The Average Drum Kit.

jer

Silver Member
Not sure where the thought came from, but I was thinking about collecting data from members here to calculate what the average drum kit is. Included would be not only sizes, number of drums / cymbals, but positions as well. How high is your throne vs. the height of your snare, etc... Additionally, angles could be included by taking a measurement of the front and back of shells and cymbals.

Anyone interested? In the end we'd have a fairly good representation of what an average kit looks like and how it is set up. Guess I'm kinda curious as to how close / far apart we set our kits up, as well as maybe providing new drummers with a good starting point as to how to set up their kits.

Anyone have thoughts as to how we could effectively collect data? There would be little point in having someone with a 7 or 8 piece kit provide measurements for an 8" tom, so would we start by getting an average configuration then once that is determined we have people submit heights and angles and positioning?

Has anyone ever seen this done?

Open to thoughts...
 
Not sure where the thought came from, but I was thinking about collecting data from members here to calculate what the average drum kit is. Included would be not only sizes, number of drums / cymbals, but positions as well. How high is your throne vs. the height of your snare, etc... Additionally, angles could be included by taking a measurement of the front and back of shells and cymbals.

Anyone interested? In the end we'd have a fairly good representation of what an average kit looks like and how it is set up. Guess I'm kinda curious as to how close / far apart we set our kits up, as well as maybe providing new drummers with a good starting point as to how to set up their kits.

Anyone have thoughts as to how we could effectively collect data? There would be little point in having someone with a 7 or 8 piece kit provide measurements for an 8" tom, so would we start by getting an average configuration then once that is determined we have people submit heights and angles and positioning?

Has anyone ever seen this done?

Open to thoughts...

What a funny thought to have! If you wanted to go for broke you could try something like Survey Monkey. I work in statistics and analysis so I lap up arcane nonsense like this :)

First thing I'd do is split by genre. Prog and metal tend to have the monsters. Fusion and rock often have large kits. Jazz, blues, funk and country tend to have smaller ones. An average of all that would be messy and wouldn't tell us much ... we'd rather know about our peers.

I'd have to measure my throne to know its height and I suspect plenty of others would too, so I'd make it approximate - low, regular and high (but how tall are you?). Same with tom angles - steep, normal and flat?

Etc ... late and it's time to sleep ...
 
i have the world's most average kit and i set it up in the most average way possible. i have a six piece mapex meridian maple, but i usually set it up with 2 toms up (10", 12") and 1 down (16"). i have two crashes on the right and left above the rack toms with a splash between them. i have a ride on the right just above the floor tom. i have hats and a snare and a throne, of course. my kit looks like a photo from a drum kit catalog. it's completely average, but very playable and it sounds great!
 
The first question i think is what sort of average are you going for here? I mean obviously there are a lot of drums on some of the really big drum kits, like 50-100 but there are very few of these kits around so really you would probably want to ignore really big show kits and just concentrate on useable kits that people actually play i reckon anyway.
 
i have the world's most average kit and i set it up in the most average way possible. i have a six piece mapex meridian maple, but i usually set it up with 2 toms up (10", 12") and 1 down (16"). i have two crashes on the right and left above the rack toms with a splash between them. i have a ride on the right just above the floor tom. i have hats and a snare and a throne, of course. my kit looks like a photo from a drum kit catalog. it's completely average, but very playable and it sounds great!

Mine is EXACTLY like this, except its a Rockstar and there's a 3rd crash above the hats, and a china to the right of the ride.
 
By "average", I'm imagining that you mean the drum kit that represents the most drum kits out there...???

14"x5.5" steel snare
12"x9" tom
13"x10" tom
16"x16" floor tom
22"x16" bass drum
14" high hats
16" crash
20" ride

...it seems as though there were a BUNCH of these manufactured during the 70s/80s/90s. Nowadays, newer kits are sold in various sizes and configurations, even the cheap ones, but this basic setup is the majority of what you see "out there", because they were the most mass-produced entry-level kit made by the most companies. Also, I figured that the cymbal sizes are the most "common" ones out there. Close enough?
 
ill have some input.

i play a 5 piece with 4 cymbals + hi hats. every thing is very flat and low due to me being short. cymbals are also low, snare is as low as my stand will allow and my throne is level with this. i have my toms in a 1 up 2 down configuration.

and heres a pic to help explain.
 

