Just a little rant about house kits

They wouldn't let you change over a lefty setup? Sounds like they don't play nice or believe in co-operation.

yeah...they were definitely not in the mindset that being helpful was thing...
 
[rant]I hate the fact that it takes me longer to adjust certain house kits than it does just to set up my own drums. If you are going to have a house kit, just do the basics - one up, one down, and take off those stupid memory locks.[/rant]

I feel better now. Thanks everyone! :)
Interesting that your basics are one up one down...which may be true for C&W, not sure for R&R (2 up one down :unsure: in my experience).

It's been a long time, but I feel the same about sitting in for a song or two at another's setup during a live show, in which case not really time to adjust much of anything. Using anyone else's setup will definitely impede my playing, so I avoid doing so if at all possible. It's sort of like trying to wear someone else's broken in shoes... even if the correct size they just don't feel right.

[/QUOTE]
And there were the 2 times that i had to play on a lefty set up kit, and the guys would not let me change anything around...thank god for all of the left side independence work I had done up to that point. Those gigs were actually sort of fun given the challenge

THIS ⬆ would have been a nonstarter for me... More like wearing someone else's two left shoes ??.
 
We trained the band (12-14 people on stage) to make a change over with my 1up/1down well-tuned drum set with just two cymbal/tom stands fully pre-mic'd within 3 minutes, including cables and moving the house kit back-stage. Same in reverse. Our engineer was able to make the kit sound great within two minutes. Never had to play any house kit since.
 
Hey now, this 'Murica buddy. It's all about me, so f you pal! :ROFLMAO:

yep...that, and the endless pursuit of getting drunk or high was also a distraction for them :cautious:
 
The worst experience I had with a house kit was in NYC at The Red Lion. Small four piece kit. During the first tune of our set the mounted tom starts to droop. Ultimately it just fell off and rolled onto the stage floor during a tune. What a piece of garbage. I got it back on but it was pretty flimsy. I'd much rather lug my own drums and be comfortable then play a piece of garbage. Ok. End of rant.
 
For me, house kits were church kits for 25 years. Some of them were splendid, some far worse than any night club kit, without stains from spills.

But one really great thing about a church “house” kit is, the church will never turn down an offer to repair, rebuild, or re-head a kit (something I love doing when I have control). The benefit being I get to share playing it; it’s not a one-off deal.
 
I play, (pre Covid) a gig that has a Rogers script logo kit with a copper wrap. kit sounds great but i learned to bring my stands, each one is stripped and broken, and my cymbals, the Mienel (brass??) are terrible, my snare, the head on the house snare is always destroyed, my pedal, the supplied Tama is a real old piece of crap and my throne. Even with all of these issues, its great not brining my bass drum and toms through the door!
 
For me, house kits were church kits for 25 years. Some of them were splendid, some far worse than any night club kit, without stains from spills.

But one really great thing about a church “house” kit is, the church will never turn down an offer to repair, rebuild, or re-head a kit (something I love doing when I have control). The benefit being I get to share playing it; it’s not a one-off deal.

What’s ironic is that churches and schools will happily pay a piano tuner to visit a few times per year, but won’t pay to replace a drum head or a wing nut on a kit...
 
for me, the house kit better not have jenky hardware...ESPECIALLY cymbal stands/booms. That is the worst. i can deal with everything else

I got used to playing on every odd ball, crap set up you could imagine when my surf punk band would tour. A LOT of the time, we would get to a show and I would be requested to play the headliners kit...many times this was a hunk of junk that was barely holding together.

And there were the 2 times that i had to play on a lefty set up kit, and the guys would not let me change anything around...thank god for all of the left side independence work I had done up to that point. Those gigs were actually sort of fun given the challenge
How about the pedals? Lot of guys here are very particular about their pedals...
 
And the worse thing is that the guitar players just don't get it what we have to put up with...I mean how would they feel if they had to play someone elses Strat all gunked up and poorly adjusted. I often try to explain to the usual blank stares that "my" drum kit is a carefully adjusted instrument as finely balanced as their guitars.....I can make any drum kit ok...trouble is to lower cymbals and tighten everything up can take ages, there's never time.
 
How about the pedals? Lot of guys here are very particular about their pedals...

I always bring my own pedals for that very reason...pedals, snare and cymbals always come with, so I at least have some control over some things
 
And the worse thing is that the guitar players just don't get it what we have to put up with...I mean how would they feel if they had to play someone elses Strat all gunked up and poorly adjusted. I often try to explain to the usual blank stares that "my" drum kit is a carefully adjusted instrument as finely balanced as their guitars.....I can make any drum kit ok...trouble is to lower cymbals and tighten everything up can take ages, there's never time.

I ALWAYS brought this up, and very few understood it. The response was "it doesn't matter...all you guys do is hit things. you don't need to worry about touch like we do"

I also used to get shyt when I would bring out the whole kit...it was ok for them to set up 2 amps running in stereo, with 45 pedals across 9 pedal boards, but if I brought a second crash, it was a travesty...
 
Worse than memory locks: when they wrap duct tape around the posts at their desired height.

The house kit near me is like that. Duct tape holding the arms in place. The screws don't work. I'm going to replace those stands some day.
 
When playing on House Kits or kit share I will always bring my own cymbals, snare, pedals, throne & cymbal arms.
 
The response was "it doesn't matter...all you guys do is hit things
When I played bass back in the day guess I was a bit guilty of not understanding drummers. Could never get why they were always fiddling with the hardware during the show, I used to think it was because they were nervous etc.....now I know better.
 
I also used to get shyt when I would bring out the whole kit...it was ok for them to set up 2 amps running in stereo, with 45 pedals across 9 pedal boards, but if I brought a second crash, it was a travesty...
My bass player who i'm really good friends with uses about 6 pedals every practice. I set up an X hat to experiment some stuff and he laughed for about 5 minutes solid :D
 
Ill gladly put up with the house BD pedal....I once got on my hands and knees on a floor with about three feet of booze encrusted gunk on it then the house pedal fell apart, the hoop was worn away and it all tuned into a right mess with minutes to spare.....nah I'll put up with the house pedal.
 
There’s one guy who regularly provides the kit at a local blues jam. He replaced all the wing bolts on the hardware with regular hex bolts. He hates people moving anything on his kit. Unless you bring a wrench, there is no adjusting anything.
I would come equipped with my Milwaukee impact, loosen everything, move it into a ridiculous position and then torque it all to the moon.
When people want to be jerks, I love showing them they're rookies.
 
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