Pearl Rhythm Traveler

Hi Bobdadruma
By the way I palced Evan Hydraulic heads on the toms and a large towel in the bass drum. Denis
 
Hi Bobdadruma
By the way I palced Evan Hydraulic heads on the toms and a large towel in the bass drum. Denis
I put a small hand towel in the bass drum to give it just a bit of a deeper tone. I folded it in thirds and I let it touch the bottom of both heads. I haven't tried a Super Kick on the bass drum yet. I'm going to do that in the near future. I was also thinking of trying Hydraulic heads. Do you have a sound sample of them on the kit?
 
Hi
Sorry, I don't have a sound sample. I found the hydraulic heads gave some depth to the tone on the toms. Denis
 
Hi
Sorry, I don't have a sound sample. I found the hydraulic heads gave some depth to the tone on the toms. Denis
I played my big Gretsch kit for years without bottom heads on the rack toms. I used Evans Hydraulic heads on the Gretsch rack toms. I added the reso heads to my Gretsch kit a few years ago. Thats when I stopped using them. They were deep sounding and I liked them. I may use them again on The Rhythm Traveler. The sound of the Traveler's toms is good to me. They are sort of like wooden timbales with a pretty good tone. The oil heads may bring a bit more from them. I'll wait until I hear the festivals video recording before I make my decision.
 
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I tried the rhythm traveler at my school and it sounded god awful. I don't know how you got yours to sound good. My music teacher said she tunes them often and I even tried tuning the bass and it just resonates for HOURS and connstantly slides forward
 
I tried the rhythm traveler at my school and it sounded god awful. I don't know how you got yours to sound good. My music teacher said she tunes them often and I even tried tuning the bass and it just resonates for HOURS and connstantly slides forward
I made some improvements to the Traveler!
I added a 3 1/2 inch porthole and a mic to the bass reso. (See the link to my thread about bass mic stands) http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52190I I added an Aquarian SK I for the bass batter. The bass no longer rings! I even added my initials to the bass reso with some silver stick on letters that I bought in the Walmart automotive dept.
I added two thin light weight cymbal stands for crashes and a clamp stand for a splash.
I tune the toms and and the bass to about 75 on the drum dial and fine tune by ear.
I tune the snare batter and reso to about 85 on the drum dial and also fine tune by ear.
See pics below.
I play this kit almost every eve when I get home from work and also at band practices. It continues to be an asset for low volume play!
I bought a 60 X 30 inch black rug with a rubber backing at Walmart for about $18. The bass drum doesn't slide for me.
Budget so far; $420 for kit, $80 for 3 cymbal stands, $18 for black rug. $30 for SK I head.

Im still lovin this little kit!!! It's been about a month now since I purchased it.

I almost forgot, I bought a LP cowbell and a bass rim mount holder for it for about $50. Gotta have more Cowbell!!!

The price of not having to lug my heavy Gretsch around and put wear and tear on it and myself, PRICELESS!!!
 

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Hi
Nice job. By the way I use this kit with one rack tom and one floor tom. I removed the small tom. Denis
 
Hi
Nice job. By the way I use this kit with one rack tom and one floor tom. I removed the small tom. Denis
Thanks Denis! I've seen folks on You Tube doing that. One of them may have been you. I like the small tom! It has balls for a little guy! Im gonna keep it. It's the "Little Tom That Could!" Its my favorite part of the kit!
 
Love the portability and the bass and toms sound great but the snare sounds as if the snares are too tight and choking.
 
Love the portability and the bass and toms sound great but the snare sounds as if the snares are too tight and choking.
You are correct Grunt. I loosened the snares since I recorded the sample. Im gonna try some Remo heads on the snare next. I'll post audio samples when I do. This has been a low budget challenge and Im still experimenting.
 
Cool. According to the website....Tom sizes are 10", 12", and 14" in diameter; and their 5" deep, single-headed design allows them to neatly stack for compact travel while producing a great tone for live performance. Rhythm Traveler's wood-shell snare drum is 13" x 5" and produces a very warm, full-bodied snare tone with excellent crack.
 
Hi
I could never get the snare to sound good so I use one of my high end snare drums with the kit. Denis
 
Hi
I could never get the snare to sound good so I use one of my high end snare drums with the kit. Denis
The snare has some limitations. It sounds good at low volume but I can't get a killer crack from it at high levels. The rim shots come out good!
It's a warm jazzy sounding snare that doesn't have the ability to bite hard when I want it to.
I don't expect that 13 X 5 with only 6 lugs is a recipe that could kick any butt.
I don't dislike the snare and I enjoy practicing with it because of it low volume abilities. It is also responsive and sensitive.
Perhaps I will get something similar to the make up of the Pork Pie Li'll Squealer.
 
