Gregory Kimball

When we were playing in a three-piece with 2 guitarists, it was OK to have an 18″ bass drum.  However, when you add a bass player into the mix that 18″ just doesn’t have room in the mix.  Time for a new drum!

Luckily, Starving Musician had a sweet 22×16 Tama Swingstar in black wrap to match the rest of my Tama Stagestar toms.  The most important part is that Jasper likes it!

For my kit I’ve been using a cymbal stand coming out of the bass drum, so any new drum is going to need to be modified.  Also, what’s up with the knobby hardware on this drum?

For the new design, I had to drill two new holes into the top of the drum and transfer my hardware over from my 18″ bass drum.  The 22″ bass drum had a huge cut-out in the wrong spot, so I filled in the extra holes with spare boards and dowels.  When mounting so much hardware to the top of the drum, I wanted to add as much strength as possible!

Here we go – the new kit!

• Full size rock 22″ bass drum
• 14″ floor tom (on the floor now) with mounted 12″ tom
• 14″ snare and 14″ hats
• Now with 3 cymbals!

I’ll be playing this configuration for a while….

Today I made some time to make modifications to my drumset.  I have been thinking about getting a new cymbal for a while (maybe Zildjian K Custom Hybrid ride???), but before making that investment I thought I would find a way to use all three of my cymbals.

1. Re-drill the tom bracket on the mounted floor tom.  This way the batter head of the two toms is on the same plane.  I wonder why other 4-piece kits keep the floor tom on the floor..?
2. Sew a stick bag and mount to the floor tom.  I needed a place to put sticks when I’m switching between hot rods and drum sticks.  I bought canvas, needles and waxed thread for this and I’m happy how it came out.
3. Try out a cymbal tree.  This is pretty Frankenstein, but maybe I’ll like it!

I would like to take a moment to capture the phases I went through to reach the four-piece kit I’m playing today.  I began with the “minimum viable drumkit” and then slowly added components.  As someone who has to bring the kit to a public park in order to practice, keeping the weight and part count low is a priority.

The evolution of drums (it’s OK to laugh):

Proceeding clockwise from top-left:

1. The original “minimum viable drumkit” or MVD.  This kit can play brass on the beat with kick and snare.  What else do you need, really?  It also has the advantage of being a “one-trip drumkit” – which is to say you can carry it wherever in one trip.  To build this kit I had to drill a tom mount into the snare drum – that’s what’s fun about drums, right?
2. Adding hi-hat to MVD.  With hi-hat entering the mix, the kit has a lot of new sounds… but you’ll notice there is still no snare stand.  I dare you – try playing a sixteenth note beat on the hats with your snare on a tom mount!  Another challenge: try carrying the MVD with a hi-hat stand strapped to your back!  Yeah.. this configuration didn’t last long.
3. The first 4-piece.  This kit uses a cymbal stand and a tom holder built into the bass drum to provide maximum drums for minimum hardware.  Thank you Drum Factory Direct for selling me the components I needed to build this frankenstein.  I’d like to highlight the addition of a snare stand, which is absolutely worth its weight.
4. The best 4-piece without spending money.  This kit trades up for a pro snare and full crash I had sitting in the closet.  The result is a “two-trip drumkit” that sets up wherever.

Ever since I started using the liveBPM app on my phone, I’ve wanted a way to mount my smartphone to my drumkit.

Here’s a screenshot from the app!  It does a terrific job (*in 4/4) of tracking the beats-per-minute of whatever sound or music is happening around you.  This screenshot is from an EDM concert.  Note the strict 125 bpm…..

Anyways, I started off with a plywood design, but it failed.  Then I switched to medium density fiberboard (MDF) and shaped the parts with hacksaw and dremel.  Once I got the hardware to fit together I sealed the parts with 5 coats of quick-drying polyurethane and it works great!