New (Old) Drums Day!

JustJames

Platinum Member
Following on from this thread, I now have a kit that I am happy to be a bit less protective of than my Mapex Saturns. I'd been hoping to find a small(ish) kit, but when a PDP CX (maple) kit came up for a price that I felt was very reasonable I jumped at it. I've had the kit for a week, and had new batter heads for the snare and toms, but only got to put them on the kit and set the kit up today. The kit is 22, 10, 12, 14 with a 14" snare.

I'm pretty pleased with what I have. The chrome on the hoops is almost completely free of corrosion and pitting, and the sound of the kit is pleasing. There were some things that weren't to my taste. The bass drum mounted tom holders were set up goofy, so I re-jigged that, which was easy enough. The bass drum was full to bursting of old plastic bags, which was a novel damping technique, but in amongst the plastic bags was a PDP branded bass drum pillow, with its sticky-back velcro still unused.

The toms tuned up easily enough with new Evans G2 Coated batters. I have a TuneBot but took the lazy away out, and just tuned the toms to what they seemed happy with, and tuned the batter and reso to the same note, tuning by ear. I ended up with pleasant separation between the toms, lovely resonance (or do I mean sustain?) and no nasty overtones.

I put an old but serviceable PS3 batter head on the bass drum, but struggled to get a pleasing tone. It managed to sound thin and boomy all at once. The PDP logo'd reso head, which I assume has been there since the kit left the factory seemed very thin and papery. So, for the first time in my life I muffled a bass drum with some upholstery. Off came the reso head, in went the damping cushion, held in place with its velcro so that it lies across the bass drum, touching the reso head. Now the drum sounds right, with a solid thump. A better reso head may be a more elegant solution, but this works.

The 14" floor tom is suspended, which works better than I feared it might. For now it will continue as a suspended tom.

Things that I didn't like: The toms all have a weird thing where the wrap completes, which makes the drum feel slightly out of round at that point. The bass drum reso hoop is way out of round, and looks like it may have been exposed to water at some point. There is some yellowing of the wrap in places, that is really being nitpicky. Overall they seem to be solid drums, it's a way better kit than I thought I'd get.

Pic or it didn't happen you say?

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Same kit I have. Only mine have the STM tom mounts instead of the rims. I love these things. Tough, durable wrap that I'm not afraid to take anywhere. Sound great! Guy I bought mine from had a DW vented reso on the bass drum. Other than needing to remove the DW logo and some stupid stickers he had on it, it sounds great with no internal muffling.
 
Pacific (pre- "PDP") CX- nice. I have the Black Onyx kit, also with the RIMS-style mounts. I do wish they had the STM mounts. I also wish I'd gotten the Silver Sparkle wrap they released right after I'd bought mine. But, I love mine! They sing, and- get this crap- they still have the *original heads*! I'm not changing them until they sound bad and become untuneable. I gigged with them for years and now they're my workhorse rehearsal kit.
 
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Nice...but pic doesn't show on my screen.

They didn't show on mine either, until your repost. I've mentioned this before on other threads. Glad to know it's not just me.
 
Same kit I have. Only mine have the STM tom mounts instead of the rims. I love these things. Tough, durable wrap that I'm not afraid to take anywhere. Sound great! Guy I bought mine from had a DW vented reso on the bass drum. Other than needing to remove the DW logo and some stupid stickers he had on it, it sounds great with no internal muffling.

The ported reso may be what keeps your BD from booming for days. I do like a BD with some boom in the room, but mine (un ported) just sounded awful until I added some muffling. I usually tune to a sound that I like, but just couldn't with this BD.

Looking forward to playing this kit with my band this weekend, but loving it so far.
 
I almost fell for that wrap many times. But I had PDP's.

I wish you many happy backbeats James.
 
A good friend of mine swears up and down that some of those older CX kits (primarily, the ones that came with the traditional RIMS-type mount as opposed to the mounts that go around the lugs) are actually made from DW shells. I've looked everywhere, and I couldn't find a ton of proof, but I know that they sound good.

In any case, the CX kits are a solid buy. They are sleepers.
 
A good friend of mine swears up and down that some of those older CX kits (primarily, the ones that came with the traditional RIMS-type mount as opposed to the mounts that go around the lugs) are actually made from DW shells. I've looked everywhere, and I couldn't find a ton of proof, but I know that they sound good.

In any case, the CX kits are a solid buy. They are sleepers.

The shells are definitely different than the newer ones. There was a pretty convincing story about how the plies were dropped off in CA where JG and crew would select the best stiff for DW, then load the truck back up for the factory in Mexico. The plies were then made into PDP shells using the same tools, same process, but cheaper labor.

In the case of my MX series, the shells were fine, but the bearing edges...there wasn’t a straight one anywhere. I had them recut and the drums finally tuned. Used them for a decade and was all about getting the real thing. I happened to come across a used Performance set at GC that had the exact same heads as my PDPs and we’re in great shape.

I was all hot to make a move on them, but took some time to tune them up the same way I did mine at home at the time (Gatzen method), and I couldn’t hear anything different from what I had at home. They were a bit overpriced and GC wasn’t budging, so on the end I left them behind.

Can’t say for sure they were the same shells. Actually, there were no Performance Series model at the time. Mine were also the STM mounted ones. I had a 16”FT that was a pretty STM mount (old style vent hole) and it was no different than the other toms. Even my BD was a a 20 lug vs the common 16 of earlier and later models.
 
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