custom drum maker

The use of the word best will not get you far on this forum. There are many custom drum makers that all have their unique styles. Also there are plenty of "custom" drum makers that all use either Keller or Vaughncraft shells and put their finish and hardware on them. I would suggest going to www.ghostnote.com which is a drum making forum and check out some of the work there.
 
go here, the Pro Builders Asylum. What ever the current trends in the big manufacturers is, these guys were doing 3 or so years ago.


Instead of telling you 'the best', I'd rather say avoid:

OCDP
Truth
Battlefield
SJC
etc
 
I'm sold on Noble & Cooley. Their snare drums at least.
 
Craviotto, Brady, Unix ......

Brady makes incredible drums. They make their own shells out of native Australian hardwoods (primarily jarrah), as opposed to most American custom builders who use the same pre-fab Keller shells and charge you an arm and a leg for the paint job. Even drummers who endorse other companies will use Brady snare drums, especially in the studio (Nathan Followill from Kings of Leon comes to mind; he's a DW endorser, but I've never seen photos of him without a Brady snare).
 
Craviotto, Brady, Unix ......

Good call man... those are tops!

Frank (UNIX DRUMS) just built me this BEAST!:

Stave bubinga w/ matching segmented bubinga hoops
(Walnut fade w/ nickle black chrome single point lugs)

14x8 Snare (1" thick)
15x10 Rack Tom (not pictured yet)
18x15 Floor Tom
24x17.5 Kick

UnixBubingaStavekit.jpg

UnixBubingaStaveSnare.jpg

UnixBubingaStaveFloor2.jpg


P.S. Sorry the pics aren't the best. I'll be taking much better ones soon and starting a thread with more pics and sound clips for anyone interested.
 
Thanks man... I'm having so much fun with them it ridiculous, I've never had BIG drums before.

And Frank is such an awesome dude, I drove up to Montreal to see his shop and watch him put them all together. It was such a great experience.

...If I spend anymore time in my drum room, I think my wife's going to leave me!
 
Me personally, I would recommend Truth, I recently was a convert to Custom drums because of them. I play an all walnut kit (you can see photos of it on www.rktopper.com) and it is amazing!!!. . I had the great opportunity to go to there shop and timbre test all there woods, and ask as many dumb questions as i could come up with and they were able to answer all of them and cater to my needs as a drummer. . . They are a little bit more spendy, but the quality is one to speak volumes. . I have played alot of shows and heard alot of custom companies and nothing has sounded as sweet as Truth. . .
God Bless
-RK
 
bring back this topic to life. Do you know Angel Drums? I know they have some innovation going on and make cool looking drums but never heard one in action. Compared to other drum builders like SJC, what's your opinion?

Rosewood-14%C3%975.5-300x300.jpg

Source: www.angeldrums.com
 
Noble and Cooley is my first choice. I have a Horizon kit and five snare drums and they are my go to drums.The build quality and sound are fantastic . My absolute favorite drums.

If money is an object then my choice would be INDe drums. Excellent value drums, they sound superb as well. I have a Bop kit and two of his seamless aluminum snare drums. All are excellent.
 
Outlaw is about as custom as you can get:
http://www.outlawdrums.com/

Stave built and if you can dream the finish, they can do it. Saw a denim jean wrap that made me look twice at it.
 
They do make great snares, and some at reasonable prices. They sound great.

Craviotto makes great snares too (better than the rest of their kit like tom and kicks) but IMHO is priced too far out there now. Hard for me to accept that just one of their snares can cost more to manufacture market sell than an entire custom made kit from other manufacturers.

I'm sold on Noble & Cooley. Their snare drums at least.
 
I have a Unix stave bubinga snare that’s stunning in every aspect and reasonably priced for the level of workmanship involved.
 
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