My Set up

I always seem to ask the questions. I am forever the inquisitive one. Whenever I meet a fellow drummer I love to talk shop. All of you out there know exactly what I mean. Most of the times when you do meet a fellow drummer and a conversation ensue's you almost instantly bond. You think hey this guy's in "the Club" This happens more so now that I am a little older. When your younger in your teens and early twenties there's still that competetiveness we all posses, so sometimes things don't go as smooth as they do now.

The question I get asked most by people asides from business related questions is what do I play what is my set up like. Well this blog will be dedicated to my kit and set up. My drumkit is about 6 or 7 years old. It is a Mapex Mars Pro series the finish is Midnight Black almost a grey color with the wood grain showing. I like the color. When I purchased it Mapex was just switching over to the Pro M series of which my kit is the forerunner of. I got a very,very good price on my kit. You have to remember Mapex was not the household name it is today. At the time Mapex was almost a cultish drum company. People knew of them they were getting alot of good press, but I was still going out on a limb sorta speak. Foretunately everything worked out well.

When I first got my kit Mapex was still a novelty and whenever I did a gig Drummers would always ask me about my kit Most of the time it was the first Mapex most guys had ever seen. My Original kit was 6 pieces a 14x5 snare, 10x10 and a 12x12 mounted toms a 14x14 and a 16x16 suspended floor toms and a 20x18 kick drum. The kit comes with Mapex's suspended isolation mounting system. I really like the way all of my toms resonate. It came equiped with all the hardware A few cymbal stands double toms stand for the floor toms a snare stand a bass pedal a HH stand I mean everything. Mapex makes very nice hardware everything on my kit was double braced. Nice looking functional and sturdy, unlike a shell pack I didn't need to buy a thing to play. The quality hardware was a nice plus. A few years back I bought some shells that matched my kit off of ebay 3 to be extact. It was advertised with a 8x8 tom which I dearly wanted and still do. The guy couldn't measure his toms correctly I wound up with another 10x10 tom a 13x12 floor tom and a 18x18 floor tom.

They were'nt really what I wanted but I kept them anyway. I just tune the two 10x10's a little different from each other. It works pretty well. Last year I expanded again by adding a set of Cannon's tom toms to my set. They are 8x6 and 8x8 we sell these and I will tell you they were a great addition to my Kit. So there's my 11 piece kit for ya. The drums are fitted with Evans G2 coated batters and Evans G1 clear reso heads. The Kick drum has an Emad batter and a Black G1 ported reso. The coated G2's are excellent heads and I love them, there a two ply head which gives them a nice fat warm sound to them. The only thing I'm disapointed in is the Emad. It doesn't suck or anything, maybe I was expecting more especially the way guys in the forums talk about it. When it's time to change bass drum heads I'm going back to the Aquarian super kick II. I just like it better.

I use a double bass drum pedal It's a DW 5000 series pedal infact all of my pedals are DW's and they are all in the 5000 series. The Double kick is the 5002 to be exact. It's a great Pedal, smooth action ready to play right out of the box. My HH stand is also a 5000 DW with swivel legs and a removable third leg which is off to give me a little more room for the double kick pedals. Last but not least is my remote HH stand again the DW 5000 series. People have a tendency to critisize the remotes as sluggish and non responsive. I can honestly say none of that is true with mine I use an 8' cable so maybe that's the reason but it works like a charm. I think it's one of the best additions I made. I absolutely love playing with dual rides and dual Hat's.

As for my Cymbal array that really is the "voice" of a drummer. I have a hodge podge of brands Zildjians, Sabians, Wuhan's, Silken's, Diril's & a Meinl. People are so worried about the sonic contitnuity of the cymbal array they forget it's okay not to have cymbals to be perfectly note for note sonically mathced. I never worry if a cymbal will "fit" in with my set up. My Pie's are so diverse and so numerous anything at this point will match up. OK let's start the run down
Zildjian :
19" med Crash A
15" Thin Crash A
20" Ping ride Custom A
14" New Beat HH ( right side , secondary)
17" Med Crash A
8" splash Custom A
Sabian :
14" AAx Stage Hat's ( Main hats)
16" AA Thin crash
Silken:
20" Hansun ride
15" Vintage crash
10" Hansun splash
Diril:
16" Med ICE series
14" D series thin crash
Meinl:
16" MB20 Med/hvy crash
Wuhan :
8,10, & 12 S series splashes
16" S series thin crash
17" S series Med Crash
8 & 12" Taditional series splashes
8, 10 & 12" New Traditional series splashes
16" NT med crash
14" NT Thin crash
12" China
17" China

As you can see I like Cymbals Lots and lost of cymbals. I have 2 cymbals tree's with 3 cymbals on each. There is nothing like rideing up one Cymbal tree and down the other. On both rides plus a few i Have in reserve I use moongel. I think the stuff is great I use it on my $100 Wuhan , My $200 Silken and My $325 Zildjian. It's effectively cuts the wash and overtones and brings out really nice clear sticking. So there you have it that's my little baby. I've said it before and I'll say it again If I wouldn't use a product I won't sell it. Until Next Time. T.