Tom Mounting Systems

RaxCity

Senior Member
What do you guys reckon is the best tom mounting system? I have heard good things about Yamaha's YESS mounting system, and I've heard that Pearl's ISS mounting system is bad, but I want to know what you guys think about these, as well as ones from other brands.
 
Me personally I like the Yamaha system the best. Very sturdy, little to no bounce when you hit the drum. Their hardware is just well designed and made. I have a yamaha kit that has the rods that go into the shells and I play on a Stage Custom with Yess mounts at church. Can't say enough about how nice that system is.
 
I have to agree that the YESS mount is probably one of the best out there. I also really liked the system Mapex used prior to their newest design.

I don't have much first hand experience but a good friend has had ISS on his Pearl set for over 15 years and hasn't had a single issue.

I have a couple of Ludwig sets that have brackets bolted right to the shell and they ring for days. Personally, I don't worry too much about suspension mounts. If a kit has them, that fine, and if they don't that's fine too.
 
Other than the very bulky nature of it, I'm very happy with ATLAS mounts. I have also used YESS mounts on my Yamahas, and I think they do a good job.

The two main requirements (to me) of a tom mount are that they do a flawless job of holding the tom where you wanted it, and that they not negatively affect the sound of the tom (if they improve it, so much the better). By those criteria, only a couple of mounting systems actually fail to work. These systems are usually R&D'ed to death before they even hit the market.

Where you usually get bad mounts is in the budget lines, where it's more a sales pitch than an actual working system (namely, the ISS mounts).
 
I'm most interested in how my drums sound, so I use RIMS mounts. No matter where in their range I want to tune my drums, RIMS still do the best job of isolating the drum from the hardware. I don't have to change heads every couple of days, so the little bit of hassle is no big deal. I don't play 3 or 4 rack toms in front, so a little more space between drums is not an issue. The drums may move a little more when struck, but not anywhere near enough to affect my playing. I like the ability to use different mounting brackets - I can use L rods on rack toms and Pearl tubes on floors if I want.
 
Me personally I like the Yamaha system the best. Very sturdy, little to no bounce when you hit the drum.

If this is is the case, they might as well put a lug right on the drum itself. If their "suspension" mounts are already pretty rigid, there's no point of any sort of suspension system. I'm not implying that this is a bad thing necessarily.



I'm most interested in how my drums sound, so I use RIMS mounts. No matter where in their range I want to tune my drums, RIMS still do the best job of isolating the drum from the hardware. I don't have to change heads every couple of days, so the little bit of hassle is no big deal. I don't play 3 or 4 rack toms in front, so a little more space between drums is not an issue. The drums may move a little more when struck, but not anywhere near enough to affect my playing. I like the ability to use different mounting brackets - I can use L rods on rack toms and Pearl tubes on floors if I want.


This is my thoughts exactly. I love using the ball-and-socket mounting system. My only beef with a RIMS-type mount is that (from my experience), they don't work well on anything above a 14" drum. It's not the RIMS system itself...it's what you have to mount to. The ball-and-socket works well with a big drum for a while, but it tends to slip over time. My 16" floor tom has a RIMS mount on it, and I've had to by a cradle/basket for it because the "ball" in the ball-and-socket mount slips. I'm on my third one right now, and I'm tired of messing with it. This drum set never gets torn down and set up, and it probably gets about several hours of playing on it in a week.

Pearl tubes? Out of all of the great things that Pearl has done, I have no idea why they haven't abandoned those mounts. Those things are horrid for a variety of reasons. I know they probably have millions of them in stock, but they should start phasing those out.
 
If this is is the case, they might as well put a lug right on the drum itself. If their "suspension" mounts are already pretty rigid, there's no point of any sort of suspension system. I'm not implying that this is a bad thing necessarily.






This is my thoughts exactly. I love using the ball-and-socket mounting system. My only beef with a RIMS-type mount is that (from my experience), they don't work well on anything above a 14" drum. It's not the RIMS system itself...it's what you have to mount to. The ball-and-socket works well with a big drum for a while, but it tends to slip over time. My 16" floor tom has a RIMS mount on it, and I've had to by a cradle/basket for it because the "ball" in the ball-and-socket mount slips. I'm on my third one right now, and I'm tired of messing with it. This drum set never gets torn down and set up, and it probably gets about several hours of playing on it in a week.

