Freebase Dali

I don't know how many of you out there play drums, or more to the point, live drums. But if there's a discussion I could never tire of, it's one that involves everything from drum stick preference to time signatures.

Describe your kit, show pics of it, describe your dream kit, what kind of cymbals do you have/wish you had, what kind of heads do you use, your positioning preferences, techniques, tips, etc...

Everything drums goes here.

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I'll start:

I bought a drum kit from a guy for 200 dollars a couple years ago. This is the kit when I bought it, minus one of the toms and a couple cymbals:

It's a shop kit, AKA, it was built by the guy who sold it to me. Therefore, no name brand. And yes, it's a fusion size.


So after some upgrades over about a year's worth of time, here is the kit now:


Added a piccolo snare, re-skinned the primary snare, re-skinned the toms with Evans Hydraulics (because they sound good when recorded.. but they're not resonant enough for live use) Added the mandatory Wuhan China, and an 8 inch splash on the left and a cheap Wuhan splash on the right, and got some old broken crap cymbals which, for some reason, sound cooler than the good cymbals. Added a second hihat, Zil ZHT's. And threw in a nice doublekick pedal for good measure. (not Iron Cobra, but it works well enough)

Got the main pieces mic'd with Shure SM57's, a Shure SM58 under the primary snare, got a Shure PG58 in the kick, and two Nady condensers overhead, and I use a condenser for room ambience.

Everything routes to a 16 channel Mackie mixing board.


I love playing the kit. I miss it to death because it, along with all my other gear, is currently in transit from Europe. I'll have better pics once my stuff arrives.

I'm really into playing jazz rhythms, strange time sigs, funk, and out of whack polyrhythms. I place a lot of importance on being able to emphasize strokes in a way that contributes greatly to the feel of a beat. I'm big on that.
I'm not the kind of drummer that gets behind a kit and starts doublekicking and rolling as fast as possible. I get behind a kit and make a simple beat sound complicated, loose, and funky.
That's my style.

My biggest philosophy on drumming is this:
A good drummer knows what to do and when to do it. A good drummer does not simply play the fanciest, most technical beat for the sake of it being complicated. A good drummer knows that what the music asks for, you give. No less, no more. You do not always assume the focal point, but when that focal point is you, you don't abuse it.
Drums are a part of music.
Music is not a part of drums.


And with that, I sincerely and anxiously await the opinions and philosophies of the other drummers in this forum who wish to establish a rapport and share their own rhythm theory of everything.

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