So I just decided the other day after 5 years off i’m going to nip down the rent-a-studio and smash the sheet into some skins again.

I need to practice at home with zero-ish noise.

Is there any new fangled technology I should investigate, or just get a pad-kit like the olden days?

I picked up a digital drum kit and alesis d4 drum module. Its in storage, need to dig it out and check it works. It also “talks” to the Rock band games on xbox/ps3.

get a proper kit and a rehearsal room.

I’d love the luxury John, but I want the bike to take most of my disposable income. I’ve still got the Zildijans at my Dad’s which is handy but i can’t reminisce about selling the Mapex too much as it was like putting down a puppy.

Sad, sad, sad day.

it’s just that the budget end practice & electronic kits are horrible to play. I had an Alesis DM5Pro for a while, I think I used it 5-6 times.

The idea was to be able to practice at home.

got home, set up, played a couple of minutes & mrs_d complained about the noise.

kick pedal in particular thumping through the floorboards

current band has share of a rehearsal room in an old victorian mill (a rather famous one actually, Black Dyke Mills, famous for its brass band). £100 a month, we get to leave the gear there & we can arrange as many or as few practices as we like when the other bands we share with aren’t using it. 4 of us in the band, that’s £25 a month each.
I take my cymbals & snare drum home with me but leave the rest of the kit set up.

Mapex for me too, M-Birch 7 piece with Black Panther snare & a mix of top end Zildjian & Sabian cymbals.

If I’d followed my heart rather than ego at school and uni I would never have stopped, but I always ended up moshing rather than sending out the hits…but the calling has been niggling me for months.

Started at 15 with a standard CB entry kit then on my 17th got a Mapex M too, halfers with me and the whole family. All I wanted to do was play Therapy & Earthone9.

I’ll look into rehearsal spaces round here, but first I’ll do the whole “6 quid an hour” thing. Bash it out, find my flow, get some lessons.

What’s your style?

I took 18 years out, playing more now than I did back in the day

for me, style is rock/indie/oldschoolgoth.

this is not me, it’s me programming some software, but we’re part way through recording it for real; the video is me though.
current band, Chasing Glass:
http://www.chasingglass.co.uk/music.html.

and this is me too – previous band, The Wick Effect:
http://www.reverbnation.com/open_graph/song/3813339
(blutac of this here parish on guitar)

When i’m ready to get some lessons, it’s a strange question, but what should I be looking for in an instructor?

Other than patience and an inherent sense of Awesome?

I use a Roland TD-12 at home for practise. It’s a nice kit, a few years old now but is more than capable of gigging, easy just to plug into a pa and go.

If you are going for an electronic kit then get something good enough to gig with, even if you think you will always be using an acoustic kit. I have joined to two together on the odd occasion.

Problem is you have to be spending upwards of £2k to get something decent new.

probably teaching grandma to suck eggs, but…

http://www.icanplaydrums.com/index.html

Still a secondary hobby, being a “developing adult” and that, if I had 2g, i’d pay off the debt then a bike.

At the moment, the idea of locking myself in a room for an hour with someone elses kit and my cymbals for £7 sounds like the best aggression killer next to rattling down a hill.
Which is hard at night in the dark without a Pro L.E.D’s.

So, 5B or not 5B?

sounds like a plan. of course, if you still have your cymbals, you can pick up a pretty reasonable new kit for under £300. First thing to change would be the batter heads, nice Remo Pinstripe on all toms, Ambassador coated snare batter head. Then the stands.

Is there any new fangled technology I should investigate, or just get a pad-kit like the olden days?

well you’d definitely get that retro 70s sound out of that 😉

john_drummer +1 for the pinstripes/ambassador combo!

I’ve still got my old Premier XPK set (with Sabians) and a double kick. But for practising (when I was playing regularly) I’d slope off to a practice room and use their kit.

Saves noise in your house & wear on your kit. Best solution, I reckon.

Right, this is getting me proper excited.

The goal is this>
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTPn4Jlrjb0[/video]

The last thing we played in the summer before uni….

I’ll figure it out and then rule the world.

Love that tight snare. It won’t be long before I’ve got the Remo’s in and am asking for tension advice.

I like heavy weight sticks. I intend to treat the skins like i treat my bike.

Like a bitch.

EDIT:Wanted-One Ride Cymbal- Preferably the kind with a “Slayer” like ping.

ping ping ping ping RAAAAAAAAAAAH!

EDIT: I’ve alsa watched this maybe, almost, 20 times
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEZ6vDChcS4[/video]

5A sticks for me, easier to move them quickly. Fast sixteenths on hats aren’t easy with big tree trunks. Nylon tips for that nice ‘ping’ on the ride. Dipped grips to hang on to them.

I did have a couple of pairs of hollow carbon sticks, nice ping, last longer than hickory, but cost £20 a pair. Can’t find them in the shops now 🙁

I like heavy weight sticks. I intend to treat the skins like i treat my bike.

Like a bitch.

Yawn!

For a min there I thought it was Neil Peart on the thread then I realised he was older than 10!

Dear Steve,

Thanks for being useful.

I did have a couple of pairs of hollow carbon sticks, nice ping, last longer than hickory, but cost £20 a pair. Can’t find them in the shops now

correction, I did find them in PMT Leeds, rebranded. No idea what the price was either. 2 pairs of Vic Firth 5AN came to £20 so if they’re remotely near that I’ll be getting another pair rather then £10 a pair on hickory just because it’s a name brand

just watched that video clip. impressive how he makes it look so easy. it’s all in the feet, obviously.
I have a double kick pedal but I’ve never learnt how to use it properly. Like Norman Hunter, my left leg is for standing on 😉

Morning forum drummers…

I’m coming to the realisation I need to sell my accoustic kit and invest in an electronic kit, otherwise I’m never going to get to play regularly.

I’ve had a dtxpress in the past, and though it sounded nice, it was quite “dead” to play, so I’m fancying something with mesh heads- along the lines of the Roland TD11. What’s the verdict on the like?

And where is good to sell drums? I have a 6 piece Mapex M-Birch kit, Fusion shells, with Sabian cymbals. In transparent purple- it’s an amazing looking kit. Not been used a great deal at all.

Cheers chaps,

Paul

I bought myself one of these:
http://www.soundaffectsmusic.com/roland-hd-1-v-electronic-drum-kit-box-open.html

I absolutely love it – of course, it’s fairly basic but more sophisticated kits are available (at a price).
I plug my laptop into it, load up a playlist on Spotify and play along – wonderful therapy.

By the way, I have a new favourite drummer….
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiDQ_vlePdk[/video]