Recent content by Chris Whitten

Just the old fashioned standard cases. They have travelled the globe and I've never seen any damage to a drum or cymbal.

I have multiple Protection Racket padded bags for snare drums. They really are quite interchangeable. I've put a 6" snare into a 5" bag. I regularly put 5.5" snares into 6.5" bags.

By and large you don't need air-con in the UK. I have never had it in my homes. I do use the air-con in my car. When we lived in rural Australia we only had the air-con on on extreme days 35 - 40c. Our city apartment didn't have air-con and operated on a passive airflow system. The places I see...

I have Protection Racket bags. I have flown with the padded cymbal bag - no problem. The drum bags keep their shape, so drums drop straight in. They sell slightly oversized bags to accommodate suspension mounts. I wouldn't use soft sided bags. The PR bags have a lot of padding for protection...

When I lived in London it took an hour to take 'the tube' (underground transit) to get almost anywhere. Driving was much slower. So for me it's an hour minimum. Money? It really depends on the gig. The more the gig feels like hard work with little reward, the more I want to be paid. If it's...

Floor tom is just about the least important part of my kit. There are a lot of affordable tom mics that are fantastic. I use vintage 421's. If I could afford it I might use 414's. If I had to use an affordable clip on mic it wouldn't bother me.

But you can't save your ears. Buy the most expensive IEMs you can afford that are properly fitted by an expert.

It's totally understandable you can't return something that has been jammed in your ear. You can't return underwear either. Isn't there an IEM that has an ambient mic feature, so you can still communicate at voice volume without removing them?

^^ This ^^ They look amazing and if money was no object I'd have a kit, but yeah, even back in the day they were regarded as bad sounding - but loud!

I like a really good percussionist. they have to know when to play and when not to though. So many times percussionists think because they are on stage they have to be doing something. My particularly pet peeve is percussionists doubling cymbal crashes. WHY????? Worse is playing a crash when...

Take a holiday!!!!!

Food, gelato, incredible history. Rome is one of my favourite cities. Been there many times and never been to a drum shop.

I imagine it's harder to find a new 14 x 22" bass drum than a case for one. I googled and found many stores selling the Protection Racket 14 x 22" case. I can't think of any drum sizes that 'time forgot'. Although yes, I imagine a 14" deep bass drum is one of the least popular sizes in modern...

Well Van Gelder was very secretive, had some of his techniques hidden under cloth and wouldn't let the musicians touch anything or enquire. In the 1960's it was still common to have far micing on drums, maybe two or three mics capturing an overall impression of the drums, so quite a roomy sound...

I would put one mic between them, which is actually quite common. Toms are not a crucial part of the drum kit and one mic will reasonably capture the sound of two toms together.