i have an idea. what do you think?

yamatama

Junior Member
Hi ive been thinking for a while and Ive had an idea. My band is going to record our second album and i was thinking of creating a Frankenstein 3 piece kit, i was thinking of buying 2 different brand tom's and a bassdrum for example one 12 inch pearl master maple tom and a 16 Yamaha maple custom floor tom and a 22 whatever bassdrum. My question is, is it going to sound good? Have you ever done it? Is the difference very noticeable?? Also i think is cheaper than buying an entire kit and you have a unique sound. But i want to hear what you thinkif its a stupid or good idea.

Cheers and sorry for my horrible english.
 
I'm certainly not the most experienced here, but in the experience I do have - I don't see that as a problem as long as you use your ears to get the drums sounding good together.
and esp as the set up you are talking about kind of has each piece doing fairly distinct job/having a distinct character (ie you aren't talking about tightly grouped mounted toms or anything)

my knee-jerk is 13/16 so the spread isn't too big, but that's totally knee-jerk and doesn't mean a thing

as far as cheaper - I think it just depends on what's out there.
I mean I generally think in an Apples-to-Apples situation a full kit is going to be cheaper than component drums -- but that's apples-to-apples and I assume you've got a snare you like and you might have drums left over (the kit's snare if they won't sell w/o it and maybe second mounted tom or something) that you aren't using
so apples-to-apples might not be all that great a way of looking at it
 
I've seen plenty of videos or pictures of drummers mixing up gear in the studio like using DW kicks with Pearl Reference toms for instance. More commonly a lot of us use snares that are of different brand and material of our kit. So I guess if chosen well it should work out.

Some of the more seasoned drummers in the studio should be able to give some more insight on this.
 
18 inch Pearl floor tom converted to bass, 12 inch Ludwig Rocker tom, 13 inch Pulse tom. 14 inch Taye Studio maple snare. Pure Frankenstein. Go for it.
 

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I used to play live on a kit I called Frankensparkle. Gold sparkle snare, red sparkle bass drum, silver sparkle floor, blue sparkle rack tom, but that's beside the point.

...oh, and NICE kit, Gruntersdad!

I've mixed and matched plenty in my own studio. I've never done it on a session I was hired out on, though. Even though we all know that nobody's going to see the kit except for those in the studio, there might just be something in the producer's, artist's, or engineer's mind that sees the different components and thinks that they don't sound "cohesive", and that might skew their reasoning. I don't want to be the guy who gets overdubbed on a recording because the producer didn't like the looks of my jellybean kit...
 
Said it before and will say it again.

Music has no 'rules'.
 
Well im really considering it and im doing my research to find the perfect drums not olnly for a studio situation but live aswell.

Thanks for all the feedback.
 
If you like the way they sound, that's all that really matters. As far as finding the "perfect drums", everyone has their own flag to salute there. You're gonna be had pressed, however, to get the cat who just spent $3K on a matched Bitchinubangy kit agree that your Frankenstein is a "more perfect" kit.
 
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In the end will it matter once the drums are all eq'd, and processed? The engineer is going to try to make them all have the same character anyway. So, unless it's really what you want, it sounds like more trouble than it's worth, but hey, it's all good. I used to have a Frankenstein kit in my studio. Not on purpose, it just sort of evolved. However, it was tricky getting it to sound like one kit that blended together nicely, without one drum "sticking out". But it can be done. Good luck!
 
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