Self-made 16" floor tom conversion to bass drum

Caz

Senior Member
Hey - I've been looking a lot into converting a 16" floor tom into a bass drum. I already own a 6 piece kit (10, 12, 14, 16 toms, snare and 20 bass) and figured instead of buying a new smaller kit there are enough toms to pick and choose a set up - so for rock I'd use the full kit and for jazz the 16" ft/bass and 10, 14" toms. Has anyone actually attempted to make their own converter for a floor tom?

I know Pearl do the jungle gig one, which looks handy, but my kit's a Yamaha and I'd need to drill it to get the riser mount thing on. I was planning on making one out of spare timber wood next week (my band are building a studio and I was going to go in and just find any odds and ends that I'd need to make a cradle).. does anyone have any advice?

I was going to try something along these lines http://www.drumshack.co.uk/product....cat&strKeywords=&strSearchCriteria=&PT_ID=305

I also just got an old Premier Olympic (absolute bargain - £70 with Le Blond cases!) with 22" bass drum and 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16" toms and thought it'd be great to do the same with that to see which one sounds better in a jazz set up.. so ideally I'm going to try and build something that's versatile enough to work on the Yamaha and Premier 16" toms.

Even if noone has any advice on the construction, it'd be really great to know if you've seen this done and it sounded particularly good or particularly bad!!

Thanks for reading, Caz.
 
This is a great way to go, no drilling or modifications needed

Gibraltar SC-CLBKT-L R-Class Club Conversion Kit

560363.jpg
 
Hey there, I'm actually in the process of building a 16" bass drum from a floor tom. I had the notion to do what you're proposing and ended up buying the Gibraltar club conversion kit as rmandelbaum suggested. I found that the riser attachment does not work well with diecast hoops so be warned that your drum will slip out of the clamp. The rack tom hardware on top is not really able to handle the weight of your tom without slipping unless you mess with it to get the perfect setting where the drum is not at a right angle to the clamp. I think that the threads of the tensioner on the clamp were made too steep to allow one to get the clamp tight enough. It just didn't allow for a variety of viable positioning.

The riser clamp put more wear and tear on my black nickel hoops than I was comfortable with as well but if you have an older kit that's seen the inside of many bars, you may not mind so much.

I also realized that unless you want to spend time tuning the floor tom back and forth every time you switch it from it's intended use to the sound you want out of a mini kick...you better get a second drum. (the floor tom sounded like crap as a bass drum until ported and mild dampening applied.)

Solution: found an old shell and built my own dedicated mini kick, ordered a TAMA clamp to replace the Gibraltar junk and voila...
http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47178
I still have not solved the riser situation yet but I've been busy staining and spraying etc.

A more simple solution if you so desire is just get a second floor tom you don't care much about and leave it set up to be the small bass drum you're looking for.
 
I've got a black lacquer Pearl 18x16 floor tom converted into a kick for sale, complete with Gibraltar riser and brand new Evans heads.

PM me if interested, I don't have a use for it anymore.
 
I would say the Pearl Jungle Gig is the most versatile as far as not messing up the drum goes. My preference is to do as numa_cruiser did and make a dedicated kick, as there are just different rules for toms vs. kicks.
 
Hey there, I'm actually in the process of building a 16" bass drum from a floor tom. I had the notion to do what you're proposing and ended up buying the Gibraltar club conversion kit as rmandelbaum suggested. I found that the riser attachment does not work well with diecast hoops so be warned that your drum will slip out of the clamp. The rack tom hardware on top is not really able to handle the weight of your tom without slipping unless you mess with it to get the perfect setting where the drum is not at a right angle to the clamp. I think that the threads of the tensioner on the clamp were made too steep to allow one to get the clamp tight enough. It just didn't allow for a variety of viable positioning.

The riser clamp put more wear and tear on my black nickel hoops than I was comfortable with as well but if you have an older kit that's seen the inside of many bars, you may not mind so much.

I also realized that unless you want to spend time tuning the floor tom back and forth every time you switch it from it's intended use to the sound you want out of a mini kick...you better get a second drum. (the floor tom sounded like crap as a bass drum until ported and mild dampening applied.)

Solution: found an old shell and built my own dedicated mini kick, ordered a TAMA clamp to replace the Gibraltar junk and voila...
http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47178
I still have not solved the riser situation yet but I've been busy staining and spraying etc.

A more simple solution if you so desire is just get a second floor tom you don't care much about and leave it set up to be the small bass drum you're looking for.

The Gibraltar Conversion kit isn't made to fit with cast hoops (at least the riser). As for myself I love my Gibraltar R-Class conversion kit. Cant get anything better for 100$...
 
Hi, thanks for your replies. I think the Gibraltar one looks really cool! But I can see how it'd be a bit unsteady.. apparently they do separate Gibraltar risers for different kinds of hoops, maybe that'd benefit you numa_cruiser? By the way I think what you've done with the floor tom looks absolutely amazing!! My main restriction is money, as I've recently moved to London to try and make a living from playing drums.. and I'm unsurprisingly skint! Thanks Trip McNealy for the offer to buy your bass drum, but I'm afraid I can't buy any more drum equipment just now.. That's why I've been looking at the cheaper converters like the Pearl Jungle Gig, and also why I'm thinking the best idea is to just make one.

To Mikecore - from what I've read online, the main disadvantage with the Jungle Gig is that if you don't have a Pearl tom then you have to drill it to put the riser on, which I don't like the idea of. I'm thinking of just shaping two bits of wood to hold either end of the floor tom up (like a cradle), with some kind of stabaliser in the middle.. then I'd attach a palate of metal or something on the bottom for the bass pedal to attach onto. The high tom would hopefully be positioned properly if I hung it from a clamp attached to the crash cymbal stand.

It's a totally budget idea and will probably look rubbish though! Hehe

I completely agree that a proper bass drum is probably a better idea.. I'm really just excited about experimenting with the floor tom idea to see what sounds can be achieved. It'd be purely for small jazz gigs and hopefully the floor tom would be tuned to have a nice higher pitch and warmer tone than a thick-wooded bass drum.

Cheers, Caz
 
To Mikecore - from what I've read online, the main disadvantage with the Jungle Gig is that if you don't have a Pearl tom then you have to drill it to put the riser on, which I don't like the idea of. I'm thinking of just shaping two bits of wood to hold either end of the floor tom up (like a cradle), with some kind of stabaliser in the middle.. then I'd attach a palate of metal or something on the bottom for the bass pedal to attach onto. The high tom would hopefully be positioned properly if I hung it from a clamp attached to the crash cymbal stand....

Cheers, Caz

The Pearl jungle gig Conversion kit need an ISS tom mounting system, no need to drill hole, you have to buy an used ISS on ebay or whatever.
 
Hey,

If you're willing to dish out 100 something dollars on a dw drum lift, it works great. There's no drilling whatsoever and it barely comes in contact with the shell. You just adjust the legs and plop the drum on

I tune with one 1 1/2" felt strip on the front and back(don't listen to those who say it makes it much harder to tune, it barely affects it) and i'm liking it more than my big kick!
 
The DW one looks ideal!! It's over my budget just now, but definitely something to look into in future.

To mind_drummer, I thought the part that you'd need to drill was for the riser - the part at the bottom which lifts the tom/bass and the pedal slots into.. as the Pearl riser slots into a normal tom holder slot (which most 16" floor toms don't have). Have I misundertood this?? If so then I'll definitely just get a Jungle Gig one!

Cheers, Caz
 
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