Quint, excellent excellent day. Glad you shared this one. It must have been a blast sharing and talking and learning with all those drummers. Great stuff. Love the snare stack. Fun!

Purdie,

It was a lot of fun, and a lot of hours on my feet! Even at this level most of these guys don't normally get this level of service. So it was great to get an opportunity to share some drum history, tuning tips and techniques and watch how different drummers handle things.

It was also interesting to see how technique effects gear. For these kinds of events my standard heads are Evans G2 coated over G1 clear resonant heads on toms and Remo coated CS heads on snares. Some guys could play those for days with no issues and some guys can barely make it through a 35 minute set without a head change. It has everything to do with technique. If you play "out of the drum" you are much easier on the gear and the tone is significantly improved. If you play "into the drum" the tone is choked and the gear gets beat up in a hurry. It has very little to do with how hard you hit. The hardest hitters i had Saturday had no issues as a matter of fact. I can generally look at the way a guy is holding his sticks and know if I'll need a head change. :-)

Now, while we both post on the forum and are both drummers ... I'm much much cuter than Purdie. Purdie hasn't crossed over into here as of yet. Though, when he does, it will most assuredly be a positive experience.

Nice!

Sounds like you learned something, but I hope you were able to impart some knowledge and that those who needed it were open to it.

This is nowhere near the same level of intensity, but I often supply my drums to a blues jam session. I sometimes need to "counsel" a heavy hitter to protect my drums ... I just suggest as nicely as possible that they'll have more fun, sound better, work less, and save money with better technique.

squint

well done! that had to be a great experience for all involved. i bet the other drummers had a blast with the snare choices.

i recently bought a wfl 8x15 concert snare. they are a beast! i love mine.

mike

The heavy hitters are part of it for me. I budget for the additional heads and I get them at dealer cost so it's not a big deal, plus I enjoy seeing how quickly I can replace a head and get it tuned up. For something like this event I keep a list of tuned pitches on my iPhone so that I consistently get the drums back to the same starting point. Doing so really helps the audio engineers as they are not constantly chasing EQ on the tom channels. Unfortunately, I will occasionally end up with a broken cymbal. These get billed back to clients as "beyond usual wear and tear". In reality, the biggest thing I concern myself with from that perspective is trying to avoid tom rash, especially with the guys that really like their mounted toms low and flat.

You know, I just figured out the deal with your post. I have no idea why I thought that was Purdie that responded and not you. Like I said, it was a long weekend, but at least it was hot and humid!

The 8x15 is not for everyone and certainly not for every gig, but it can be pretty magical in the right setting. Out at front of house it was deep, but it still had plenty of crack and you could literally hear the "air" in it. It was a very "English" sound and it certainly made their FOH engineer (who was also a drummer) smile. Imagine a Bonham sound only deeper...not looser, just a lower pitch.

I will say that I am completely done with P83 and P85 strainers though. They are ALL getting replaced with P86's and fabric straps. When it is 95º out and I am racing to get things done, the last thing I want to deal with is a sticky strainer or tying yet another snare drum cord. To that end, I have an early 60's Slingerland student snare that sounds really great and has that Slingy version of a P83 strainer. Any ideas on a decent retrofit for that without drilling any holes? It has the same sticky problem.

All good. I actually got a kick out of it. I could see this VERY tired and worn out individual sitting at the keyboard typing away with what little energy he had remaining ... and getting the name wrong. It cracked me up. Be blessed, my friend. You had a great weekend to remember.