Pearl tubes? Out of all of the great things that Pearl has done, I have no idea why they haven't abandoned those mounts. Those things are horrid for a variety of reasons. I know they probably have millions of them in stock, but they should start phasing those out.

I'm not a fan of the Pearl mounts either, but I ran into the same problem you did with ball-and-socket mounts on a 15" tom. I had a couple of Pearl tubes and brackets around, and that did the trick for that drum.
 
I dont particularly run after suspension mount. As long as nothing protrude inside the drum it's ok to me. Parallel mount like Lud, Tama or Premier made were simple and efficient. No wheight added. I have seen suspension system generating rod buzz, heavy, or painful to use. I guess that's why YESS is popular, it is hardly a suspension. Simple, efficient and well Made. Does it work well for 16" toms still ? Always had doubt about those two screws parallel to the floor holding such a heavy Tom.
 
I don't know which is best, but the systems used by Tama, Yamaha and Sonor work pretty well, are sturdy and let the drums sound good.
 
I haven't used them yet, but the new INDe "tunable" suspension mounts seem like a great idea.
 
I dont particularly run after suspension mount. As long as nothing protrude inside the drum it's ok to me. Parallel mount like Lud, Tama or Premier made were simple and efficient. No wheight added. I have seen suspension system generating rod buzz, heavy, or painful to use. I guess that's why YESS is popular, it is hardly a suspension. Simple, efficient and well Made. Does it work well for 16" toms still ? Always had doubt about those two screws parallel to the floor holding such a heavy Tom.

Before I turned my 16" Yamaha rack tom into a floor tom, I never had any issues with the YESS mount putting stress on the shell - at least not in any sort of way that would cause damage. The tom sounds a lot better as a floor tom, but then, most 16" toms do sound better as floor toms in my opinion.
 
The Tama star cast mounting system has never let me down. It's solid, doesn't budge, easy to change heads, and gives drums excellent sustain.

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Before I turned my 16" Yamaha rack tom into a floor tom, I never had any issues with the YESS mount putting stress on the shell - at least not in any sort of way that would cause damage. The tom sounds a lot better as a floor tom, but then, most 16" toms do sound better as floor toms in my opinion.

Thx for your answer, it's somewhat strange that your Tom sounds now better on three feet isn't it ?
I opened a topic about a suspended 16" (Signia) that didn't sound right, that I'd rather put on feet too ! The suspended 14 was really ok but I struggled for the 16".

About the suspension system, the starcast is damn reliable, strong and no pain to use. Very good design, nevertheless, I had the little brother once, on an old Rockstar : the star mount that clutch on the rim (with no die cast rim): .... And rattled.... Anyway I put it !
 
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Thx for your answer, it's somewhat strange that your Tom sounds now better on three feet isn't it ?!

In my experience, it's quite normal to get a bit more sustain and resonance out of a floor tom than a mounted tom, even though you've got three times the hardware-to-shell contact. I think the balance on the shell is better, compared to the tension you'll have with almost any mounting system. It might also be an effect of vibrations grounding out through the legs. I don't know, I'm a social scientist, not a physicist. Andy might have a better take on why this is.
 
...I've never had any issues with them at all except for minor rattling when they aren't installed properly!
I have never had any issues with rattling or whatsoever on my three Tamas with Starcast mount. Super-easy, super-reliable, super-sturdy. But as I said earlier, others suspension-systems are also very nice from my experience... there is no holy grail.
 
I use the Tama Star Cast mounts on my rack toms and they're great. They're easy to adjust quickly and offer a full range of motion for the adjustments, and I've never had any issues with them at all except for minor rattling when they aren't installed properly!
The only problem I have with them is using mic clips...
 
Never had a problem with mics on my toms. But then, those mics were real high-grade mics (not mine sadly but from the clubs/venues where I played), not some cheap ones with crappy clamps.
 
In my experience, it's quite normal to get a bit more sustain and resonance out of a floor tom than a mounted tom, even though you've got three times the hardware-to-shell contact. I think the balance on the shell is better, compared to the tension you'll have with almost any mounting system. It might also be an effect of vibrations grounding out through the legs. I don't know, I'm a social scientist, not a physicist. Andy might have a better take on why this is.

The experience I have too ; three feet plus the Pearl Air rubber feet : perfect result and looong sustain. No brainer.
 
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