[drumming diary] The Return Of The Big Kit

Looking back at the wasteland that is this part of the site, I can honestly say that there hasn't been much to say drumming-wise since August, so I'm not feeling as guilty about neglecting this section as I do others. Anyway, the last month or so has seen massive upheaval of the current dance card. Lindsie's effectively done, Foxide is only coming out for special occasions. And yet I may be in seven different bands.

This has meant several orienting rehearsals here and there, and somewhere in the process, I decided it was time to change the configuration of my drums. The way it had been was mostly dictated by the Lindsie band. I went in to that project with the "live" setup, which is a five-piece. Actually, it may have started as four, but I don't remember. Anyway, my approach to that music wound up needing a five-piece, so when we relocated back to the Feather Building, the rack setup reflected that, with the extra 13" tom sitting to the right of the floor tom, just because it needed to go somewhere. And the cymbals were still in close, mostly reflecting all the time sharing the old space with Steve. Ride cymbal more forward than off to the side, with a crash almost under it to the right. It always struck me as almost absurdly compact, but then again, I'm probably at least half a foot taller than Steve is.

So it seemed like a good idea to rebuild the kit to reflect me, rather than Lindsie or Steve. In particular, I've got three toms, so I should really have those three toms across the front of the kit. Like a soldier cleaning his rifle, I took everything apart, both to get rid of the dust and to provide unfettered access to the rack mounts. I had been trying to do this job incrementally over the last couple of trips to the space, with no luck and increasing frustration, but then, it clicked in my head to rotate the tom mounts 90 degrees so I could align them more easily and more consistently.

That worked as perfectly as it could given a straight rack tube, and now I was in business. Three drums across the top means the ride cymbal and hi-hat slide further right and left, accordingly, and among other things, this meant taking the ride off of the corner of the rack, leaving that open for something else, so I threw the fake closed hi-hat (actually two old splash cymbals, for now) up there, and dropped the other one, with the chinese cymbal, underneath the ride and the 18" crash on a regular stand. This got me thinking that I needed to incorporate more or less everything, so I put the accent cymbal on top of the hi-hat, and just like that, the maximum kit was back.

If you're trying to visualize, it's 10", 12" and 13" toms across the top over the 20" kick. 16" mounted tom on my right. 5 1/4" x 14" snare, double bass drum pedal. Cymbals, left to right, are a 20" china, 14" hi-hats, 6" accent cymbal, 16" crash, 8" splash on my left, going across to the 10" hats, 20" ride, 18" crash, and an 18" china with a splash mounted inside it. We'll see about getting a picture.