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There's an old descriptive stats chestnut with regard to averages

"the average person has about one breast and one testicle"

What that is specifically speaking to is how multimodality isn't well expressed by averages and can even express non-events (like the old "2.5 kids"), but there can be other problems with averages

eddie brings up a point with pruning outliers (which can be a contentious process in some stats) or weighting outliers so that outliers are counted, but are weighted less as they are exceptions (standard deviation calcs have this inbuilt) -- that is an attempt to keep extreme cases from skewing the central tendency "unduly" (but "unduly" can be a matter of interpretation, which is why it can be contentious)

OK, that's analysis stuff, that can be hashed out after the fact, but there could be some things to consider with the data collection

with something like drum height/angle for example -- there may be relative or covarying parameters...like player height (we have this problem. My wife's lesson is right after mine and we are quite different in height)
so even though the ABSOLUTE height may be radically different, when associating it to player height, the RELATIVE height (to the player) may not be nearly so radical (though you may find that there is varince that covaries with that. bicycle frames, for instance, tend to fit differently - generally there seems to be an inflection point in the proportions around 6' tall or so)
Perhaps it could also change with grip (trad v matched) or other parameters.

Those differences are going to be hard to parse after the numbers are "mushed' into an aggregate.


There are other problems, such as sample self-selection and self-reporting and that kind of stuff ( that might be a little more involved, but might have to be addressed first, b/c it can effect you actually collect and how you do it)

Primarily, wht I'm concerned with is aggregate numbers. Averages (there are different kinds, most people default to "arithmetic mean" when thinking about them, but "average" itself is a catch-all for a number expressing a central, nominal or typical tendency in data) are a way of trying to squash complexities into a single number "answer", but in doing so, it can distort the hell out of some things and, while it may be useful to describe a population as a whole, it can really be piss-poor at describing any individual member of a population.
Powerful tool, but really easy to cut in the wrong place with it.


I know, sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo but that used to be my job - keeping people from walking off cliffs with stats was a major component.
 
Take this............................
 

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That looks like a very bad fit for me for 3 reasons

1) I can barely play just a snare/hat/kick

2) I am clumsy and there are too many things for me to run into

3) I shouldn't wear toughguy wrist spikes b/c people might call my bluff and then I would cut myself on them as curl up into a defensive ball on the floor
 
I guess you are right, it fits perfect for that man on the throne: Cozy Powell.
 
The average drum set is 12 inch tom, 13 inch tom, 16 inch tom, 5.5 x 14 inch snare, 22 x 18 bass drum. 14 inch hats, 16 inch crash, and and a 20 inch ride. I only say average based on what is normally shown in drums ads, and what size cymbals come in Pre-packs.
 
Interesting, I thought that for bass drum the average was 22" x 14". For the rest of components, fine.
 
It would be interesting to compare between the journeyman cats playing in a different bar every night, and who in my experience haul around just enough to get though the gig, and the Bozio monster basement set-ups that never move.
 
Since you ask, 'The Average' will be using the following kit for the next 3 gigs. They are all at bigger venues and one is outdoors so I can get away with my bigger/louder drums and cymbals.

Sonor S-Classix drums, 12"x9" rack tom, 14"x14" and 16"x16" floor toms, and a 24"x17.5" bass drum. The snare is a 14"X6.5" Ludwig LM402 Supraphonic.

Cymbals:
Paiste Giant Beat 15" hats
Zildjian K Constantinople 18" crash
Paiste Giant Beat 24" ride
Zildjian 20" Oriental Crash of Doom
Sabian 20" HH dark Chinese
 

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+1

... except I'd go for 22" ride in rock, rather than 20". Maybe add an 18" crash/ride.

Yeah, although from what I've seen MOST cymbal packs come with a 20. Especially the mid/lower level lines which are the biggest contributors to "average".
 
I think that's gonna be a big thing, too. Average to what? Performers, or everyone with a kit in their house?

If we're talking people who actually go on stage, well in my five years of working at a club the kits I saw varied SO widely that averaging them would be like finding the average income of a room full of homeless people and CEO billionaires, y'know? It'd be the average, but it wouldn't really represent anyone. I saw five piece kits, giant Portnoy-like creations, the works.

But if you take into account the millions of hobbyists, chances are most of your finds will be five piece basic kits with hat/crash/ride.
 
We really could do a survey like this.

If you wanted to average component size numbers, then that's a lot of data to collect, but that's what Excel is for.

I think if there were a survey for positioning, however, measurement by exact numbers would be impossible. Questions pertaining to certain positions seems like the better way to go(e.g. "Is your snare positioned: a- lower than the top of your thighs b- equal with the top of your thighs c- higher than the top of your thighs).
 
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