My Mapex Birch 7-Piece

[cardan]

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Udiagleft_noflash.jpg
---So this is my Mapex Birch 7-Piece 'Fusion' Set-Up, except the last floor tom which is made by Jamm. The drums are 6-ply, 1 maple exterior, and 5 birch interior. The tom sizes are 8x8, 10x8, 12x9, 14x11, and the Jamm floor tom is 16x16. The bass drum is 22x16, and the snare is 14x5.5. I like how the width of the toms increase in increments of two inches, because it gives you more of a rounder tuning spectrum, and it's more linear than a set-up that has toms that change un-constantly, like 10", 12", 13", etc...
---The heads I use on the batter side of the tom's are all Evan's Clear G2's, and the resonant's are all factory. The batter side of the bass drum has an Evan's EQ3 on it, I keep a towel inside, against the batter head, and I still have the factory resonant side (not cut). On the batter side of the snare, I have an Evan's Power Center head,and of course, the factory resonant head. Since I got the drums (not the Evan's heads) on Christmas of last year, I should change the factory one's ASAP.
---My cymbal's are all brand-mixed, just because I don't like to limit myself to buying from one maker, when there is such a wide array of wonderful cymbals available. So I'll start from left to right.
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Ulr1.jpg
The splash is an 8" Custom K Zildjian, the hi-hats are 14" Medium Avedis Zildjian,
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Ulr2.jpg
the first crash is a 16" Rock PST 5 Paiste, the second is an 18" Rock B8 Sabian,
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Ulr3.jpg
and the third is the 18" Thin PST 5 Paiste.
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Ulr5.jpg
The ride is a 20" Medium B8 Pro Sabian, the second pair of hi-hats are modified Jamm hats (drilled holes on top), the (broken) crash is an 18" Rock B8 Sabian, the china is a 16" Rock PST 5 Paiste, and the two bells are 7.5" and 9" LP Ice Bells. I ordered the 13" PST 3 Paiste hi-hats about a week ago for $49, but they're still on back-order, so once I get them, they'll replace the Jamm hi-hats.
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Uleft.jpg
---The djembe on the far left of my set is one I got off ebay (I think its 14" wide, not sure), the bongo's are Matador LP (again, not sure of the size), the chimes are made by LP, they're double-rowed, with 72 bars. All the cowbell's are LP, the blocks are also LP, and they are the Jam Block (red), the Blast Block (yellow), and the Sambago Bells (purplish-pink, and orange).
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Utable.jpg http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Uperc.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Uudu.jpg
---I play with my dad, whose a classical fingerstyle guitarist, in which I use a lot of percussion stuff like the bongo's, the djembe, the cowbells, the blocks, the two LP Ice Bells, chimes, triangle, shakers, castanets, shekere, udu, tambourine (incorporated in the set, on the table behind the throne, and to the right of the set).
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Uleftpedals1.jpg
---The hi-hat stand on the left is one from the Mapex 550 series, the double-bass pedal is a PDP one I got for about $120, and on the left side, I have the factory single bass pedal designated to my tambourine, which is on a snare stand.
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Uleftpedals2.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Urighthihat.jpg
And the Jamm hi-hat's on the right of my set (above the first floor tom) are usable via the Jamm stand. I can actually play both hi-hats at the same time, but this requires a lot of stretch for me, since I'm not really a flexible person. The cymbal stand's on my drum-set are brand-mixed, and I'm not really sure of the brand of each one, but I know some are Gibraltar, Pacific, and a few are Mapex.

So that's my whole set-up as of now, I hope you like it, and feel free to comment and ask questions!

[mind_drummer]

Nice ! Great setup and amazing percussion gears. I have one question: which color is your kit ?

Keep rollin' buddy !

[atomicsoy]

go mapex birch!!! hehehe... isnt that a green mind drummer?

[radeq]

nice setup :) I guess that soon you will upgrade your cymbal setup as well

[mind_drummer]

go mapex birch!!! hehehe... isnt that a green mind drummer?

Look like that's the color but I wanted to be sure :-)

[beatsMcGee]

nice gear.. you have a huge kit there..

[cardan]

Thanks a lot guys. Sorry I didn't put a picture that shows the color better before, but I didn't wanna have too many pictures on that one post, but here's one showing the color more...

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/vicfirth_cardan/Nfrontleft_flash.jpg

So as you can tell, its the 'Transparent Emerald Green' finish, I picked that one since brighter color's like red and yellow and bright green stand out a lot, after a while, they tend to get very boring and old. So I picked a more mellow color like this, and the hope is, I'll never get tired of it!

(P.S. the last floor tom ((the Jamm one)) is black)

[fijjibo]

Its always cool to see fellow m birch users!!
That is one sweeet kit!!! :)

p.s how do you like the paiste's, cos im tempted?

