Mini kit under construction

[zimbop]

Here's my mini-kit I started building a couple weeks ago. I had this 12x7 Black Panther cherry snare as an accent in my full kit, it's my favorite snare. Then I found this 16x16 Ludwig Accent CS Custom floor tom used in a local shop. It was in great condition in pretty much the perfect finish to match my snare, natural wood stain with glossy finish. I put an evans hydraulic head on the bottom and kept the ludwig remo resonant head with an e-ring on top. I'd like to get a better top head at some point, maybe a 2-ply. I adapted an old mapex kick pedal to swing up, something I plan to adapt my Iron Cobra for soon, and grabbed my main hihat stand for now until I can find a reasonable remote unit.

I plan to find some sort of 16-18" crash/ride and probably swap out this 10" splash for a 12 at some point. I'd also like to get some 12" hats. I'm going to use existing hardware on the drums as much as possible to avoid extra stands. I'll likely add a pair of mini timbales instead of toms, and I will move over a few of my bells and blocks as well.

I have it set up to sit down at the moment because at first I found the odd cockatil posture was pretty hard on my back. My plan is to have it adaptable to stand-up playing by building a bracket to allow me to set the snare on top of the tom so they're stacked cocktail style.

Since we bought some new furntiure for the living room, it seems we're not going to have a music room any more, so it may turn out that if I like this mini kit, I may sell the full kit and just keep the mini. It's been fun to play on just a few instruments, I like the challenge of making interesting music with just a couple drums and cymbals. It's a nice change.

[PETER]

Hi,Zimbop!
Welcome to Cocktaildrum Family! That's a nice set!
Regards,
Wonder1

[robertm]

Greetings and welcome. It's cool to see a kit in development. Looks like you have a good start-please keep us up to date on progress as you refine the design. Have you played this at a gig yet?

[zimbop]

I will definitely keep you posted. My current focus is the remote hihat. Anyone have expereince with them? There only seem to be a few out there. There's a Pearl, a Tama, a Peace, and two DWs (9k and 5k). I have yet to find any others besides a cheapo no-name one on ebay. They're pretty pricey too so I'm a little hesitant to spring for it since the only one I've seen is the DW9000 and of course that one's nice but the most expensive as well.

As for gigging, well, um, I'm not a in a band... and I really don't think that's likely to happen either. Unless an odd group at work decides to do a one-time thing for a talent show or something (I work at a university so there's no shortage of people making fools of themselves for various reasons).

Thanks for your interest, I'll keep posting pics as I go.

[halfcocked]

Hey! Welcome to the tribe of people with weird drums! Thats a good start. Put about 10 20 cotton balls in the bottom of the drum if ya want to dampen the bass a bit. You can use the cymbal stand with clamp for an existing tom w/arm if ya want. If ya put the snare on top ya lose a tom ya know. Sit down, relax! Use the normal hi hat and dont worry about a remote. "My quick mini set" (with photos) is similar on the "your cocktail drums" forum. I made a wood board that 2 of the floor tom legs sit in holes and then attach the bass pedal to that. Now I'm gonna try with your bass pedal idea of bending the beater shaft and not inverting the pedal!
Cheers!

[zimbop]

Very good. You're right, the regular hihat is working ok, but I really want it across the snare rather than to my left. I'm a lefty, so I'm going to try some wierd stuff to get it comfy. Good luck with the pedal idea. I will probably work on that this weekend myself. Please do share what you learn.

[robertm]

Don't know if a new pedal might be of interest, but many of us have had good luck with the Pulse Pro bass pedal from Musicians Friend.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... sku=444565

It's inexpensive ($39.), sturdy, and very easy to reverse-john Mettam has a brief tutorial on this site, under "Learn-Construction"

Just another possibility.

[zimbop]

Thanks for the suggestion. This looks quite similar to the Mapex pedal I adapted to swing up, and that one was free. :-) It actually works quite well that way, I was just trying to scheme a way to get the pedal farther under the tom so I could sit closer to it. When i do that with the beater reversed, it beats on the far side of the head where it doesn't sound good. I thought bending the shaft on a normal pedal setup would get the beater closer to the center of the head.

What is this site you speak of? [oh never mind, I just found it on the cocktail drum home page outside the forum, I never realized that was out there.]

[zimbop]

Ok, here's my kit, much more developed now. I have things right about where I want them now. I plan to add a splash above the timps and get my real hi-hats ordered soon (currently using a splash and 8" bell for top and bottom as a temporary substitute). Turns out my snare drum with snares released complements the 6" and 8" timbales quite nicely. It's coming together well. I like it.









As you can see, I have used a rims suspension mount and a cymbal boom arm rod to mount the timbales. I think I can use a stacker on it to add my bell or splash on above the timbales. I'm also using a collection of clamps backward. The crash and hihats are both mounted using Gibraltar grabber arm clamps backward on the top stub of the floor tom legs. The cowbell hangs nicely to the right of the hats.

It's been fun, and I really feel like it's getting close to a more permanent set-up. I'll post more pics as things evolve.

Cheers. :-)

[robertm]

Nicely done! In keeping with the cocktail mentality it's cool to see a kit that doesn't take up much acreage. I can tell you've put a lot of thought into this one - keep up the good work.

[halfcocked]

Nice setup, have fun!

[hayden]

Yeah, very nice man, and very inspiring. I am literally about to open the box of my new remote hihat stand, and now need to start experiment with mounting methods. Your backwards clamp method looks very good. I will make some updates as to how my endeavors turn out. Cheers for the pics.

Hayden.