Yamaha Vintage Hoops on Hipgig Kit ?

evilg99

Platinum Member
So I have a Yamaha Rick Marotta Hipgig kit in cherry lacquer on the way. My dealer tells me Yamaha is doing the last manufacturing run on these right now...so I pulled the trigger.

I was looking at the steel hoops on the bass drum and thinking that the Yamaha Vintage Hoops would make more sense to me than the steel hoops. The improvement will likely be more about aesthetics than sound.....but what I'm wondering is : has anybody successfully installed Yamaha style wood hoops on ALL the drums in a hipgig kit?

At first I thought the wood hoops might interfere with the nesting of the kit - but then again - the wood hoops are slightly larger diameter but they don't stick out more than the tom mounts, so it SHOULD work...I think it might be a worthwhile improvement to the toms and snare in this kit.

If anyone has experience with this, please enlighten...
 
So I have a Yamaha Rick Marotta Hipgig kit in cherry lacquer on the way. My dealer tells me Yamaha is doing the last manufacturing run on these right now...so I pulled the trigger.

I was looking at the steel hoops on the bass drum and thinking that the Yamaha Vintage Hoops would make more sense to me than the steel hoops. The improvement will likely be more about aesthetics than sound.....but what I'm wondering is : has anybody successfully installed Yamaha style wood hoops on ALL the drums in a hipgig kit?

At first I thought the wood hoops might interfere with the nesting of the kit - but then again - the wood hoops are slightly larger diameter but they don't stick out more than the tom mounts, so it SHOULD work...I think it might be a worthwhile improvement to the toms and snare in this kit.

If anyone has experience with this, please enlighten...

It is a sweet kit. My friend in Des Moines Iowa played a set of those until he got bored of them and sold them to GC to get a used DW kit.
 
I absolutely love my Hip Gig of this exact model. The key was finding the mix of heads to get the tone. Wood hoops on the tops may dry out the tone too much. Having that big sound is great with the factory hoops, actually. The heads are the key.

Standard Snare added
I am putting Vintage Wood Hoops on my 14x8" Yam RC snare (it looks wild with the HG kit and sounds amazing).

The 12" Snare
The 12" snare sounded best with Evans EC Reverse Dot and adding wider 20-strand PureSound snares. I now only use it as a side snare or backup, depending on the need. Indeed, Yamaha Vintage wood hoops in 12" help.

Heads
Ended up LOVING using Evans Hydraulics Glass on toms and an Aquarian SuperKick II with a KickPort. No stuffing and it sounds amazing. I do use a SubKick with a D6, but the D6 with the KickPort (only like 1/4" in from the outer edge of the hole) sounds incredible on its own. The KickPort makes it happen, believe me.

Truly incredible tone with this combo, for my taste. Lots of surprised compliments over how good the kit sounds this way - for any kit - and people are always surprised that it is a HG kit.

The Hardware - be warned
The ball joints on the mounting hardware for the drums gives out if you over tighten. I've replaced three. It's more the gasket inside that secures it that gives and then the hex screws get stripped. One of our techs drilled out the base and put motor mount nut/bolts in, but it is really the just the assembly, itself.

The reason for this issue with the hardware seems to be that when the toms sit towards the end of the mounting arm, the pressure on the ball joint is too much of a strain and, eventually, will just wear out. I was able to counteract this by sitting a little higher on my throne and raising the floor tom so that I could move it in on the arm. Since then, much longer life, but I do pick up replacements to keep on hand.

I do recommend checking and keeping of the hardware screws snug, not too tight, all around. I'd love to know what you end up doing and how it sounds.

Thanks,
d
 
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