Tama Rockstars

Chaos_Inferno

Silver Member
I've had these for a while, by no means do I think I've even used these to anywhere near their full potential since I'm still basically a drumming noob.... but I figured I'd share anyways. =]

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And here's my only nice piece of drum equipment, my 14" Maple Melody Master.... I love it.

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And while I'm sure most of you know about the three-way throw off with this, I figured since I have the pictures already I may as well post them.

Tight:

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Loose:

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And of course, off:

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Honestly, I'm in love with those Tama strainers. I've used a bunch of other ones before, granted, none of them very nice.... but I've never used a snare drum where no matter how tight I have the snares that the strainer is smooth as silk to swap between settings with one finger.

And here's a really awful sound clip with crappy mics, an ancient mixer and a lack of any audio knowledge whatsoever, as well as poorly tuned drums and trying to mess with equipment when I started to play. Plus this was done as a sound check so the "playing" is overly basic. The bass drums (my right bass sounds far better than my left.... due to my poor tuning of the left) sound MUCH bigger, a nice focused attack with a kind of boom to it almost, love it and the recording doesn't do it justice here. The toms don't quite sound as flat as they do here but still not much better....

Tell me whatcha think lol
 

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How does it play with the bass drums straight ahead? Most guys with two bass drums have them angled a bit (sometimes a lot lol). Your way keeps the hats nice and close to the snare though.
A friend of mine just got that exact same kit, and I found it pretty tough to reach the hats the way his bass drums were set up.

Anyways, I LIKE!
 
Nice drums man. Did you take advantage of the GC deal? I would have too man, great drums at a good price. I bet that MP snare sounds amazing too.
 
Rockstars are actually great drums, they're just cheap that's all. You say you're a drumming nooob but you don't sound too bad, the things look tuned properley too, nothing stuffed into the kick! The snare looks great, what you should think about now is some bitchin' cymbals.
 
I'm only 16, and I'm really really short (i.e. 5'2" lmao) so having the bass drums angled felt really really weird to me, too big, too much stretching of my short legs and all that.... and in order to save space I put them closer together. It works for me, I suppose slightly angled would feel a little more comfortable but with two bass drums that's a bit more difficult. I think a drummer buddy of mine has some DW 7000 double pedal he said he's about to just give away once he gets his new pedals that I'll snatch up if I get the chance, I've been thinking about just leaving my other bass drum for show and making sure my nicer sounding bass drum is all we need to hear. =P Plus it'll be a little more comfortable for me to tighten up my pedal setup anyways....

And yeah, I definitely need new cymbals. I suppose my hats don't sound too bad and my 16" crash is okay, but the 18" just sounds like a big nasty clang almost, and the ride only has a decent wash if I use really tiny cymbals.... and I hate the bell. I'm probably going to get a 20" A Custom Projection Ride, and I'm not sure what crashes I'll want. almost certainly another 16" or maybe even 14", probably thin or Medium thin A/A Customs once I have the cash.

I'll probably replace the heads at some point too, not sure when but I'm still debating what I'll swap them to. Those are Coated EC2s over EC Resos at the moment.
 
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And yeah, I definitely need new cymbals. I suppose my hats don't sound too bad and my 16" crash is okay, but the 18" just sounds like a big nasty clang almost, and the ride only has a decent wash if I use really tiny cymbals.... and I hate the bell. I'm probably going to get a 20" A Custom Projection Ride, and I'm not sure what crashes I'll want. almost certainly another 16" or maybe even 14", probably thin or Medium thin A/A Customs once I have the cash.

Assuming by the kit, username and avatar, you play some form of metal right? Well don't even think about getting a 14" crash. Might as well be a splash as far as metal is concerned. I'd say you need AT LEAST 17" as your smallest crash. Some people do 16 but i'd start off with 17. 18" will do for the second crash and 19 or 20 is a good size for a crash ride. For a ride i'm sure 20 would just about do but i'd personally rather have 21 or 22". That's just me though.

As for the kick pedal. Yeah do that. The 7000s are almost as good as the 5000s in fact i think they might actually be better in a sense because the boards are slightly longer than the 5000s (i find the boards too short on mine anyway). You can still keep one pedal on the other kick and perhaps just use it for doing different sounds if and when you feel like it. You could have one with a solid or ported reso, try different tunings and dampenings, really just whatever you feel like.

Then for the heads. It really depends on what sort of sound you want. I'd personally reccomend that you don't have damped reso heads on any of your drums like you do now. Probably best to just stick a set of G1s on the bottom side.
 
Assuming by the kit, username and avatar, you play some form of metal right? Well don't even think about getting a 14" crash. Might as well be a splash as far as metal is concerned. I'd say you need AT LEAST 17" as your smallest crash. Some people do 16 but i'd start off with 17. 18" will do for the second crash and 19 or 20 is a good size for a crash ride. For a ride i'm sure 20 would just about do but i'd personally rather have 21 or 22". That's just me though.

As for the kick pedal. Yeah do that. The 7000s are almost as good as the 5000s in fact i think they might actually be better in a sense because the boards are slightly longer than the 5000s (i find the boards too short on mine anyway). You can still keep one pedal on the other kick and perhaps just use it for doing different sounds if and when you feel like it. You could have one with a solid or ported reso, try different tunings and dampenings, really just whatever you feel like.

