My funny drum kit

Inspired by The Girl playing the drums with me over the last few days: here's some snapshots of my funny little drum kit.

I suppose Australians would call it a ''bitzer kit'' -- ''bitzer'' being Aussie-speak for ''mongrel'' -- i.e. a bit of this and a bit of that.

This first view is kinda a front view. In it, you can see the light green box I drew around the ''vibra-slap'' (the band Cake uses one a fair bit). If you click on the photo, you'll [hopefully] see a larger version of the pic.

To the lower left, you can see the white cymbal stand which is actually the stand for a floor fan: the fan broke, but I saved the stand. You can't tell in the picture, but there's also a wooden cross-bar, with a cymbal mounted on each end.


This photo is the side view.

You can see the Vibra-Slap more clearly, and you can also see the Tower o' Cymbals. The base of the tower is a metal stand that Guitar Cousin found by the side of the road(? - or did I find it, while running a delivery for the Crating Store that I used to work at?). I think the bottom used to be the stand to a portable projection screen.

You can't quite see it in this photo, but there's a cow bell at the bottom of the Tower o' Cymbals, as well as another one at the top.

None of the cymbals are at all ''name brands'' -- at least, nothing you might have heard of, like ''Ziljan''or ''Paiste''. A few ''Meteor'' brands, and I forget what else. But, they have -- to my ear -- a good sound. And I have a wide range of sounds available to me -- so, that's good.

The blue ring around the base of the high hat stand is just a strip of velcro. I use it to keep the pedal section bundled nicely against the legs, for when I pack up the kit (which is rarely). When the HH stand **isn't** packed up, t's easier just to keep the velcro strap hanging there.


In this view, you can see the black and red hearing protectors that I wear while playing (to protect my hearing). The Girl also has a set (white ones), which she knows to go and fetch when it's drum-playing time.

You can see the green Pringles can on the floor, which holds the extra drumsticks (and the pair of whisks/brushes).

At the moment, the setup is fairly asymmetrical, with nearly everything off to the right. That's just an artifact of the available space: eventually, I'll have it set up more ''out in the open'', at which point I'll move some of the cymbals around to the left.


I also have -- not pictured -- two more toms (brown, red -- to go with the existing black ones), a kick drum (red -- to complement the brown one), and three(?) cymbals, that I need to weave in to this array. But the toms and the kick drums need some refurbishing, and I need to figure out (or build) more cymbal holding solutions. I also have two(?) formerly-Teflon frying pans, which have a potentially useful sound when you whack them: they need to be mounted as well.

All this, of course, WIFMD [When I Finish My Dissertation].


--GG