In live concerts, drummers may be given long drum solos, even in genres where drum solos are rare on singles.

In the drum kit pictured, the drummer has three bass drums.

The essence of metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the trifecta of speed, power, and precision.

The metal drum setup is generally much larger than those employed in other forms of rock music.

Black metal, death metal and some mainstream metal bands all depend upon double-kicks and blast beats.

In many heavy metal songs, the main groove is characterized by short, two-note or three-note rhythmic figuresgenerally made up of 8th or 16th notes.

Heavy metal songs also use longer rhythmic figures such as whole note - or dotted quarter note-length chords in slow-tempo power ballads.

The tempos in early heavy metal music tended to be slow, even ponderous.

By the late 1970s, however, metal bands were employing a wide variety of tempos.

In the 2000s decade, metal tempos range from slow ballad tempos (quarter note 60 beats per minute ) to extremely fast blast beat tempos (quarter note 350 beats per minute).

Many metal drummers extend their kits from the basic snare drum, bass drum, toms and cymbals pattern, adding more drums, more cymbals, and many other instruments.

In some styles of music particular extensions are normal, for example double bass drums in heavy metal music.

A sizzle cymbal, thinner and larger than the main ride, was once common as a second ride or crashride, even in a four-piece kit, but is now less so (jazz drummers, however, may still have two or more ride cymbals, even in a small kit).

In miking a drum kit in metal, dynamic microphones, which can handle high sound-pressure levels, are usually used to close-mic drums, which is the predominant way to mic drums for live shows.

Condenser microphones are used for overheads and room mics, an approach which is more common with sound recording applications.

Close miking of drums may be done using stands or by mounting the microphones on the rims of the drums, or even using microphones built into the drum itself, which eliminates the need for stands for these microphones, reducing both clutter and set-up time, as well as isolating them.

This allows the sound engineer to use a higher overall volume for the drum kit by reducing the number of active mics which could produce unwanted feedback at any one time.

When a drumkit is entirely miked and amplified through the sound reinforcement system, the drummer or the sound engineer can add other electronic effects to the drum sound, such as reverb or digital delay.

Fills could include a sting at the end of a musical section or act as a drum showpiece.

A drum fill is used to fill in the space between the end of one verse and the beginning of another verse or chorus.

Fills vary from a simple few strokes on a tom or snare, to a distinctive rhythm played on the hi-hat, to sequences several bars long that are short virtuosic drum solos.

As well as adding interest and variation to the music, fills serve an important function in preparing and indicating significant changes of sections in songs and linking sections.

A vocal cue is a short drum fill that introduces a vocal entry.

A fill ending with a cymbal crash on beat one is often used to lead into a chorus or verse.

While other instrument solos such as guitar solos are typically accompanied by the other rhythm section instruments (e.g., bass guitar and electric guitar ), for most drum solos, all the other band members stop playing so that all of the audiences focus will be on the drummer.

In some drum solos, the other rhythm section instrumentalists may play punches at certain pointssudden, loud chords of a short duration.

During drum solos, drummers have a great deal of creative freedom, and drummers often use the entire drum kit.

Death Metal Drum Kit Samples