Then for the heads. It really depends on what sort of sound you want. I'd personally reccomend that you don't have damped reso heads on any of your drums like you do now. Probably best to just stick a set of G1s on the bottom side.

Eh, I mess around with metal and listen to a lot of it (someone recognized Lord Worm :p) but my band is kind of an old school/vintage prog band... think Genesis/King Crimson worship, lol. it's fun, but I'm thinking my kit's too big to play out anyways, I kinda like smaller tom sizes, brighter cymbals/snare and a deeper tom sound. I wasn't so sure I was going to go with a 14" crash as that seems small but definitely probably won't go above 18".... not really my thing.

As for heads I'm almost definitely going with Ambassadors or Emperors on top and Ambs on the bottom this time. I want to see how much sound I can get out of this thing and I've been hearing that you can't beat either combination on almost any kit, although after reading a thread about Evans G Pluses being more resonant and warmer as reso heads because they've two plies thicker made me think about that for reso heads too.

I'm probably going coated on top of that because I haven't had actual coated heads in a long time, and I'm trying out other Remo heads on toms because I've only ever bought Evans tom heads before for myself.

I just want something versatile and pleasing to my ear basically.
 
Nice kit Mate. I started off with a couple of Tama kits when I started playing, had a swingstar then had Nick Masons endorsee Grandstar before I finallysaved enough for my DW. But if I hadnt developed the DW disease at an early stage of my playing career (I took out a 10 year savings plan for it!) I probably would have been delighted to have stuck with the big "T" and gone for the starclassic - great drums.

Keep the kit, it sounds great, just buy the best cymbals you can afford even if it means waiting & saving, they stat with you for life if you buy right.
Keep Rockin'
 
I've been planning on getting new cymbals and such before new drums, the Melody Master is a Starclassic.... and I drool over it. I would love to have a full set of Starclassics, even if I played a six-piece or something like that. I could probably live without a second floor tom but I definitely have decided I like single bass drum setups better.

I just hope I can find some nice deals on cymbals once I have the cash, I have a bunch of money saved up now.... but being 16, that's going towards a car and gas and everything on a weekend only slightly above minimum wage job lol. Took me a while to even save up for all that I have now, but that's what drumming is about I suppose. Gonna need to shell out some serious cash for what you like.
 
Eh, I mess around with metal and listen to a lot of it (someone recognized Lord Worm :p) but my band is kind of an old school/vintage prog band... think Genesis/King Crimson worship, lol. it's fun, but I'm thinking my kit's too big to play out anyways, I kinda like smaller tom sizes, brighter cymbals/snare and a deeper tom sound. I wasn't so sure I was going to go with a 14" crash as that seems small but definitely probably won't go above 18".... not really my thing.

Okay well even so i would think a 14" crash would just get lost in the mix, they're pretty quiet. That's why you need 2 to make a hihat :p. Well okay i suppose for old school prog sort of music probably a 16 and an 18 crash would work fine.

As for heads I'm almost definitely going with Ambassadors or Emperors on top and Ambs on the bottom this time. I want to see how much sound I can get out of this thing and I've been hearing that you can't beat either combination on almost any kit, although after reading a thread about Evans G Pluses being more resonant and warmer as reso heads because they've two plies thicker made me think about that for reso heads too.

the G+s are single ply but they're thicker than G1s. Emporers tend to give you a more muffled sort of sound than the ambs due to having 2 plys.

I'm probably going coated on top of that because I haven't had actual coated heads in a long time, and I'm trying out other Remo heads on toms because I've only ever bought Evans tom heads before for myself.

I just want something versatile and pleasing to my ear basically.

Coated heads tend to give you a "drier" sound with warmer tones and less overtones. If you like that sort of thing then that's good.
 
Okay well even so i would think a 14" crash would just get lost in the mix, they're pretty quiet. That's why you need 2 to make a hihat :p. Well okay i suppose for old school prog sort of music probably a 16 and an 18 crash would work fine.



the G+s are single ply but they're thicker than G1s. Emporers tend to give you a more muffled sort of sound than the ambs due to having 2 plys.



Coated heads tend to give you a "drier" sound with warmer tones and less overtones. If you like that sort of thing then that's good.

Do even the clear G Pluses have less attack than most clear heads? Because I'm trying to avoid that plastic-attack, I've decided I don't really like it... and I've heard quite a few coated heads that have just enough attack still, but not to the point where it sounds like I'm playing with soft mallets.

I was thinking I would put Ambassadors on my rack toms and maybe something big and more muffled on my floor toms to make my rack toms sing and my floor toms darker and boomier rather than purely resonating lol. At some point it just sounds like a trash can.

If the G Pluses don't have nearly as much attack as most clear heads I might go with those for batters as well.
 
Do even the clear G Pluses have less attack than most clear heads? Because I'm trying to avoid that plastic-attack, I've decided I don't really like it... and I've heard quite a few coated heads that have just enough attack still, but not to the point where it sounds like I'm playing with soft mallets.

I think that sound is GREAT. Yeah well i think the G+ heads have slightly less attack but still more than coated heads.
 
Try some Remo Fyberskin 3's if you want to get away from Placky attack...
 
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I thought about the Fiberskyns before but I decided against it. Vintage is cool and all, just not really my thing when it comes to a sound lol. I prefer more modern stuff.... As narrow sighted as that sounds.

I think I might go with Ambassadors over G Pluses on rack toms at least then. Probably Powerstroke 3s over the same on the floor toms.
 
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