 Setting up my kit Something that's come up a few times recently at gigs have been comments along the lines of “really enjoy working with you guys”, “always nice to work with musicians who know what to do on a gig” and “great to work with musicians who know how to use their equipment” - all from professional sound engineers. Also comments from a few dep gigs “your kit/playing always sounds great” and “how do you seem to set up so much faster than our drummer?” All of these comments, I think, are prompted by the same skills - preparedness and musicality.
In this blog I’ll be outlining some ideas on being well prepared for gigs. I’ll leave musicality for the next one!
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  So, having spent some considerable time, money brainpower and bruised knuckles on reconfiguring my large rack kit into something a bit less unwieldy I thought I’d share some of the ensuing drum geekery with the wider world. First up, Protection Racket small drum rug. Why a small rug? Well, for years I have been setting up with stands on or more or less on this rug, so logically if the rack kit fits on this it will fit in anywhere the other kit did but with a neater footprint, allowing others to set up amps/guitar stands/keyboard stands where tripod legs would have been. The mat is fully marked out with a combination of Protection Racket mat markers and white velcro (cheap sew-on stuff from a pound store). You may just be able to make out a Baskey Kickstop screwed into the rug to hold the slave side of the double pedal. This, added to the velcro on the bases of the double pedal give a very firm foundation to everything. To save time when setting up and weight, and to allow the kit to be set up and moved very quickly the main bulk of the hardware is actually three separate, non-connected rack units.  The first runs radially out from the stool to take the snare, the first two rack toms, main crash and three splashes, and is set low but with enough clearance on the bar to bridge over the connecting bar of the double pedal.
The third is a half rack on the left with a mini T-leg, upright and curved cross bar that clamps onto the hi hat stand, this takes my main hi hat, remote wire hi hat, tambourine clamp, china, third rack tom and fourth splash (OK, I have an addiction). The hi hat also has a stick dock and a small clamp at the bottom which clamps the remote hi hat pedal to the main pedal allowing the whole thing to move as one piece. All rack tubes are cut to a minimum whilst still allowing for some expansion and almost all cymbal mounts are boomed on short booms to cut weight but still allow flexibility. Having separate racks also allows the rack to be used in tighter gigs, I just lose the third rack and play the hi hat normally with only the stick holder and tambourine clamp. In Part 2, I will show how the drums are set up on this rack configuration...coming soon! |
Dave Harris
Drummer, drum geek, reluctant blogger and eater of cheese! Categories
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