Mateo Leone
07-07-2008, 07:31 AM
These are my old Tama’s. They are early 90’s Rockstars in Vintage Silver. They started out as a 9 piece with a double bass and two floor toms (16” and 18”), and a bunch of old Road Pro boom stands. The places I play just don’t lend themselves to large kits, so I sold off the extra bass and floor tom and the stands, and went with some Gibraltar clamp on cymbal arms so I could save floor space on the stage. I picked up a Mapex Janus double bass/HiHat combo stand to make up for the loss of the bass drum. With two guitarists, a bass guitar, and a keyboard/sax player, things can get crowded fast. Add in the light tripods and a few stage dressings and floor lights and you can see why the set had to take up very little floor space.
I don't know where the 16" Zildjian thin crash that usually lived on my left was when I took the pictures, but needless to say I didn't play them with just a cymbal arm and no cymbal.
I was told that these were from the last year that Tama made the Rockstars in Japan. The badges said Made in Japan, so it may have been true. They were a great set of drums, looked great on stage and projected very well. The deep shells were perfect for rock and blues, and the memory-lock hardware made it possible to go from cases to set up in 15 minutes. I had a rug with marks for each of the feet, so once the rug was down the rest of the band knew exactly where I would be and they could set up accordingly. I highly suggest that for new drummers so they can get in the habit of setting up fast and consistently. I found the best rug to use was a shipping pad because it was light, durable, easy to mark with shoe polish, and you can easily steal them from moving companies. Seriously, they are cheap, so you really don’t have to steal them.
These went off to a new home a few months ago, along with the vintage Pearls I have listed on here to help minimize the considerable financial impact of the purple Slingerland Studio King’s I now play. The Pearls were perfect for retro and jazz/bebop, and the Tama’s were great for rock and blues, and they had a power that would hit you right in the chest, especially if they were fully mic’ed, but the Slingerlands have a mix of tone and power that works for what I do, and they are pretty cool to look at too.
I don't know where the 16" Zildjian thin crash that usually lived on my left was when I took the pictures, but needless to say I didn't play them with just a cymbal arm and no cymbal.
I was told that these were from the last year that Tama made the Rockstars in Japan. The badges said Made in Japan, so it may have been true. They were a great set of drums, looked great on stage and projected very well. The deep shells were perfect for rock and blues, and the memory-lock hardware made it possible to go from cases to set up in 15 minutes. I had a rug with marks for each of the feet, so once the rug was down the rest of the band knew exactly where I would be and they could set up accordingly. I highly suggest that for new drummers so they can get in the habit of setting up fast and consistently. I found the best rug to use was a shipping pad because it was light, durable, easy to mark with shoe polish, and you can easily steal them from moving companies. Seriously, they are cheap, so you really don’t have to steal them.
These went off to a new home a few months ago, along with the vintage Pearls I have listed on here to help minimize the considerable financial impact of the purple Slingerland Studio King’s I now play. The Pearls were perfect for retro and jazz/bebop, and the Tama’s were great for rock and blues, and they had a power that would hit you right in the chest, especially if they were fully mic’ed, but the Slingerlands have a mix of tone and power that works for what I do, and they are pretty cool to look at too.