punctuate time. In marches it is used to keep the march even (marching bands march to the beat of the bass). A basic beat for rock and roll has the bass drum played on the first and third beats of a bar of common time, with the snare drum on the second and fourth "back beats".

An orchestral bass drum is quite large (about 3 feet in diameter), and is struck with a large, padded mallet[?]. On a drum kit, the bass drum is much smaller (about 1.5 feet in diameter), and is played using a special pedal with a mallet attached.

In many forms of heavy metal music, particularly thrash metal, a double bass is used (two bass drums set side by side, or a custom pedal with a pair of both pedals and mallets), though the double bass has been used at least as far back as the 1960s, for example, by Ginger Baker of Cream.