Favorite Drum Kit Layout?

[Marked Man]

Which is your favorite layout to make it easy to play your style of music? Not necessarily asking for the biggest, most expensive kit, or a famous kit, but something that works?

I'm planning to build a full-on acoustic kit and have always like the elevated toms/cymbals style of Nico McBrain's kits for doing epic rolls, like this one from the Book of Souls tour:



Major difference for me is that I would have double bass drums. I suppose visibility isn't great with this setup (you seeing the audience/band or them seeing you), but in terms of playing, this looks ideal to me. I've always loved doing instrumental Maiden covers in my studio (me playing all instruments live) and realized there are actually a LOT of little things Nico throws in, so I am happy to have somewhat dumbed down versions as long as the core basics are there. The toughest thing to do as a direct copy (if that were my goal) for a lot of Maiden songs would actually be Harris's bass!

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I love Nico’s kit as well, but I use a bit less brass. If I had to compensate, I might swap out a trio of the upper Tom’s for Roto Toms, as I love their tones.

 

[Soya]

My setup is always changing, I like to try new ideas and try to weed out bad habits. Sometimes I'll be in the mood for a 8" Tom or a gong drum, other times I want to slim down to a 4 piece to focus on different styles. I overhaul the setup every 6 months or so. Generally speaking I keep the cymbals about shoulder height when sitting and everything 90 degrees at most to either side, I have shoulder problems and even though I'm pretty tall I have limited side reach due to poor flexibility. I did play with my hats in the middle for a looong time, maybe 10 years. Some pictures for examples, the top one is where I'm at for the moment.

 

[gnoll]

For metal:

2 kicks, 22 or 24.

1 snare

8 10 12 or 10 12 13 rack toms, 16 floor.

2-3 crashes, 1 set of hats each side, 1 ride, 1 china.

For a chill fun kit:

1 kick, no double pedal.

1 snare.

1 rack tom, 1 floor tom.

1 pair of hats, 1 crash, 1 ride.

The small kit is more fun to play.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

I absolutely love Simon Phillips' and Gene Hoglan's ambi/semi-ambi kits. I'm normally right hand dominant, but drumming wise not as much, mostly due to poor habits while learning. If space and money were no object, and if I played anywhere near enough to justify it I'd play with a similar setup.

That said, at home I keep it simple. Just a two up one down 4 piece DW Performance kit (10/12/16/22) with a Collector's maple 6.5" x 14" snare. Evans EC/2/EMad heads. DW 5k hardware.

For cymbals Sabian XSR, 14" hats, 20" ride, 16" and 18" crash, splash and china. Again, if money was no object I'd toss my paycheck to Hazelshould weekly.

 

[prlgmnr]

10 12 14 16 22 13sn, 13 hats 18 crash, 20 crash, 18 china, 21 ride

recently added a little splash but I'm not sure I like it

considering adding a fixed hi hat on the right hand side

 

[Soya]

Dominant side hats are life, also nice to see someone else using a 13" snare.

 

[TedEH]

to make it easy to play your style

I didn't so much seek it out, but happy I landed on Tama Hyperdrive shells - the thin ones. They seem to want naturally to be tuned a bit high, which is fine, but the real advantage is being able to mount them low enough to not have to reach way up in the air, or have a giant gap between the batter surfaces of the snare vs. the toms, etc. Shorter distances = easier for an un-practiced drummer like myself to play.

Honestly, I like sticking to the really simple "rock" setup - 2 up, one down, basic hats, two crashes (one above each rack shell), a ride, a china for metal, and add a splash somewhere if you're feeling spicy.

Big kits are fun to look at but impractical IMO - they're a pain to move, take extra maintenance, cost a lot of money, make changeovers at shows a bigger hassle than they need to be, limit gear sharing options, etc etc etc. Whenever I roll into a venue to see or play with a bunch of small locals and see 2x kicks or a whole drum shop's worth of cymbals on one kit, I expect it's going to be a pain to work with.

 

[StevenC]

Flat, low, uncrossed is my current philosophy. Hoping to get a remote hat soon to complete that vision.

I've been using a ride on both sides of the kit to force some more ambidexterity into my playing, but the next big upgrade will be rearranging the room for a bit more space.

Currently 2 up, 2 down. Would like a third rack tom, probably an 8. Really the most interesting thing about my current setup is I've a really nice snare drum that used to belong to Tomas Haake.

