Hey John, thanks for the link to that vid. But since this thread has been so much dang fun I was hoping for a soundfile of your kit. They look fabulous btw, love the green and black reminds me of the Munsters or something cool and spooky. Wish I was having as much fun as you!

Man those are sweet. I must have said this a million times here but wow!! cool kit man congrats.

Yes the plan is to save cash and buy new from Jerry and Dave. The tonal quality of those drums are really amazing. Mind Blowi It'll be a while but someday............

Keep on Pl

Greg - Yep, I stuffed the second ring in to 'tame the beast!' It sounds just the way I like it. I dropped the tuning even lower as per Jerry's advice and the bugger growls! (It's tuned just a skosche above LPP. You know what a skosche is, right? It's just a wee bit more than a tad! )

Mike's tom mounts arrived! I'm off to install them and tune up the toms. Thanks, Mikey! (*I haven't been able to mail the rods yet, running around with Bev for her mom... soon.)

Dr. Watts - I'm not set-up to record. I have to buy a charger for my video-cam to get it working, but even then, it doesn't record sound very well with that little built-in mic. If I can, I will, let's see what I can do.

Glenn - "It'll be a while but someday..." That's what I said and months turned into years! If you can, when you can, just get the kit. 'He who hesitates is lost!' LOL

Having fun getting my new drums together... more photos shortly.

John

Check your confuser, John! I see them on my Mac and the guys who commented above can see them as well. I don't want to chew up a lot of bandwidth double posting photos. I'll repost a couple here for you, hope you can see them.

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/bk1_zpse4d77eee.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/bk4_zpsc8f82efc.jpg[/IMG]

John

Mendozart wrote: Jerry uses the Evans pad touching the batter head, for that Blaemire thump!

Just be careful not to break out that retaining collar that holds the foam rings. As far as the sound that Jerry gets out of his bass drums, it's far from a "thud". He uses the larger of the two rings. Then sets the Evans EQ pad in with the hinged part touching the batter head. It doesn't really muffle it too much because the pad is hinged, and moves as it's struck. I don't think I ever got a great bass drum sound, until I learned of Jerry's methods. This is the formula for the Blaemires though. I remember when he had his Ti kit, that bass drum was another animal. He used different heads, and different muffling. I've learned so much from Jerry on how to tune toms, snares, and how to get a great sound from the bass drums.

Greg - I've been using EMADS on all my bass drums for years. Once in a blue, I'll use PS3. The reason I added the ring is; it needed just a touch more muffling. I was resisting using anything inside, but I'll try it. You guys know more about these critters than I do. I'll let you know how it works out.

Hey Greg, can you see the photos I've been posting? Check post 159 for me and tell me if your machine is picking them up. Longjohn is having problems seeing them at all and I'm trying to determine if it's his computer or not.

Jinx - Do you tune your toms both heads batter and reso in tandem, or one head higher pitched than the other?

John

The only time I couldn't see pics, was when you initially posted them on post 139. I can now see pics on 139, 144, 159, and 164.

I tune the bottom higher. I find a pitch that resonated the most which ends up being a bit higher than the batter. But...I use a Evans clear ES resonate head or at least a clear Remo ambassador. Not sure a black dot on bottom will get you there.

Should I swap them out? I'm really trying to get the most out of these that I can...

John

PS - My wife has christened the Blaemire snare drum, 'the crispy one!' lol What a wide volume range on that thing! I'm having fun with it in-between working on the toms.

John

OK! Finally! The drums are set-up in my basement and I got to play them. A real dream come true for me.

But first... Jerry (Drumjinx) is my Blaemire Guru and for good reason. Nobody on planet earth knows more about these drums than he does. Kudos and thank you for all the help and info he (and others,) have freely provided for me here in this thread.

Jerry recommended that I use Evans clear reso heads on the toms instead of the Evans Control Center reso's I had purchased for the kit. I'll be damed if it didn't make a -HUGE- difference in the sound of the toms. The drums 'opened up' with the clear reso's and it was much easier to get them into tune too. If it wasn't for Jerry giving me a heads up on head choice, I might have blown through a nice chunk of change trying out different heads! The winning combination of heads for these drums is the Evans G2's on top and the Evans clear reso's on the bottom.

I pulled the extra ring out of the EMAD. The bass drum sounds deep and wonderful. Like Jerry said, 'balls to the wall' tone to make a grown man weep! It sounds out a deep, resonant thump that I can feel in my chest when I hit it. GOD's bass drum!

The toms sing, - deep, rich, warm, melodic tones. Pure MOTOWN sound! That's what they remind me of, the sound of the drums on some old Motown, Funk Bros. records. Classic. Tone, tone, tone, like butter melting on hot pancakes.

The snare drum is a versatile wonder! First, the volume range on this thing is something to behold. You can take a buzz roll from a soft whisper, to a thundering, wall-rattling volume simply by slowly raising the sticks higher and higher off the drum head. Articulate, nice and dry in the center, crisp with good attack.

The crack you get near the center has genuine Authority! I love to mess around with rolley-clangy-rim-shotty Second-Line grooves and riffs. The tones and sounds I get out on the rims is perfect and old-school. Cross-stick clicks are all wood! I'm loving the new snare and the old fiberglass kit. This my friends, is a set of drums I wish you all could own. Not one drum in the kit lets you down sound-wise.

I have it set-up with the 12" rack tom for now. I don't like to play 2-up set-ups because that second rack tom is always right where I like my ride to be. I will take some shots tomorrow of the kit set up with both rack toms. For now, I just really, really wanted to sit down behind them and play them.

Some photos:

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/bm1_zps6c098ade.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/bm2_zps8b4c5255.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/bm3_zps2bf59523.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/bm4_zps3b8a9cdc.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/Happy-Dance_zpsad5eb5fd.jpg[/IMG]

More pix tomorrow!

John