Good cheap stuff? how do you drummers do it?

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CoolCat

CoolCat

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My son started playing drums a bit more serious. Last year I posted here and got inputs on a good drum set upgrade from his first two pos sets. This one is like a real one.

Ok he changed some heads and even I could hear a nice difference.
So I kind of understand drums or at least could hear a improvement.

So now he's mentioning frkn cymbals and stands and maybe even a better snare, a foot pedal.....fhk??!!!!!!!!!!!!

Help me out here!! Whats the cheap good stuff? I mean he points at a $700 cymbal pack!!:eek: and then he said "its crazy....because all I'm going to do is beat the hell out of them."

He got disappointed because the stuff is so costly and he doesn't have a job.

I look at from a guitarist standpoint and all I have to do is change $6 strings.

Damn!!...how do you drummers do it? and whats the good cheap stuff.....is there such a thing as a good cymbal pack for $150? good snares for $100? good pedals for $50? good stands for $25?

like guitars if you look and search there's frkn dyn-o-mite guitars now for $100, and pickups for $30 that will last a lifetime.
 
Some points

Stay away from cymbal packs. They are for beginners that don't know anything.
Check out used and try before you buy. Most big retailers like Guitar Center have a certain amount of used equipment and often they are good. Check everything out and buy pieces at a time. Stay away from ZBT or B8 cymbals, go for better and build your collection slowly as you feel you need.
Used kick pedals can be good especially the older strap drives are often good and easily repairable, or just bite the bullet and buy an "Iron Cobra" chain drive new (and on sale somewhere about $100)
Snares are like cymbals and what's good depends on the type of music you are playing.
Vintage Ludwig and Gretsch snares can be had for less money, but they are often mellow and have rounded bearing edges. Try out snares and see what appeals and check out used equipment. The shell should be thick enough, have at least 8 lugs (10 is preferable) and snare wires can be easily replaced. Make sure the hardware especially the throw off operates well and smoothly.
Tama cymbal stands are good and aren't as expensive as others. Store brands CAN be good, but are often thin and tinny and will case ugly vibrations when hit or you get sympathetic vibration when you play the kick drum.
Shop around before you buy, it's fun and you'll get an education.
 
Playing drums can be very expensive, as can Guitars if you like Bogner amps and the like!

Cymbals can be a once in a lifetime purchase as can the shells if they are taken care of.
I have played the same cymbals for well over 20 years without cracking or keyholing them, yet I see folks all the time cracking their cymbals because they bash really hard and have no technique developed for saving their cymbals to survive the session.
I guess they don't mind blowing $150 bucks a pop! (literally)

Good advice from Rimshot.
PDP has some decent stands for around the $50 mark including hihat stands.

I finally sprung for an Iron Cobra and I am glad I did, but you don't have to start there.
Try to encourage your son to play vigorous, but don't cross the line to start bashing!
My son plays too, and he went through a ton of gear till his pocket book drove him to play with some finesse and save his gear. Now he plays a custom kit and only has to replace heads and sticks.

Tom
 
thanks...your giving me some hope! hahahaa

yes, 20years comment is what I'm talking about. now thats worth it. finesse, sounds like the key.

building the kit up slowly sounds like good advice to.

luckily he likes ska, raggae and simple kits!!

.....no Slipknot massive kits, with spinning drum stages....er...not yet anyway.
 
You can get a used Ludwig Acrolite snarefrom the 70s/80s for around $100. The ones from the 60's are around $125-150. Solid drum.

As the others have said, don't cheap out on cymbals. Buy one at a time...and buy used if you can.
 
what are some good used brand cymblas (and model names) to look for?
I haven't a clue and he really doesn't either.

hi hats, crash, ride etc..
 