 

[jco5055]

I don't play (i've had a couple basic kits over the years, and would eventually like an ok-ish ekit for apt living), but I've always wondered, how do drummers decide on their setup/adding pieces? With drumming is there really never a true "perfect" version of a cover song unless you have the exact pieces/the world's biggest kit?

 

[Necky379]

I’ll preface with, I am not a drummer.

I like low height cymbals, deep sounding kick drums that have a bright click on the attack, the loudest snare so I can hear it over my amps and bright cymbals that cut through, the deadest toms.

My kit is a birch Starclassic set with a single 15” up tom, 24” kick with the discontinued EQ2 head they need to bring back and a Gibraltar stick on thingy that gives more click, Spaun vented 1/2” thick acrylic snare with an Evans Hybrid Kevlar head, mix of AA’s, Metal-X and Z Custom cymbals. TAMA Iron Cobra Power Glide 900 double kick with Axis Wrecking Balls.

 

[TedEH]

the deadest toms

I am not a drummer

I think "dead toms" is an easy trap to fall into - it's taken me a good amount of time to realize what I want isn't "dead" toms, it's "clean" toms. I fought with getting my toms to sound alright, kept dampening them with more stuff or in different ways, etc., - when really I just needed to learn to tune them properly. It wasn't that the shell was too loud or resonant, it's that it was full of messy garbage overtones.

 

[Necky379]

@TedEH
That makes sense and not being a drummer, it’s very possible that I’m using the wrong words here. Similar to your experience, after having a drummer go through the tuning with me and then tweaking from there I actually started removing moongel off the up tom until getting to its present state. I like hearing the attack and a short “whomp” off the up tom. Same thing with the floor tom but deeper. It’s ringing out after the hit I do not like and that’s why I say, I like the deadest toms.

 

[TedEH]

Yeah, nothing wrong with dampening to kill the sustain if that's what you really want to do.
The last time I recorded some drums, about three weeks ago, I found that there's a similar principle that applies compared to recording a guitar cab: that what you hear and what the mic hears are not the same thing. The mic'd sound I got decayed much faster than I would have expected, and the effect is compounded once you layer more instruments on top.

 

[gnoll]

I don't play (i've had a couple basic kits over the years, and would eventually like an ok-ish ekit for apt living), but I've always wondered, how do drummers decide on their setup/adding pieces? With drumming is there really never a true "perfect" version of a cover song unless you have the exact pieces/the world's biggest kit?

I think covering songs perfectly is pretty uninteresting. You could argue that unless you have the exact same kit that a song was played on, then you can't cover it perfectly. But then the kit should also be in the exact same room/studio and miced exactly the same way. And it becomes a bit pointless.

Seems more interesting if you're playing somebody else's song to give it your own spin, and then you could just use whatever kit you like/are comfortable with.

As a drummer you can play whatever setup you enjoy playing really. I think small kits are more fun and can force some extra creativity. And if something really feels like it's missing then just add it.

Although if you play metal live then the kit has to look badass, so a 2 kick setup with lots of toms and big sizes.

But really, you could play 1 kick 1 snare 1 pair of hats and it could sound amazing as long as you can play well.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

With drumming is there really never a true "perfect" version of a cover song unless you have the exact pieces/the world's biggest kit?

So Drumeo does this with repros of Peart's monster kits where they run through songs and stuff as more of an exhibition, and it's plain cool seeing all that stuff setup and seeing a drummer so devoted to just nailing it 1:1.

But, I don't think it's an exercise in musicality.

Much like guitar covers, rote playthroughs can be cool and entertaining, but they're also usually really boring. It's far more fun watching someone interpret the piece, capture the vibe or even flip it.

 

[ShredmasterD]

amen bro. amen

 

[gnoll]

So Drumeo does this with repros of Peart's monster kits where they run through songs and stuff as more of an exhibition, and it's plain cool seeing all that stuff setup and seeing a drummer so devoted to just nailing it 1:1.

But, I don't think it's an exercise in musicality.

Much like guitar covers, rote playthroughs can be cool and entertaining, but they're also usually really boring. It's far more fun watching someone interpret the piece, capture the vibe or even flip it.

Maybe you're jealous because you can't play it right.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Maybe you're jealous because you can't play it right.

I'm jealous as fuck of that tribute kit. I could watch that setup vid like all day.

Brandon is killer too.

 

[RevDrucifer]

If I got to have all the things I wanted, my kit would be laid out very similar to Morgan Rose’s general way of going about things-

Though if Portnoy ever wanted to donate the Purple Monster to me, I’d be perfectly fine setting it up exactly how he did and just get used to it.