Building a practice kit

AndeeT

Senior Member
Hi All. My first post here, so a little about myself first.

I've been playing guitar for 11 years and previously played in a band with this instrument. I picked up the drums a year ago when I moved house and wanted to start a band again and realised the ratio of guitarists to singers to drummer seems to be about 30:5:1. If you can't beat 'em...

Anyway, I'm loving playing the drums but at the moment (and for a long time in the future most probably) I don't own a kit, so I'm renting out a practice space with a kit every week. In the mean time I have been playing on a 12 inch practice pad on a tama snare stand. I recently bought (well, my other half did...) some DW 5002's which I'm also loving! I have a home made practice pad for those (will post a pic) that I'm happy with, even if it does look like a monster from a scrap heap. I just yesterday bought a 6 inch version of the Vic Firth pad, thinking that (as it has a thread on the underside) I will be able to screw that onto some hardware in the future to make a practice kit.

So at the moment, I have the a snare stand, 6 and 12 inch practice pads, my double pedals and pedal pad. Basically, I would like a three part kit, i.e snare, bass and either hi-hat or ride/crash. And I'd like it to be as small as possible.

My first Idea was to mount the 6 inch pad on the snare stand and buy a boom arm that grabs onto the main upright of the snare stand and on this mount a rubber cymbal. The boom arm I had in mind is something like this-

http://www.thomann.de/gb/millenium_cbc2_beckenarmset_mit_klammer.htm

Then, 'opposite', idea if you like, was to invest in a hi hat stand and rubber hi-hats, and have the boom arm coming off the hit-hats, screwing the 6 inch mountable pad onto this.

So my question to you is what hardware should I buy to get the smallest (while stable) 3 piece practice kit. Preferably all on a single stand, though I'm not sure if you start getting stability issues?

Thanks

Andy
 
Not sure about DW pedals, but if it's a double, he might have to modify the kick pad on a practice kit like that.
Seems like he might be far enough along to just finish up what he's got though.

Good review you did on that kit too - BPD. It seems like it's pretty well constructed.
 
Here's some pics of the bass drum pad my father and I made. I call it...the sandblaster. And like everything we make its turned out completely over-engineered....oh well, at least it wont break any time soon.

So yea, thats it for now- the bass pad and the practice pad on snare stand. I'd love to add a plastic cymbal or hi hats, but basically would like to know if theres anyway to attach it to the snare stand? Or buy a hi-hat stand and attach a smaller pad to that? Basically I'd like a single stand with all pads/cymbals branching off that, kind of like the...

...the DW go anywhere kit. Looks great, and I'm impressed by DW's quality, from the pedal side at least. I have a question about it though- can you replace the pads with your own pads and maybe a plastic cymbal?

Cheers,

Andy
 
So here are the pics that for some reason didn't upload in my previous post...
 

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Hey brother - go with DW Go-Anywhere set up. I prefer a full practice pad set up, as close to my acoustic kit as possible. Practice pads are very beneficial, but I personally need to spread the grooves and rudiments on more than one surface.

I combined 2 DW Go Anywhere kits since I play on 2 up, 2 down set up. I have a practice HH and a Vater pad on a spare snare stand. The pad L arms are threaded so you might be able to fit something else on them.

Buy them used if possible. People do get tired of them.
 
Hi BigDinSD,

After a lot of googling I've ordered the DW Go Anywhere. I couldn't find any used ones but I managed to get a nice deal for the kit and the bag new, so I'm happy. I just have to wait until its in stock now. Thanks so much for the advice.

I've started looking at cymbals now.....why didn't anyone warn me drums were the most expensive instrument in the band! hehe. I'm enjoying spending my money on drums though.

Take care,

Andy
 
Hi BigDinSD,

After a lot of googling I've ordered the DW Go Anywhere. I couldn't find any used ones but I managed to get a nice deal for the kit and the bag new, so I'm happy. I just have to wait until its in stock now. Thanks so much for the advice.

I've started looking at cymbals now.....why didn't anyone warn me drums were the most expensive instrument in the band! hehe. I'm enjoying spending my money on drums though.

Take care,

Andy

Great move there. I think you'll be pleased with the flexibility in more than one practice pad. You've got a nice double pedal there also.

It's good you didn't ask if drumming was expensive. We would have all given it to you!
But you know, if it's a passion and you love it - that's all that counts! Heck, many of us here are gear hoards anyways. I've slowed down and am in recovery.

Ahh - onto the cymbal search now I see....

Welcome BTW!
 
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