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Hey Bob,
How quiet are the mesh heads that kit comes with? I was looking at that kit for practice as well as for its mobility.

very quiet they are more quiet than practice pads or pillows or anything... and in response to those who can't get a good sound out f their bass drum, try using an evans emad hea (its what i have and it works great!
 
Wouldn't it be cool to trigger the whole kit and turn it into a acoustic looking electric kit? Just a thought, it would in the end be cheaper wouldn't it?
 
Wouldn't it be cool to trigger the whole kit and turn it into a acoustic looking electric kit? Just a thought, it would in the end be cheaper wouldn't it?
I was in a drum forum recently on another site that was dedicated to electro kits and many drummers have done some great conversions to Traveler kits. I think that they look better than electronic drums.
Here is the link. http://www.vdrums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51279
 
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Wouldn't it be cool to trigger the whole kit and turn it into a acoustic looking electric kit? Just a thought, it would in the end be cheaper wouldn't it?

It was a pretty common hack a few years ago (I suppose the e-kits have caught up a bit)

- the wife got hers in that config with the "ratshack buzzer" homebrew triggers back when the HW was still chrome
We've since converted it back to acoustic, but left the triggers as an option (you can rotate them out of the way if you think they dampen things too much, it just dependsso hers has little 1/4" jacks for the triggers

works quite well - one trick we found - well the wife doesn't really dig purely electronic drums - but we did find that the triggers acted as transducers so we could mix n some acoustic (attack) "thud" even from the mesh heads which helped a bit
though it took me some extra electronics work

[edit : whoops sorry for the cross-post]
 
you can't fully nest em (and it's not by much, the hoops just barely don't fit - so even if you move to rim mounting you are just shy of fully nesting)
but you can turn two of them bottom to bottom and get em to receive one another
If you run the kick as a single head, like in an e-drum situation, or if you just like that sound) then you've got some more options

I kind of wish they would
1) just off it as a shell pack
2) rework the kick spurs
3) fully "russian doll" nesting would be cool, but that would probably require a bit of work like non-standard HW or more staggered sizes like 10-13-16
 
you can't fully nest em (and it's not by much, the hoops just barely don't fit - so even if you move to rim mounting you are just shy of fully nesting)
but you can turn two of them bottom to bottom and get em to receive one another
If you run the kick as a single head, like in an e-drum situation, or if you just like that sound) then you've got some more options

I kind of wish they would
1) just off it as a shell pack
2) rework the kick spurs
3) fully "russian doll" nesting would be cool, but that would probably require a bit of work like non-standard HW or more staggered sizes like 10-13-16
What don't you like about the kick spurs? I think that they are really functional and cool looking. They are easy to set up also.
I hear ya on the nesting issue. Pearl was designing the kit as a low price product. It is obvious that they decided that a luxury like Russian Doll nesting would put the price over the edge. I'm sure that they would have done it had it been feasible for a low cost.
I'm sure that they never even thought about selling it as a shell pack. There would be only a small number of people interested in the shells. They were going for inexpensive mass marketing.
 
What don't you like about the kick spurs? I think that they are really functional and cool looking. They are easy to set up also.

I don't find em to have the stability I'd like
and it doesn't allow me to run the system ultra compact by doing stuff like flying the cymbals off the kick


I hear ya on the nesting issue. Pearl was designing the kit as a low price product. It is obvious that they decided that a luxury like Russian Doll nesting would put the price over the edge.


yeah, I mean you've got a couple of choices
1) stagger the sizes by 3" which could make for one funkeeeee kit
2) use non-standard HW (which I wouldn't want even regardless of cost b/c of the "traveler" nature
3) possibly machine the shells in what is basically a spline pattern to accept the other drums or something strange like that
and I'm really not sure how much space you are going to save if unless you run the kick double headed


I'm sure that they never even thought about selling it as a shell pack. There would be only a small number of people interested in the shells. They were going for inexpensive mass marketing.


yeah, I doubt that they ever considered it, but

I'm just not sure if the number of interested peeps would be insignificant.
While purely anecdotal, it could speak to a blip that Pearl is underserving - when I run into RT players, they have, shockingly often, been more like yourself, experienced drummers who like it as a low hassle, low worry "basher" kit -- and they throw away the cymbals and "moving HW"

It could be that the profitability winds up being a step function and the sweet spot falls on the "whole kit" pricing
 
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