Rack Toms Angled or Flat

I set mine up with more than a slight angle over my bass drum. They were at less of an angle when I played a four-piece. Since I’ve started including the 12” tom, I’ve had to increase the angle slightly to accommodate the “extra” tom so both are at the same angle.

Here’s this guy that does what works for him, but I could never see myself going that extreme, especially on a floor tom.

https://m.imgur.com/a/4rexP

Whatever works for you.

I know there’s another I’m not thinking of that angles his rack tom (in a snare stand) away from him. I swear I saw it on this forum some time ago.
Edit: ah, found him. Garrett Goodwin for Carrie Underwood. Unconventional set up, and I didn’t quite remember correctly. It’s a floor tom in the rack tom position.
 
It’s all a fad. They think it looks cool . I’ve seen drummers have to raise up off of their thrones to play rack toms. Where is the sense of that?

Totally agree. Ever since I saw the Weckl evolution videos on setting up ergonomically (playing efficiently, saving energy and your back), I totally stopped caring about what looks cool. This was many years ago.

I honestly don't see the benefit of flat toms - if you are average height and you simply hold a stick and strike down comfortably to where your first tom would be, the stick would still be at an angle for an efficient hit (stick parallel to angle of tom without rim shot). I'm just basing this on personal experience when I re-setup my equipment to be efficient - I'm 5'10 and mainly use a 22" BD.
 
This is one of those things that people tout all over the internet how there's a "right" way to position your toms...

The truth is that's false. It depends on a lot of factors and the only generally bad setups are the ones where the toms are almost vertical... Even that, for a few players that's the way they like to do it.

There are benefits to playing down on your toms from up top and there are benefits to a more level playing area. One person's preference is pretty irrelevant.
 
It can’t be too much of a fad
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Look at the pics of Charlie and Ringo again - although they both have single RTs mounted as low as they go when BD mounted they are both angled towards them
 
All the drums I play with my hands are angled a little bit, including my snare and my floor toms. My floor tom is probably the flattest on the kit, and just a hair lower than my snare.

I had a thought a few years ago wherein having my drums perfectly flat made no sense to me - think about it; we hit the drum in the center of the head, and we have the hoop rising a quarter to half an inch above the surface of the drumhead, then our sticks aren't perfect cylinders, so if we have our drums perfectly flat, we actually have to hit the drum with our sticks facing downward a certain amount. If we want the stick to land perfectly flat to the floor, the drum has to be angled toward the player a little bit.

Everyone plays differently and frankly I don't care what you do with your kit, but that's part of why I angle all of my stuff a little bit. The other part being the fact that I set up the drums to fit the natural movements of my playing, not the other way around.
 
I like a little angle. I'm doing 1 up 2 down with a 24" bass drum. The small tom tends to sit a little high.
 
I like my drums to be as low and flat as I can get them. Just has a better look and feel as I sit pretty low as well.
 
My FT sits angled about 6" below the right MT.

I haven't seen anyone doing that yet, but I'm looking.
 
Having seen the picture of animal it's decided ... after all he is the holy grail of all drummers and probably much like many drummers at school in that era was my nickname :)

It was Benny Greb who 1st planted the seed ages ago, I believe he said on one of his videos that he felt it was a more ergonomic set up and since then I've seen a few others set up the same and hence why I asked..

Personally I've never been able to get on with it, I play 2 rack toms and it's the second larger tom that makes it pretty impossible for me as with the depth it won't go low enough to be comfortable.

I've just recently moved from acoustic to just electronic kit where the depths not such an issue so could change it if I felt there was any real benefit but seeing others comments I think I'll stick with what I know and has always worked for me and if ever I make the transition back to acoustic (they need to find a cure for tinnitus 1st) it'll be that much easier to do.
 
My rack is actually set up pretty close to the way Ringo and Charlie have theirs set up. It is close to being flat, but it definitely has a slight tilt to it. The floor tom is pretty close to the same, as well.
 
My rack is actually set up pretty close to the way Ringo and Charlie have theirs set up. It is close to being flat, but it definitely has a slight tilt to it. The floor tom is pretty close to the same, as well.

Yea, all the pics above show a slight angle, yet still an angle. In fact, the last pic, 2 of the pots are actually slightly angled toward the drummer.(one is flat though) ;)



T.
 
They look really cool when they are flat :)

I angle mine as little as I can get away with because, you know....I want to look cool. I've never tried to play them flat but it seems like I'd be hitting the rims a lot.
 
It's definitely to do with your body. I am 6 foot, with the majority of height in my upper body. When my friends and I are seated, my head is level with my friends heads who are 6 foot 4".

I have my toms set with a slight angle, but not flat. I also position the throne so that my legs are a hair above parallel with the ground (the throne set-up is for the comfort of my legs/feet; my height in my back then allows the toms to be relatively flat).
 
I like a bit of a tilt, not like Lars tilt which is bound to make your toms sound like crap and mess my technique up.

Lars had square toms up to 16" mounted over 24" bass drums. Counting hardware, the upper rims of the toms would be about 42" from the floor if placed flat. I'm guessing he got much closer to a perpendicular impact his way than maintaining an arbitrarily level placement.
 
I want mine flatter, but with the standard BD tom mount I just can't do it without having them WAY too high. When I start shopping for a nicer kit, I will look for mounting arrangements that are more flexible in this regard.
 
I want mine flatter, but with the standard BD tom mount I just can't do it without having them WAY too high. When I start shopping for a nicer kit, I will look for mounting arrangements that are more flexible in this regard.

I could be wrong but I don't think it's the mount that normally causes the issue but the combination of the height of the bass drum plus the depth of the tom.

Whatever the mount's like it's going to end up at the same height which means unless you're tall in the upper body you'll constantly be hitting the rim or alternatively are going to mount the toms wide of the center of the bass drum to allow you to bring them lower .... or buy a kit with much shallower toms which will obviously affect the sound.
 
Depth of tom certainly comes into play, but it seems to me that guys with flat toms also have them pushed out to the side of the bass drum more to allow them to come down. Actually, there probably is some sort of stem I could get for the BD mount that would let them come out a bit more. The mount I have is very limiting.
 
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