I like the Avedis Zildjian cymbals (not the bright polished ones) something between 17 and 18 inch for crash, and a 20 inch ride. I prefer medium light to medium heavy.
 
the best thing you can do is take your son to a pawn shop and let him try out the stuff for himself. i bought my first 5 or 6 cymbals at a pawn shop, all zildjian, no zbt/zht crap, for a fraction of the retail price. i'm still using my 22" medium ride (avedis series) that i bought used 16 years (half my life!) ago for around $60.
you can also find used pedals, stands, etc at pawn shops and most music stores have a used section too.

as for brands, this is where his personal audition comes in. you know the saying, opinions are like a-holes, everyone's got one and they all stink. i'm a zildjian guy, and i have A, K, and avedis series. some like paiste, sabian, etc. it's all a matter of taste. if you look at any musiciansfriend catalog, you'll know what the cheap crap series are for each brand by price. everything in the "good quality" realm is, well, of good quality. it's just a matter of taste from there.

but here's the rub: i've been playing for almost 17 years, and i started with a truly shitty used set, cracked cymbals, and the cheapest, rustiest stands available. a few years later i bought a used intermediate kit and played that up until a few months ago. over the years i've slowly accumulated some top-notch cymbals and hardware (some used, some new), and now i'm on a pro kit with pro hardware and pro cymbals.

all i'm saying is, it won't happen overnight unless you're a millionaire. the way we drummers do it is, we play whatever we can because we love to. the rest is a matter of time and discipline.

good luck! :)
 
I'll second what some have already said. You can often find decent used kick pedals (even new pedals are not too costly). and I agree Tama makes some very decent, reasonable cost cymbal stands. YOu can fine decent used snares and many companies make very affordable new snare drums.

There is no such thing as good, cheap cymbals. You've already noticed you can take a lower cost drum shell and improve the sound with decent heads - but with cymbals you can't fix a bad sounding cymbal and the only way to get a good sounding cymbal is to buy a good sounding cymbal (and it is rare to find good sounding used cymbals - since drummers rarely trade in good sounding cymbals). I am no a fan of cymbal packs - a drummer must hit cymbals to find the sounds that are right for their style/kit.

Regarding breaking cymbals -it simply should not happen. I've been a drummer (professional and semi-pro) for almost 50 years and have never, broken a cymbal. Breaking cymbals is the result of poor technique and any drummer who thinks they will break cymbals (or worse, thinks it's cool that they break cymbals) is truly missing the point of actually learning to play correctly.

Just as a $3,000 guitar played through a $2,000 amp sounds better than a $200 guitar through a $100 amp (at least, in theory, in the rights hands) - quality drums and cymbals will sound better than cheap gear. However, if you can only afford lower cost gear (as an example a younger musician) - then you simply need to learn how to get the best sound you can and how to preserve the gear you have (until you can afford better)

It can get expensive for any musician (although I think drummers and keyboard players often pay out more than guitarists & bass players - at least for the basics needed to get the job done).

I don't envy young players. It was costly when I was coming up back in the 60's but at the time there were only so many options and the quality was relatively even. These days the truly quality gear costs soooo much, that even the lower level gear is priced too high.
 
Keep in mind: cymbals are instruments, not an expendable item like guitar strings. With proper technique, cymbals will last many years/decades. Abused, they will break quickly. It probably costs about $400 to fully rehead a biggish kit, but this should only occur once a year or so, with a $200 batter rehead in the middle. Some people let their resonant heads go for much longer. When I played guitar for 2-4 hours every day, I was restring three electrics twice a month, $6 a set, so it was about $380 a year. Heads are a little more, but not absurdly so, and would be about the same if it were a four-piece.
 
mikeh said:
I don't envy young players. It was costly when I was coming up back in the 60's but at the time there were only so many options and the quality was relatively even. These days the truly quality gear costs soooo much, that even the lower level gear is priced too high.
Click to expand...

I just caught this. Check the prices vrs. inflation. Top gear costs the same or less as it did 50 years ago, and today's beginner's gear is a tiny fraction of the price of the old stuff, for quite usable gear, compared to total crap back then. A kid today can buy a new PDP X7 seven piece (or a dozen other solid choices from several manufacturers) and a XS 20 pack for about 3-6 weeks pay. A $200 stencil kit from the 60's wouldn't last as long as it took to save for it.