[cdawg_2010]

sweet kit, lots of effect stuff. love it

[cardan]

Hey, thanks a lot for all the positive responses guys...to fijjibo, I really like the paiste pst 5's, I think they sound really good for their price, I'd say out of the three I have (16" rock crash, 18" thin crash, 16" rock china), the 18" thin crash sounds the best. Most professional reviews on the whole PST 5 line are very good (based on their price range). So yea, I'd recommend them to someone who likes good deals, and doesn't have enough $$ to get more expensive stuff.

[Class A Drummer]

cool set. i like the pedal setup. Looks like it would take a long time to setup.

[ledzeppelins666]

I love when people incorparate percussion into their set up. Looks and sounds awesome. How do you like the Udu Drum? I've been looking for one of those, and I haven't been able to find a place that sells one.

And I could stare at that finsh all day. Nice choice.

[timebandit]

sweeeeeeeet!! green!! thats a very religous hi-hat you have there! (holy)

[cardan]

Thanks for the supporting feedback guys. (to 'Class A Drummer') Yea, luckily, I've never had to take a lot of my set down (only the percussion stuff I listed before, which takes a good 20 minutes to break down and bag up), I can only imagine I wouldn't be able to emotionally handle taking my drums down more than once a week... (to 'ledzeppelin666') I do like my Udu drum, its made by LP, and I'd probably say its one of the coolest percussion I have. Here's a good site to buy some LP udu's from, if you haven't already seen it, http://www.idahopercussion.com/page/idp/CTGY/LP_Udu_Drums , and the page gives a good description of each udu, I'm pretty sure my udu is the 13x9" one (of course the Claytone).... (to 'timebandit') Once I got my great 14" Medium Avedis Zildjian hi-hats, I felt like destroying the crappy Jamm hats I had, but I wanted to experiment with them first, so I got the power-drill out of the garage, and started defiling the top hat. It was great, there were, literally, metal shavings flying all over the place, good thing I layed some cardboard down first. Even though both hats are unconditionally scarred for life from the day I decided to see how they would sound as crashes, I think the holes (and the bends) make the pair sound pretty unique, and of course, much better than they sounded when I got them!
thanks for the good comments...

[Darmikalus]

wow...just...amazingly beutifull kit man!! so much to play with!!!


must be alot of fun

[Colin]

Looks like someone's a Danny Carey fan... excellent. Great kit, I love the percussion array. How do you like the ride up there? I had mine up for a while and it was pretty comfortable.

[Drummer Karl]

Looks sweet! the whole set up looks very confortable...and do you use Thomas Lang sticks?

Karl

[cardan]

Hi guys, thanks for all the great comments. (to 'Colin') Yea, I'd say Danny Carey is definetly my favorite drummer and biggest influence. I do like the ride at that height and angle. When I first started drumming, I had it low and flat, and I stuck with that for a while, then I experimented with having high and tilted (like it is now), and kind of went back and forth between those two postions. I've tried having it in the middle too, lower than it is now, but higher than I used to have it, and that was ok, but I like it like this because it keeps your right arm out of the way of that side of the set, and also it causes the ride to not swell as easily... (to 'Drummer Karl') Yea, I try to have everything positioned at a way that is least stressful/conflicting, most convenient/efficient, and most appealing to the eye. Those sticks that are on the floor tom are the VF Thomas Lang signature sticks, I was waiting for someone to catch that...I do like them a lot, they are pretty big though, definetly much different feeling than 5B's, but I love them, I also bought the VF Danny Carey signature sticks (I've had them before) and I like those a lot, but it seems that the new ones I got are different from the older ones in that the "indention" at the fulcrum point seems to be not as prominent...Anyways, thanks to all of you for the good replies and questions!

[Backwards Marathon]

sweeeet set looks really comfortable. id love to hear some sound samples of your playing.

[BarryBuchanan]

sweet set up!! looks confturbul!! tht wud look stunnin wid a rack!!

[DesiPIMPnLuvinIt]

that a sick set...will u post a video of u playin em..not like a solo..but just a demo of wat it sounds like..i really wanna k if the Mapex is as good everyone says it is...i wanna hear the kit b4 i buy it..it'll b really cool if u did most a video of it

[Tam]

dude thats a pretty sick kit, its great with all the accessories, personally i think it would give a drummer a lot more creativity.

P.S
Dammit... I want that KIT!!!

[Thrash Drummer]

Very nice setup. It's good that you can incorporate all of those percussion pieces in your playing. I would be overwhelmed :\

[Dr.Hook]

Beauty kit ya have there cat. I like the set-up as well.

[Ogg]

I have a new MapexM Birch 6-Piece (will be 7-piece asap) and I love it! Nice pics mate.

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/5447/96416047ov6pl1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)