This putting your low rack tom to the left of your high rack tom business (reversed for lefties)

I think you (and a couple of other people) misunderstood the initial question. This isn't about putting a tom to the left of the hihat, but reversing the two main rack toms (so that the lower tom is to the left of the higher tom)

Doh, so I did.

So, instead, I'll give you Louie Bellson, circs mid 1950's, with his "out of order" tom configuration:
louie-bellson.jpg


(well before Cobham).


The Kenny Aronoff thing was actually because of John Mellencamp (then John (Johnny) Cougar) wanting him to ONLY have a 4 piece kit. He wanted that specific look on stage back then.

After a while, Kenny added the 10" tom, but put it lower to "keep the 4 piece look" & so John Cougar wouldn't notice.

That's what I read in MD years ago. I remembered it because JC always seemed really hard to work for.
I think he added a second floor tom directly behind the first one after a while also.

Yes, the story was the albums were recorded with three tom 5pc kit, but John wanted Kenny to have the single rack tom 4pc kit look on stage. So Kenny added with a 2nd floor tom to get the fills of the record right, but the sound guy said it made all his fills sound muddy. So Kenny had the sound man finally convince John to let Kenny have a 2nd rack tom, but by that time Kenny had gotten so used to have the 12" in the "single rack tom" position, that he didn't really want to change that, so he experimented with the 10" off to the side like that,and it just stuck ever since.
 
Very sorry, I also mis-read the original post, oh well maybe it inspired some new experiments with kit set-ups, never a bad thing..Time to go deer hunting, have a great day..
 
Doh, so I did.

So, instead, I'll give you Louie Bellson, circs mid 1950's, with his "out of order" tom configuration:
louie-bellson.jpg


(well before Cobham).




Yes, the story was the albums were recorded with three tom 5pc kit, but John wanted Kenny to have the single rack tom 4pc kit look on stage. So Kenny added with a 2nd floor tom to get the fills of the record right, but the sound guy said it made all his fills sound muddy. So Kenny had the sound man finally convince John to let Kenny have a 2nd rack tom, but by that time Kenny had gotten so used to have the 12" in the "single rack tom" position, that he didn't really want to change that, so he experimented with the 10" off to the side like that,and it just stuck ever since.

Are you sure thats not Sticks beginer kit?;)

Steve B
 
yeah man, i've done that for a while now. i didn't have an extra rack tom, just one on both kits (usa custom 12x9, catalina club 12x8) i had some auxiliary add ons though: a 12x6 maple pork pie snare and a 13x3 pearl drum set timbale. i had an old clamp on isolation mount, so i fastened it to the hoop of that snare (when it had metal hoops) and placed it to the right of my 12x9 or 12x8 (i play open handed, better to put it there), i just got some contoured wood hoops that have an outer ply of birdseye maple, so i just installed a mounting bracket on the 12x6's shell since that was better for accommodating the wood hoop. loving' it, i get a lot of compliments on how it spices up my fills.
 
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I am a left handed drummer and my two rack toms are set up the conventional way for a lefty. However sometimes I find myself doing fills on them like a right handed drummer - going left to right from my !0" to 8" tom. At first I thought I should try not to do it, but it sounds just fine to go from lower to higher pitch occasionally.
 
I'm left handed, but I play a right handed kit, however I lead with my left hand.

That always results in my 8" being struck only the once (or twice depending on stick pattern) to the 10" having the two (or four accordingly).

Maybe it's laziness not making myself re-learn to play as a righty would, but I feel I can do somethings that are different that a righty can't, though I know I can't do somethings a righty can.

If I were to switch to a left handed set up however, I'd likely keep the run the way around it is now, thus inverting myself(?)

Meh who cares, who says we HAVE to play one way because some dude did it years ago. That's what I love about forums like this, meeting creativity!
 
I have done this on and off for years....since I saw Steven Perkin's and Jimmy Chamberlin do it in the early 90's.

The advantage to me is that it allowed my to set up the rack toms a bit lower. The tom's on my DW kit are long (12" x 12") as was teh trend back then, so to get them lower I had to swap them.
n3x180.jpg

157odc8.jpg

As for not playing standard fills...I always used sticking patterns for that, so no matter what the configuration is, I can go left or right.


http://tomcoynedrums.com/photo-album/id-5.html
 
12 and 13 mounted on the bass.
13 is on the left.
why ?

like a lot of people, i removed the 12 and slid (yes that's a word...or is it slode ...?) the 13 over to the left, as it's my main rack tom and i hardly ever hit the 12. then one day, after months of moving my unused 12 from one side of the room to the other, i figured why not put it on the right ? it'll be there if i want it...

it does indeed break up the habit of typical formulaic rolls. and it helps me to go left.
 
Someone asked me this once. The answer is NOT always a different perspective. In the case with my kit, I get a horrible ambient resonance when I put my toms in the "proper placement" however, when switched, the overtone disappears.
 
