Good muscians make bad equipment sound good.

[Mongoo]

It seems that so much time is spent getting better gear that we forget that its the equipment doesn't make the musician. How much more of compliment can you get than when your playing on just the most utterly crappy gear and the people around you say it sounds good. For me I try to make the music about the path it takes, not the quality of the road. Then of course you finally get better gear that say, stays in tune, but is something lost or gained by this?

I just bring it up because I have a completely crappy drum set and although it would be nice to have a better set maybe it won't matter.

Whats your take on this? Have you ever played with a bad kit, and if so just how bad was it?

Mongoo

[Track Rat]

Garbage in, garbage out.

[Rimshot]

I don't own ANY crappy drum sets. I own a few really good "in tune" well maintained drumsets that were not too expensive.
If your point is that: you don't have to spend a fortune to get a good sounding instrument, then I agree. Most of my drums and cymbals were purchased second hand. A few of my drums were upgrades that I did by replacing the existing shells and hardware with "new" maple shells and more rugged hardware (essentially making new drums). I'm a bit of an old fashioned craftsman and I always wind up learning about the composition of things and think of ways of improving and repairing them.
A drum with an inferior shell and sloppy hardware and poor heads will NEVER sound good no matter how well the drummer plays.
But the music doesn't care if the drum has an exotic covering, gold plated hardware or exotic hardwood inlays and laminations. That's just the ostrich feathers on a showgirl's ass.It's nice and showy
and you pay for it, but it does nothing for the music.
If that's what you're talking about,....then, yeah sure.

[justwantyou2kno]

My favorite recordings I've ever done, are still of my first band I was in where everything was recorded live with two mics going into my SBL. Just because we were so focused on our performance rather then worrying about mic positions this or AD converters that.

[fldrummer]

One thing you do need tho to get a good sound....GOOD HEADS IN TUNE!

[kristian]

I agree, with the good heads sentiment. When I play my first drumkit, it is a Manhattan, I know never heard of it. Well, it was beat to shite for a long time and one day I bought new skins when I was using it as my main kit for a while. I have drumkits in different cities, parents house/different country - complicated story. Anyway, I am not that shabby of a drummer to put it mildly and new heads on that piece of a kit and I bet it would have recorded better than most of the population of drummers out there. But that said, I sit down on my Yamaha kit and record and I can hear how much better it sounds instantly. It is a diminishing marginal product. A little economics in there, well I hope you see what I am saying.

[zekthedeadcow]

... nobody can make a Sabian B8 sound good...

[mm2k5]

I have some the hats in that series..well pro...and they sound great...comes off in good recording too

[pratt]

Originally posted by zekthedeadcow
... nobody can make a Sabian B8 sound good...

this defies logic...but I've heard many a bad cymbal sound great when recorded.... including a pair of b8 hats

one of my first cymbals ever, a 16" camber ride/crash combo, actually sounds purty nice recorded as welll...

[songsj]

If I had to chose I would rather play with or record a great drummer with a shitty kit than poor drummer with a 5000.00 kit. That being said. The better the musician and the equipment. of course the better the sound.

[mikeh]

To a degree - I do agree that a good musician can make a poor instrument sound "better". After many, many years of playing I've learned different ways to hit a drum to "pull" the best sound out of it I can.

I'm fortunate to be at a point in life where I own good equipment, but in my youth I did have to work with some less than ideal gear. I spent much time learning how to get the most out of a drum set - including hitting drums (and cymbals) in different ways to make them sound as good as possible.

I've played other peoples drums and have indeed been told that I made them sound better than other drummers (in part due to hitting them a "certain way" and I'm sure in part by having the good sense to limit my playing to hits that would work.

I've also had people play my very nice sounding kits and simply though poor technique (hitting too hard or too soft, gripping the sticks too hard, leaving the stick on the head, thus compromising resonance, etc, etc) they compromised the drums ability to sound as good as possible.

So yes I agree a good musicain can make a poor instrument sound better (it happens all the time with guitarists) - and yes I think even a B8 can sound "better" when played properly.