Mizzou is about to get a bass drum the size of a hotel hot tub.

The 9-foot-tall, 800-plus-pound instrument, thought to be the largest in the country, was built at a Barnesville machine shop by a Gordon College music instructor. It took him four months.

The builder, Neil Boumpani, his last name befitting of a percussionist, got a call last winter from a fraternity at Missouri. The school already had a 6-foot bass drum named "Big MO," but it wanted more "MO" to bang on at home football games. [...]

Boumpani's creation, which has cost close to $50,000 to make, has a fiberglass shell that was made from a custom mold in Alabama. An auto-body shop in Griffin, Ga., later painted it metallic-black. The plastic, 108-inch drum heads on either side cost $1,500 apiece. He plans to ship the drum to Missouri soon. But not before he records its low boom to remember it by.

Even so, he said, "This is not something you make for sound. It's more to ... aggravate the other team."