What is the reasoning behind this? Besides that it does indeed look cool.

Examples of drummers who do this are Chad Szeliga and Kenny Arnoff.

Links for visual aid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YPlaGbbrJE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNLUYlJYAsE
It's been happening for a very long time, but it didn't become popular until people took notice of John Cougar's drummer, Kenny Aronoff.
In a mid 1980's edition of MD, Aronoff explained that he's always experimenting.
Always looking for that "new sound".
One day he noticed that whenever he put his stick in a certain spot, he always got a cymbal crash (a splash, if I remember correctly).
He thought it might be interesting to replace the cymbal with a tom, so that when he went for the cymbal, he'd get a "boom" instead of a "splash".
The cymbal happened to be in the spot normally occupied by the second rack tom in a 2-up/1 down 5-piece arrangement.
He wanted to keep the tom fairly small, to keep the playing surface of approximately the same size as the cymbal.
It was a 10" cymbal, so why not use a 10" tom.
So what he was really playing was a 4-piece kit with an effects tom, but because of its position, most people saw it as a 5-piece kit with the two rack toms reversed.
...and thus, a misunderstanding becomes history.



Elvis
 
I am a left handed drummer and my two rack toms are set up the conventional way for a lefty. However sometimes I find myself doing fills on them like a right handed drummer - going left to right from my !0" to 8" tom. At first I thought I should try not to do it, but it sounds just fine to go from lower to higher pitch occasionally.
That's a cool way to write 10. =)


Elvis
 
KarlCrafton said:
Kenny Aronoff.

DrumEatDrum said:
Kenny Aronoff.

Elvis said:
Kenny Aronoff.



I have in front of me the november 98 issue of Modern Drummer. Here's what it says:



ASK A PRO
Kenny Aronoff:


Q:
You've chosen to place your larger rack tom on the left of your bass drum, and the smaller one on the right. This is certainly contrary to the "norm". Can you explain your reason for this placement?

-Steven R, via internet


A:
Thanks for your question. I started putting my small tom to the right side of my bass drum (from the player's perspective) in 1982, while I was on tour with John Cougar Mellencamp. John wanted me to have a simple drum setup - something like what Ringo Starr used with The Beatles, which was one rack tom and one floor tom. So I used a 12" rack tom and 16" and 18" floor toms. I tucked the 18" floor tom behind the 16" floor tom so that from the audience's perspective it still looked like I had one floor tom. I wanted the extra tom because I had just recorded the American Fool -record with John Mellencamp and I had used four toms in the studio. So now at least I had three toms for the tour.

We were opening up for Heart in big arenas, and after a few shows the engineer said to me, "Do you have any smaller toms, or can you tune the bigger floor toms up higher?".
The problem was that a lot of my fills were being played on the floor toms, and because they were so low in frequencies, the definition of those fills wasn't being heard clearly in the big arenas. I realized I couldn't tune the 16" and 18" floor toms high enough for what the engineer was looking for, so I mentioned that I had a 10" tom. If John Mellencamp said it was cool to add that drum to my kit, then I'd rather do that.

The thing was, I liked the 12" tom where it was, and I didn't want to move my hi-hat over to the left to accommodate the 10" tom. The most important toms in my kit are the first rack tom and my first floor tom. The other toms are extra. I use them all the time, but I could get by without them if I had to. So I put the 10" tom on the right side of the bass drum. It was a little weird at first, but I found that I really liked the variety of fills I get from having the smaller tom on my right side. It makes me think about what I want my fill to sound like, pitch-wise.

I've placed my small tom-tom to the right side of my bass drum ever since. I usually use a 12" tom on the left side of my bass drum and the 10" tom on the right. However, on the current Smashing Pumpkins tour I have a 14" tom in place of the 12" tom, and a 12" or 13" tom in place of the 10" tom - just to get a more massive sound.
Good luck to you with your drumming and music.





The 'Ask a Pro' -section was always an interesting read.
 
Well, Re: K. Aronoff - that is straight from the horse's mouth. ;-)

For a long time, the only drummer I knew that did this was Ed Shaugnessy - surprised to not see his name mentioned previously (unless I missed it), given the visibility of his kit/playing back in the Carson days.

Cheers,
radman
 
I have in front of me the november 98 issue of Modern Drummer. Here's what it says:
Yeah, I remember reading that one, too.
I noted that the story had changed a little, from how I remembered it from the earlier interview.

I'm starting to wonder if its not me that has remembered incorrectly.

Does anyone have the 1986 MD interview of Kenny Aronoff?
That's where I read about the reversed tom setup that I posted.




Elvis
 
Maybe some stories tend to "evolve" with time.
It can also be that there are many ways and angles to tell the story from, depending on the situation.

The splash / tom version is actually a lot more interesting.
 
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