BIG NEWS: Pearl FINALLY Makes an L-Arm Tom Holder

To be fair, the compact traveler, the old rhythm traveler pod, and I'm pretty sure an early version of the their children's line offering now referred to as the roadshow junior (currently with the typically pearl tube arms) all had some type of L mount for the drums. The traveler pod had tube arms with a ball in socket that had a thin knurled post, the compact traveler basically uses cowbell mounts, and the early kids kit had thin posts with thin knurled arms.

They just made it a tiny bit fancier and a lot more expensive.

That said, I think their new isolation mounts are pretty cool and a great idea if you are into that sorta thing. I'll take a bracket on shell any day, especially when pearl's modern thin shells already really let the drum sing.
 
Well at least it is an L-arm that allows for some adjustment for the distance away from the stand. Though it seems not really anymore than I get from my Optimounts (with no holes drilled). So can't say I see any improvement one way or the other.
 
I used Pearl drums for many years and never had any issues with the pipe arms, I could always get the drums exactly where I wanted them and they were solid as a rock. The ISS mount was awful but never had any issue with Optimounts. The new L arms look good but they do seem like half a solution as they are basically an L arm on top of the original pipe arm...although of course that does mean that they can be used on exiting bass drums etc.

The new drum mount looks a little over engineered to me, the Optimount worked very well as long as you didn't over tighten it.
 
I'm lucky that all of my drums are already drilled for mounts but if I bought a new kit with undrilled shells I'd probably want some combination of Pearl's L-arm and either a Ludwig Atlas or INDE BR-3 mounts that replace a lug.

Most of the current suspension mounts out there cover way too much of the drum for my taste.
 
My old Pearl Vision Birch/Basswood kit has ISS mounts which I instinctively assumed it killed the tone. That was my firm belief and peeve. But now I have a Pearl Decade with optimounts and my son-in-law has my old kit. Whenever I visit I play my old kit and the toms sound great on kit-I think better than my Decade surprisingly. I think I biased my own opinion by assumptions. I'm not sold on Optimounts as that big of an improvement except larger toms 14-16 in. I don't think the ISS mounts really impede 10-12 in toms that much (surprisingly) but my instincts still tell me it should dagnabit. I really didn't have an issue with old Forum mounts that the big pipe went into toms-it was like a rock (if it was L-rod with smaller mass components it would have been better). I think it's the mass applied -wherever or however-to shell wall that impacts shell wall acoustic properties. I'd like a simple low mass dual lug and L-rod holder (like the floor tom adapters) so a simple thin L-rod inserts into a top (or maybe bottom )dual rod holder)/ lug so suspend shell from one lug mount without adding new mass of a dedicated tom mount or adding multiple points of contacts on lugs or shell . I would think the simpler/lower mass and smaller contact would be better?
 
Winston_Wolf said:
I'm lucky that all of my drums are already drilled for mounts but if I bought a new kit with undrilled shells I'd probably want some combination of Pearl's L-arm and either a Ludwig Atlas or INDE BR-3 mounts that replace a lug.

Most of the current suspension mounts out there cover way too much of the drum for my taste.
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A guy at 2112 (don't recall his name, but it's not @dwsabianguy ) swears the Ludwig mount works better than a RIMS-style. I have no personal experience with it so I can't confirm.

roncadillac said:
I'll take a bracket on shell any day, especially when pearl's modern thin shells already really let the drum sing.
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I do have a small bit of experience here; I've found that toms with thinner shells are more affected by on-shell brackets and losing resonance than thicker ones. I don't know why; maybe more susceptible to bending slightly out of round and/or becoming slightly parallelogram-ed from its own weight while mounted...? :unsure:
 
timmdrum said:
A guy at 2112 (don't recall his name, but it's not @dwsabianguy ) swears the Ludwig mount works better than a RIMS-style. I have no personal experience with it so I can't confirm.
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Might have been Jörg? Our resident chrome dome German homie. Personally I think they're just okay. They take up less space than a RIMS in the setup but I don't think they sound as good, and they do stick out pretty far. I do have and love the kick spur version on two kicks though.

Gretsch GTS are my favorite suspension mount, but of course they only work on Gretsch drums.
 
dwsabianguy said:
Might have been Jörg? Our resident chrome dome German homie. Personally I think they're just okay. They take up less space than a RIMS in the setup but I don't think they sound as good, and they do stick out pretty far. I do have and love the kick spur version on two kicks though.

Gretsch GTS are my favorite suspension mount, but of course they only work on Gretsch drums.
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No, not Jörg, another older guy.

I can't imagine they stick out farther than the mount attached to the plate on a RIMS-ish mount, eh? And by "sound as good", you mean, "aid/save resonance as well"?
 
timmdrum said:
No, not Jörg, another older guy.

I can't imagine they stick out farther than the mount attached to the plate on a RIMS-ish mount, eh? And by "sound as good", you mean, "aid/save resonance as well"?
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Must have been Pete then.

They stick out about the same distance when it's all said and done. You have the space for the lug, then the mount bracket, then a pretty large wing nut.

And yes. I don't want a suspension/isolation mount to cause any change in sound when the drum is mounted to a stand, and sometimes the Atlas does suck some of the sustain out of the drum, which in a mix results in a weaker fundamental pitch, and less sensitivity to playing.
 
dwsabianguy said:
Must have been Pete then.

They stick out about the same distance when it's all said and done. You have the space for the lug, then the mount bracket, then a pretty large wing nut.

And yes. I don't want a suspension/isolation mount to cause any change in sound when the drum is mounted to a stand, and sometimes the Atlas does suck some of the sustain out of the drum, which in a mix results in a weaker fundamental pitch, and less sensitivity to playing.
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Yeah, that name sounds right. So you guys have differing opinions on it, due to different experiences- maybe the tunings were different, the rooms were affecting things, maybe Pete's opinion was "good enough", etc. 🤷‍♂️ I took the brackets off my old '91 Tama Rockstar toms, bought 1st gen Star-Cast mounts & attached them to the rims (this was before the integrated die-cast hoops), and put the same tom brackets on the mounts, and the difference was night & day. I suppose these Ludwig lug/mount devices split the difference between RIMS-style mounts and a bracket on the shell.
 
Neal Pert said:
pearldrum.com

THL1030 | Pearl Drums -Official site-

Delivering infinite angle positioning at four unique adjustment points for toms and other drums, its universally accepted 12mm L-arm offers solid performance without the long-term deterioration that besets standard nylon ball-in-socket holder systems.
pearldrum.com pearldrum.com

Pearl guys-- what are your thoughts?


View attachment 134505
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The lower part of the L rod will always need that memory lock.
Otherwise the L rod will rotate due to vibration and drum weight.
A Ball and Socket top with the current Pearl tube was all that was really needed.

Which is available from Gibraltar

https://gibraltarhardware.com/colle...ucts/sc-78ua-7-8-inch-ultra-adjust-tom-holder

Mick
 
I feel the old tube mount is superior. That tom holder doesn't look like an advantage. It only has about two inches of front to back adjustment.
I can knock out the pin for the standard tube and replace it with my own length if I need extra length, and tubing is generic and cheap, and more stable.
 
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