- Jeremy
THE HISTORY
A couple of years ago, I was looking for a nice travel kit that was light enough to carry up two flights of stairs, compact enough that I didn't have to make a dozen trips, and sounded good enough to be worth the effort. I wanted to get away from lugging around the double-braced, 80's style Basix set that I was using. I play drums for my church and we hold services in a youth center. The room we use for the sanctuary is on ground level, but the storage room where we keep our stuff is down in the basement.
A friend of mine who owns a music store had been looking into carrying cocktail kits in his store and he was the one that originally introduced me to the concept. I had never heard of them before. He told me he didn't have any in stock, but that one of his suppliers had just begun to carry them and he had been looking for an excuse to order some. To be honest, I was skeptical, but was willing to give it a try. Needless to say, I'm glad I took the leap.
THE BASICS
My set is an Excel Sonic Traveller.
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1462" width="600" height="450">
Here's my current setup:
- Drums
Main drum - 16 x 24
Snare - 13 x 3
Tom - 10 x 5
Cymbals
8" Wuhan splash
10" Wuhan splash (top hi-hat)
10" CB Percussion splash (bottom hi-hat)
13" Sabian B8 Pro hi-hat (crash/ride)
16" Zildjan ZBT rock crash (crash/ride)
My pedal is a reversed Basix bass drum pedal. It was actually the pedal from the double-braced set I mentioned earlier.
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1477" width="360" height="600">
I use the rod from an LP Claw for my ZBT and my 8" splash. I use a Ludwig LE-126 Cowbell Holder to mount my hi-hats.
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1465" width="600" height="360">
I also use a PDP cymbal stand for my B8 Pro "ride" cymbal.
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1468" width="600" height="360">
THE SNARE
I switched out the snare that came with the kit and replaced it with a custom built snare (I made it out in my shed). You can see a pic of the kit with the custom snare here:
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1459" width="600" height="450">
It worked pretty well, but it didn't give me quite the sound I wanted. a couple of months ago I broke down and bought a pearl piccolo snare and last month I finally got around to experimenting with mounting the snare on my drum. After some work, I figured out how to mount it without having to drill the snare drum. I used an lp claw and one of the 3/8" mounting rods that came with the kit (the rod from the claw is what I used to mount my ZBT cymbal). It's actually a very solid mount. (Who knows? Maybe I'll put up a brief tutorial for mounting a standard snare/tom to a cocktail kit.)
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1471" width="360" height="600">
TEARING DOWN PROCESS
Here's a pictorial breakdown of how I tear down my kit 2 times a week.
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1480" width="600" height="360">
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1483" width="600" height="360">
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1486" width="600" height="360">
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1489" width="600" height="360">
<img src="gallery2.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1492" width="360" height="600">
SPECIAL NOTE
My drums and cymbals really aren't dingy looking in real life. It's more of a combination of bad lighting and a camera phone. LOL.