new phattie cocktail drum

[palacki808]

Now that I have a nice cocktail drum I thought I'd show it off here. Mr. Mettam, if I email you some pics could you post them in here?

-Joe

[jmettam]

Send them to me at john at cocktaildrum dot com and I'll post them!

[jmettam]

Here you go! This is a beautiful kit:







I love the double snare! It must sound amazing.

- John

[mangorockfish]

Hey Joe,
There's that song again. Sweet kit man, but all Cocktail Kits are sweet. What kind of pedal are you using? Is the Feb. gig the first time out? Man, you'll love it. I've done three with mine so far and each one gets better than the last.

Would you do me a big favor and measure how far from the edge of the drum the main rod on the snare mechanism is when it goes through the shell. Otherwise, how far down the big hole for the snare mechanism is from the edge of the shell. It's so I'll know how far down to drill my holes when I install mine. Thanks.

[palacki808]

First I would like to thank Mr. Mettam for posting my pics.

Dennis at phattie drums built this kit. From the pics above you can tell that there are acctually two different sets of snares in it. It makes a big difference when you're playing with brushes. Some of you may have seen this on the phattie drum forum, this is indeed the same cocktail set. It was acctually Dennis who chose which snares were used, I just gave him the idea and he took care of the rest.
It takes awhile to dial in the left snare, its much more sensitive than the right snare. Once you have them where you want them you can give them a quick half turn and they pull away from the head so you can get that deep tom sound. Another quick half turn brings them back up. Like the old fashioned cocktail drums, there is no baffle. The inside of the drum is wide open and the snares do not buzz too much once you get them set correctly. I do have a small "side snare" that I have tried using (like a club jordan set), but its just not the same. Those small snares are good with sticks, but there's not enough room to sweep a brush comfortably.

-Joe

[palacki808]

Hey mangorockfish,
To answer your questions: The everything except the cymbals came phattie drums, even the pedal. Its a brand called "World Max". I have never seen this brand before. The pedal is very nice though, it has a solid plate with a rubber bottom and two spurs in the front to keep it from sliding around. There is no bracket to hold it under the drum, I can pound it fairly hard and it doesn't go anywhere. The gig in February isn't my first gig with this kit, it will be something around 8 or 9. I play every weekend at local bars. I just never list those on the site here because those are usually tiny places in the middle of nowhere. Lastly, I'll give you a measurement from the center rod to the top of the bearing edge later tonight after work.

[fw]

Hey Joe!

What are your cymbals? That one dirty looking Zildjian looks especially cool. Did you bury it or something? No hi hats?

Also, any idea why your drum works with no baffle? Any pointers would be welcome.


Will

[Guest]

The dirty cymbal acctually came like that when I bought it. I took it out of that thick plastic bag and there was still metal shavings on it from the factory. It's a zildjian "breakbeat" ride. The smaller cymbal is a "remix" crash. Neither of them look nice, but they definitely sound cool. I think it would be nice to have a small splash cymbal too, maybe this payday I can get the hardware for it.
Hihats are not neccessary for me if I'm playing swing. I always took hihats to gigs with my swing band, but never used them much when I had my sit down set.
To answer your last question, the drum doesn't need a baffle to work properly. I have never played on a cocktail set with a baffle. A friend of mine has an old 14" slingerland cocktail and it has no baffle either. That being the only cocktail I've played and really liked, I asked to have my drum built in a similar fashion. You just have to get the snares at the right tension on the head and there will be minimal buzzing when you kick the bottom head.

-Joe

[mangorockfish]

I wish I could wean myself from my hihat on my kit so I could play standing up, but it is like a crutch to me and our music requires a hihat, or at least I think it does. Perhaps in time I can get by with a closed set and play in the traditional way. Maybe I need to just suck it up and play a closed set anyway. HA

[fw]

I thought it might be a breakbeat ride. Cool! I have a 17" remix ride--the one they discontinued. Wuhan splashes rule for $12--that might offset the mounting hardware cost.

FW

[palacki808]

Remix cymbals are great. For their size they are loud and easy to play. I tried to get the 17" like you have but no one had it. I eventually bought the cymbal I have now after looking a few other rides.
One of the others that I looked at was an 18" "El Sabor". That cymbal was really nice as well, but I had to choose one and given that the el sabor was a sabian cymbal I put it back. Nothing against sabian, but all the cymbals I own are zildjians. I figured I had better stick with them because I've always been very happy with the sound of my cymbals.

-Joe

[FW]

You know, I think the breakbeat ride is cooler--I think when they first came out, Peter Erskine even endorsed them as great jazz cymbals. I liked the 17" size mainly because my cymbal mount isn't the sturdiest thing in the world, and I liked the idea of having the smallest ride I could find to cut down the weight strain on the shell.

Will

[Bruce (the K)]

I wish I could wean myself from my hihat on my kit so I could play standing up, but it is like a crutch to me and our music requires a hihat, or at least I think it does. Perhaps in time I can get by with a closed set and play in the traditional way. Maybe I need to just suck it up and play a closed set anyway. HA

Hey Mango,

I'm probably not very qualified to comment on this, since I've never played anything but a cocktail kit with closed highhats but here goes anyway:

I use my closed highhats a lot (straight eigths and sixteenths, mostly) but I've found that I can also get that open-to-closed, disco-style shhh-chick style sound by keeping them fairly loose. I've always figured that a more experienced player could get a fair amount of variety out of them but then I've never had to adjust to not using my foot as part of the operation. My guess is that you'll have to spend a little time discovering the stick technique necessary to get the sounds you need.

If that doesn't work, there was also a post a while back about the technique for using a cable-controlled set of highhats while standing. I don't remember the name of the thread...

Anybody else have some thoughts about playing closed hats, expecially a "real" drummer who was used to footpedal-controlled hats and then switched to playing closed hats while standing?

Bruce (the K)

[palacki808]

Just play. If you like using hihats, use them. Don't go out of your way trying to play without them if your not comfortable. That's one of the best things about drummers, no two are alike. You need to use what you think is comfortable for you. Don't look at using hihats as a crutch, because its not. You need to look at hihats as another instrument that adds more sound to your set.

By the way, your set looks awsome with that sparkle wrap. I have never seen pearl concert toms like that before. I'd bet that set gets you alot of attention when you're on stage.

-Joe

[mangorockfish]

Thanks for the compliments. I'm really proud of them. Yeah, I get compliments every time we play somewhere. I got the concert toms back in the mid80s and they were about 10 years old then. I've just always hung on to them. I have a 10" one that goes w/the other two, but don't have it covered yet. I thought it would be cool to have an "old Pearl" Cocktail Kit.
Mango'