Rose colored glasses?
 
ermghoti,

You may be right about the inflationary factor and perhaps my memory of the costs of gear may be somewhat clouded by the pasage of time - and possibly the extended and abusive use of chemicals (I barely remember the 60's and 70's - or anthing before that).

I do agree that Pacific, Pearl, Mapex and several other current companies do make decent entry level shells which allow for a decent 5-7 pice kit at well under $1,000 - and hardware is soooo much better and affordable these days than in the past. However, to add decent cymbals still places a reasonably functional "semi-pro" kit at about $1,000 - that is a lot of money, in particular for younger musicians.

No doubt trying to come up with $200 in the 60's was no different than coming up with $1,000 in 2007 - either way, being a musicin ain't cheap.
 
mikeh said:
...drummers rarely trade in good sounding cymbals.
Click to expand...

this is why pawn shops are good--only desparate people take their stuff to a pawn shop, looking to liquidate whatever they have quickly.

Regarding breaking cymbals -it simply should not happen. I've been a drummer (professional and semi-pro) for almost 50 years and have never, broken a cymbal. Breaking cymbals is the result of poor technique and any drummer who thinks they will break cymbals (or worse, thinks it's cool that they break cymbals) is truly missing the point of actually learning to play correctly.
Click to expand...

i couldn't agree more. breaking cymbals is absolutely ridiculous.
 
i dunno. my technique is pretty good and i've broken a splash and a 12" china. both wuhan, but then they were both REALLY thin and i can be quite a hard hitter.
 
If the kid is serious, suck it up and buy the good stuff. You'll save money in the long run.
 
i'm with supercreep. pdp kits can be VERY nice for the cash, as well as sabian cymbals. you could also give saluda some thought. VERY nice cymbals for a lot less than you'd spend for the equivalent from the big 3. all hand cast and hand lathed. everything is done by the artisan instead of the artisan's expensive cnc machine. amazing cymbals.
 
I've sold very good cymbals

I sometimes have to get certain cymbals for a job or session that really isn't my taste in cymbals. I'm also a Zildjian guy and I prefer the Custom A's and the A's for the type of music I like to play. I had a bunch of Z's and K's that I bought when I was playing with louder
rock musicians. I take very good care of all of my cymbals and I've only broken one over the years and it wasn't from playing it, but it was because my cymbal case opened and it slipped out and went down a flight of concrete steps going into a basement collation hall.
I had a lot of the heavier cymbals that just weren't my taste, so I sold them. I purchased some very good paper thin splashes from a drummer that didn't like them because they weren't loud enough for him.
It's not THAT common, but lots of times drummers do sell very good cymbals because they're not good for them. At one point I had a collection of almost 80 cymbals, and now I'm down to about 30. I sold the rest. The most I ever use on my kit at one time is 5 plus hi-hat. Usually it's 3 or 4 cymbals (I've cut back a lot).
 
is it smart to buy used slightly damaged cymbals?

is it a waste of money to buy, for example a Zildjian "A" cymbal with a small crack?
 
broken cymbal= broken cymbal

I suppose there will be that instance where a broken cymbal might have exactly the right sound for a piece of music, but if it's broken, it's broken. A cracked cymbal sounds like a cracked cymbal and will only get worse. Would you buy a guitar with a loose neck or a split body?
 
There's a reason they put BAM BAM on the drums when the Flintstone children formed a band.

Most drummers beat the heck out of their drums and have no sense of volume or technique. They play at volume 11, even during ballads.


Personally, I think kids should be on electronic drums with good digital samples. Let them learn that way.


Once they are really good, get them the expensive stuff.

But what's the point of getting a 16-year-old a Ferrari if he can't even drive a Mazda well?
 
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