As much fun as I’ve been having with my pancake drum kit, I keep wondering how it would sound with a huge bass drum. One feature of a pancake rack tom is that it leaves plenty of room for big bass drums underneath without having to raise the height as you would with a traditional two-headed rack tom. After a little searching I found this old beast – a 1970s 14″x24″ Premier marching bass drum converted to a drum kit bass drum. When you take a picture of an instrument in a music store you know you’ll be back…

After a few days of pounding on this drum as a traditional bass drum, it finally came time for pancake surgery. I set up my skillsaw with a custom jig and made the 6″ ring cut into the drum. Once the cut was complete, I realized the drum wrap was actually a thin metal sheet, probably chrome, but no match for my saw.

With my new 24″ pancake bass drum, I reconfigured the kit and here we are with four cymbals and four shelled drums again. It seems like my drum hardware journey follows a sawtooth pattern where I strip down to the fewest components and then add new ones into the mix until its time to strip things down again. Next time you hear from me I’ll just be playing a finger cymbal and a coffee can!