Drum newb shopping for a first kit

I can only offer anecdotes since i'm not a drummer, but from playing with a handful of drummers and watching a lot of live music, Gretsch drums always stand out to me, and Ludwig sound good, too. I saw you were leaning toward a Gretsch and think that's a good instinct. Though, go test a bunch out and see in-person.
 
Greg_L said:
There's a guy here that goes by "liv rong"....that dude built a track in his ceiling with adjustable boom arms sticking out of it for his overheads. It looks awesome as shit and seems to work. If I had any construction skills I'd do it myself.
Click to expand...

This post seems out of context... Has your account been hacked?

Though there are THESE that I use. :)
 
jimmys69 said:
The abrupt topic change to a members overhead mic mounts?
Click to expand...

He was worried about the footprint. The overall footprint of the setup has been a concern for Tad since early in the thread. Drums, stands, etc. Footprint. The ceiling mounted boom arms for overheads take care of two mic stands that would normally be on the floor, therefore, smaller footprint.
 
Greg_L said:
He was worried about the footprint. The overall footprint of the setup has been a concern for Tad since early in the thread. Drums, stands, etc. Footprint. The ceiling mounted boom arms for overheads take care of two mic stands that would normally be on the floor, therefore, smaller footprint.
Click to expand...

'Footprint'. 4 times in one post?

Dood, you need to go fishing. :)
 
That has got to suck! :(

Heading to the hills for a week long fishin trip in two weeks. Need me some clear water chill time myself...
 
I wondered about Premier Tad'?
When I was in a band (Shads/Beatles first coming, everybody was) Premier was reckoned to be the dog's danglers for drum kit. The best stuff IIRC was Ludwig?

Drums are something I never could or ever wanted to play, maybe the fashion then for solos put me off!

Dave.
 
just bought a complete set of mapex rebel drum kit. entry level kit( $399 new) and couldn't be more pleased for the money, real wood drums ,remo heads. i know it not the best but for my little home studio ,i can get get a pretty good sound for recording and then fix what i don't like in my daw. i,m not a drummer. just needed a kit at home because no wanted to lug a kit over to my studio and set up, tune ,etc.
 
Greg_L said:
He was worried about the footprint. The overall footprint of the setup has been a concern for Tad since early in the thread. Drums, stands, etc. Footprint. The ceiling mounted boom arms for overheads take care of two mic stands that would normally be on the floor, therefore, smaller footprint.
Click to expand...

I do like that suggestion. I'll have to ping him and get some pics of how he did it. That could be a real space saver, if I can decide on a permanent place for the kit.

Nola said:
I can only offer anecdotes since i'm not a drummer, but from playing with a handful of drummers and watching a lot of live music, Gretsch drums always stand out to me, and Ludwig sound good, too. I saw you were leaning toward a Gretsch and think that's a good instinct. Though, go test a bunch out and see in-person.
Click to expand...

I just keep coming back to the gretsch drums. That look and sound are amazing. I'm still leaning toward the Yamaha just for cost, but I'm only a hair over that line right now. I could swing back by morning!

ecc83 said:
I wondered about Premier Tad'?
When I was in a band (Shads/Beatles first coming, everybody was) Premier was reckoned to be the dog's danglers for drum kit. The best stuff IIRC was Ludwig?

Drums are something I never could or ever wanted to play, maybe the fashion then for solos put me off!

Dave.
Click to expand...

It looks like the Premier stuff that's still made in England is awesome, but their overseas stuff doesn't seem to be very highly regarded. I can't afford their nice stuff, and their cheap stuff just seems like firewood. Honestly I'd get a Ludwig in a heartbeat, but holy crap, their nice stuff is crazy expensive too! And their cheap stuff looks pretty average.

sparky123 said:
just bought a complete set of mapex rebel drum kit. entry level kit( $399 new) and couldn't be more pleased for the money, real wood drums ,remo heads. i know it not the best but for my little home studio ,i can get get a pretty good sound for recording and then fix what i don't like in my daw. i,m not a drummer. just needed a kit at home because no wanted to lug a kit over to my studio and set up, tune ,etc.
Click to expand...

I do like the looks and sounds from mapex, I just can't find a respectable kit at a price point in my budget. Since I'm starting from scratch, I've got a lot of other investments to make other than the shells themselves. That's why Yamaha and Gretsch are at the front of my shortlist. Their cheap stuff looks really appealing. Great wood, great hardware, and good options.
 
OK, one last piece of the equation: hardware. I keep reading very positive things about Yamaha hardware. Their single and double braced stands in the HW-680 and HW-780 lines really seem to have a lot of respect, and that's where I'm heavily leaning. It's in the $250-ish range for the set (snare stand, hi-hat stand, kick pedal, 2 boom stands). Any better bang/buck sets I should check out?

Also, I found a guy locally selling an Acrolite "Black Galaxy" 5 x 14 as a student band snare. $160 for the snare and all of the orchestra/band accessories (stand, case, mute, sticks, etc). I just fired off an email to see if he'd sell just the snare. Hopefully it's still available. To my naive eyes that looks like a great deal, even with all of the high-school accessories. All I can find new is the matte steel finish ones for $400, which seems excessive for a drum newb.
 
The acrolites were marketed as student models. Every kid in band in the 60s, 70s and part of the 80s had one of these things.
 
Ludwig. I replaced my Ludwig set many years ago with a larger, Pearl Export six-piece set my then future wife offered to buy for me. Beautiful birch shells. But I still miss my little Ludwig four-piece, to which I added a 2nd floor tom. I played many gigs, jazz and rock/pop, with that little set.
 
I'm going to go pick up the Acrolite early this week. He's selling just the snare for $90, so I'm very happy with that price.

I've been listening to demos of various drum heads. I've settled on Evans G2 Coated for the tom beater heads, and a Remo Emperor Coated for the snare beater. The demos of those heads just blew me away once I found a good shootout video or two. I love the attack and lack of resonance. I figure for now, I'll leave the stock resonant heads on and see how I like them. Same for the kick beater and reso heads. Although I'm still looking for the best way to cut my own kick reso port hole so I can get a mic in there and record it. Or do most people just mic the outside of the kick?

Thanks again for everybody's input so far, I really do appreciate it. I'm sure that I'll be back shortly with more and more questions as I start getting set up and bump up against my own limitations and knowledge.
 
On the kick hole, get you a coffee can or something about 5" in diameter. Lay it on the head and trace around it. Then just cut it out with an x-acto knife or razor blade.

Don't go too close to the edge though or tuning it will be a problem. Leave yourself about 4-5 inches from the edge of the hole to the edge of the head.

If you really wanna be clean about it, get one of those trim rings that snap into the hole when you're done. Get the ring first though if you decide to go that route. That way you can cut the hole to fit the ring perfectly.
 
Sweet, thanks Greg!

I just pulled the trigger on the Yamaha stage custom birch (the "fusion" sizes of 10/12/14/20), the HW-680 hardware, Zildjian A 391 set, and the heads. Of course, I'm gonna have to eat the shipping boxes for dinner for the next month, but I think that in the long run I'll be happy with not totally cheaping out.

Thanks soooo much for you help so far.
 
Sweet! Real drums. Congratulations. Now you get to enter the realm of drum tuning and miking. That's what separates the men from the boys.
 
I know man, I'm more than a little intimidated by the prospect of tuning and miking. I have a vague idea of what I'm supposed to do, but very little experience in miking and zero experience in tuning. Also, my tempo sucks, but I'm looking forward to improving that (oh, that's right, I've actually gotta play the things!)
 
Congratulations Tad, there's definitely a video here in your experiments with recording a real kit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top