Measurements were made of bass drum tones to determine the characteristic properties of the sound. The analysis was performed with computer‐modeled band‐pass filters with 3‐Hz bandwidth. Frequency, peak sound pressure level, and decay rate were determined for each of the major components from 40 Hz up to 1000 Hz. The frequencies of the components were found to change with time, decreasing as amplitude of vibration decreases. Observed frequencies agreed with theoretical values to within 5% in some cases and less than 1% in most. It was found that a blow near the center of the drum puts more energy into the lower‐frequency components, while a blow near the edge emphasizes those of higher‐frequencies. Drum tones were synthesized by summing the contributions of each of the important components. Recordings of synthesized and real tones were presented randomly in listening tests. Synthesis was viewed as successful when the synthetic tones were judged to be real as often as they were judged to be synthetic. In the listening tests, a jury of 31 people correctly identified the synthetic tones only 51% of the times those tones were presented.