Not to knock electric kits but in the end, they just didn't work out for me. A bit like double bass samples. They're great and all, certainly for some applications but I found that they simply cannot replicate some things that I take for granted so I just went and bought one last month. And that's what I did with the drums at the end of 2006 or thereabouts. I spent a while looking for cheap kits and this set caught my eye. It was an Arbiter flat lites kit and what stood out was it's storage capabilities. When the ad said it fitted in two bags, I thought "oh ?....". I read as much on them as I could find and the few drummers that had them said they were OK in certain situations.
One of the things that tipped me was that no one came foaming at the mouth with praise.
I remember reading a book on the Sex Pistols in the late 70s in which one of the guys that signed them made a point that has long registered with me. He said one of the great things about punk when it began was that it restored the notion that you didn't need vast amounts of money and technical wizardry to enjoy making music, "that all you needed was a £30 guitar [or similar cheap instrument]". There's a bit of that in me. I tend to think that if you can get an acceptable sound from something, then a grand performance can take it to different levels.
So I bought them and they've been what I've used since. Three different drummers have used them regularly and like the Mirage, we've done tons of recordings on them. I would say that it's on the Arbiter that I've
really learned about recording drums {and in that regard, HR has been priceless}.
I've retained the experimental bent of yesteryear and the huge Meinl cymbal {it's almost gong like}, the Aria toms and the sizzle cymbal with the shimmering rivets have remained with me from the old days. My brother in law gave me a Zildjian ride cymbal and because my nephew doesn't use the drums I gave him anymore, I sometimes use the snare. It's not great but it's got a timbale type sound that I really like and it makes for a nice contrast with the arbiter snare. After a young drummer smashed the original hi~hat and bent the original crash cymbal, I got a set of Solar hi~hats and a Stagg 15" crash and 8" splash cymbal.
Of the components of the Arbiter itself, I like the sound of the 3 toms and the bass drum, deadened or resonant. The snare is a bit hit or miss, sometimes just what I'm looking for, other times not. The arbiter has one tuning lug which is handy. I've always "tuned" the drums, even though I don't know how. What I've always done is tune all the toms and snare so that as you play each one, you get a nice different pitch.
Depending on who is drumming, sometimes I'll use a suitcase as a bass drum.
I credit Moresound with that one, he did a well contested thread a couple of years back that inspired me to try it out. I do like the sound of it. You don't hear it so much in the room, but when I play back the recording, I'm always surprized at how it comes over. And for me, that's what matters. I also sometimes use an electric kick {a "Session pro"}
for total separation. There are about four kick sounds on the brain I attach it to that I like and use.
The kick is about the only convincing sound for me on an electric brain.
I'm still fortunate to have understanding neighbours.
that cost me £229 in 1991. It obviously wasn't very good but that wasn't really my concern. At the time it was just for jamming and to me, I just needed drums in the music I was making. 
In those pre-internet days and the days when I was net ignorant, I just used to take clues from magazine interviews, biographies and the like. Sometimes at a gig or on telly {on the brief glance you'd get of drums because the drummers weren't pretty lead singers or wild fingered lead guitarists}, you'd see something that a drummer might do like tape a wodge of tissue to the snare and toms or put a tambourine on the snare or hi~hat or you'd hear of drilled cymbals with rivets in them for some extended sizzle so we'd try those sort of things or maybe you'd see a picture of a drummer playing with different sized toms to the sort of standard ones
. I'm not a drummer but I know what I like to hear so I'd try all kinds of things. Some things worked, some of them didn't. I added various bits and pieces to the Mirage over the years. Different sized cymbals, toms, little effects like tambourine and cowbell or metal plates. I used to do alot of instrument wheeler dealing and exchanging at various second hand instrument shops. By the time I went electric and gave the kit to my nephew, it was a mirage and a half.
