Yes I cocktail too.
I get a kick out of your site. In the nineties I built custom drums for a little drum company in Boulder colorado called Tribes Custom Drums. I did a lot of fancy finishes and wood hoops and other kind of wild stuff that was a little less common back in the nineties (for small companies). My Partner (and founder of the company) was Sandy Ficca from the 70s band Firefall. His buddy Steve Amade' from the sub dudes got us started on the idea of a cocktail drum that had a real snare drum on the top of it. we made one and there's a picture of it on my web page here http://www.fritz.fritz.net/drumlink.html . That sparkle finish is painted on not a wrap, it's a mile deep just like a good bass boat. We went through some R and D with putting baffles in it to isolate the snare from the kick and you can see that this model the snare was mounted on rubber grommets. I think that we eventually got it working fairly well but I don't remember the exact combination of baffle and other stuff that we did. Sandy has this drum now I think. funny story was that after I left the company to go to the NYC area in 2000 some butt-head tried to sue the company (tribes) having stolen and patented the idea of putting the snare on top as we did. (we had gotten some exposure in more than one music magazine so it had been seen in spite of not ever having been produced)
Now I live in Northern Michigan and and after getting a gig with a singer songwriter girl some years ago, I decided to build another one. As a life long woodworker with advanced fabrication skills and now a cnc machine at my disposal I came up with a very slick and simple method of setting the snare drum on the lower drum in a precision machined hoop that the drum fits snugly into and then fits snugly into the lower drum. I have played with it for years and have really dug it. It's kick is a little "bappy" sounding but on a couple of small festival size stages I have mic'd it up and gotten a much better thump out of it than I thought I would.
Any how,,, cheers to you for your site. And the reason I found you is I'm googling around trying to find a new cheap guy pedal for my cocktail rig. Maybe you could list companies that sell a cocktail specific pedal in addition to the how to's on reversing a pedal.
Fritz von Valtier
http://www.fritz.fritz.net/
Tribe Drums - History
From Fritz
Hi John,
Wow that's fun to see that picture on your web page. I spent a lot of time on that first prototype. I took that picture too. Tribes is still making a few drums (very few). The short story is that Sandy and I, the two original tribes guys have both left and our old third partner, Billy, is still kind of running things with another guy doing the work who does nice work but no fancy finishes and no capacity for doing any quantities. Billy runs a store called the Drum Shop in Boulder CO. And I see that he still has a web page at tribesdrums.com. (I see it's the same web page we had 8 years ago) Billy's a great guy and I still visit him when I go out there but I wouldn't think that he/they would be able to handle the cocktail drum thing as things stand now. I took a couple of pictures of my new cocktail drum since you're interested. They aren't pro pics but you can get the idea. I'm in northern Michigan now and the economy is really hurting here. I work in the building trades (and play music) and the market is bad so on the off chance that someone might want to commission a custom cocktail drum I send you these pictures. I could use any work I can get right now. I would also just supply this hoop fixture for people wanting to make their own outfit.
The hoop is what I told you about in the last note. The snare drum sits snugly into it, little holes accept tension rod ends. And then it sits snugly into the top of the cocktail drum. This particular drum I put a hefty buildup (reinforcement ring) around the top but that isn't really necessary. This is a 14" kick and 12" snare but the hoop could be configured to any size combination quite easily. After I left Tribes in 2000 I came up with the f hole logo and have made a few drums with it. On this cocktail drum the f hole is the vent for the kick and it looks really bomb. I put a baffle in this drum for separation that I fit loosely inside of the shell, without hardware, and then glue it in with a soft caulk type adhesive so as not to put any tension on the shell. (I'm kind of superstitious about that).
The snare drum is one of mine too, it's kind of a knock off of the Pearl free floater. Quilted maple veneer. 10 ply shell. Of course these are all Keller shells.
Cheers
ff
Wow that's fun to see that picture on your web page. I spent a lot of time on that first prototype. I took that picture too. Tribes is still making a few drums (very few). The short story is that Sandy and I, the two original tribes guys have both left and our old third partner, Billy, is still kind of running things with another guy doing the work who does nice work but no fancy finishes and no capacity for doing any quantities. Billy runs a store called the Drum Shop in Boulder CO. And I see that he still has a web page at tribesdrums.com. (I see it's the same web page we had 8 years ago) Billy's a great guy and I still visit him when I go out there but I wouldn't think that he/they would be able to handle the cocktail drum thing as things stand now. I took a couple of pictures of my new cocktail drum since you're interested. They aren't pro pics but you can get the idea. I'm in northern Michigan now and the economy is really hurting here. I work in the building trades (and play music) and the market is bad so on the off chance that someone might want to commission a custom cocktail drum I send you these pictures. I could use any work I can get right now. I would also just supply this hoop fixture for people wanting to make their own outfit.
The hoop is what I told you about in the last note. The snare drum sits snugly into it, little holes accept tension rod ends. And then it sits snugly into the top of the cocktail drum. This particular drum I put a hefty buildup (reinforcement ring) around the top but that isn't really necessary. This is a 14" kick and 12" snare but the hoop could be configured to any size combination quite easily. After I left Tribes in 2000 I came up with the f hole logo and have made a few drums with it. On this cocktail drum the f hole is the vent for the kick and it looks really bomb. I put a baffle in this drum for separation that I fit loosely inside of the shell, without hardware, and then glue it in with a soft caulk type adhesive so as not to put any tension on the shell. (I'm kind of superstitious about that).
The snare drum is one of mine too, it's kind of a knock off of the Pearl free floater. Quilted maple veneer. 10 ply shell. Of course these are all Keller shells.
Cheers
ff
