How have you shortened and lightened your load.in?

I use to have the double bass 4 rack toms two floor tom Kieth Moon eat your heart out drumset. That all changed when I became a professional working musician. So far I have knocked my drum kit down to a 4 piece. my ride cymbal is off of my bass drum. my left crash, snare and high tom are on one stand and my other crash is attached to the leg of my flortom. There is hardlt any hardware to trip on and when I break down I can fit what little hardware I have in a childs golf stick bag.

I installed backstraps on my bass drum case and floor tom case.

I walk in with bass drum on back with cymbal bag velcrowed to top of it, snare in one hand, throne in other. Next and last trip floor tom on back tom in hand and hardware in other. Done! Setup is about 10 mins, I have all places on stand marked so i don't have to keep moving everything around to get it just perfect. My markings are perfect :)

How about yall?
 
I haven't reduced/combined the stands I use, but I have reduced their size. I use vintage Ludwig 1400 stands for cymbals (up to 3) and my snare, a fairly lightweight Hercules throne, a medium weight Ludwig hat, and a classic Ludwig tom mount. All hardware, cymbals, sticks, pedals & throne fit in a standard trap case, and since all of the kits I play are Ludwig, whether vintage or new, the same set of hardware accommodates them.

I still make 2 trips to load-in a 4pc kit, but condensing all non-drums into one case has by itself made my gigging life easier.

Bermuda
 
Still use a 6 piece (3 floor toms, just love em), but I've use a marked rug for years and years. My set up time is fast, everything is memory locked, and the stands just have the legs folded (up or down).

I've knocked down the amount of hardware and cymbals in the last 2 years.
Flat base stands, lighter hat stand, and only 3 cymbals.

I just got sick of hauling such heavy stuff for so long. Even though it was streamlined and customized to work fast and easy for what I needed, it was heavy and I was just done with it after a while.

My hardware case is waaaaay lighter now, and I can carry it up/down my walkout basement stairs with no trouble.
 
Way back when, I bought a big double bass on a rack kit.

And then the reality of playing out live set in, and I scaled down to a basic 5 pc with just a few stands for years and years.

Memory locks or pipe clamps on everything, a drum rub marked with tape, so set up and tear down was as simple as possible.



These days I've figured out how to reduce my set up to nothing: I get subs for everything.
To the point, I don't even get calls anymore. They just call the sub directly. Saves me a lot of set up and break down time, and I get to be home with my kids. :)
 
I used to have 2 bass drums, 4 rack toms, 3 floor toms, and 2 snares.
I now have 2 floor toms, 1 rack tom, 2 snares, and the bass.
Lots less cymbals too!
I used to have 3 rides (now 1)
used to have 3 chinas (now 1)
used to have 8 crashes (now 2)
used to have 2 sets of hats (now 1)
used to have 4 splashes (now 1)
I never liked metal, thats the funny part! I barely used it all.
 
Three things hastened the slimming of my gig kit:

1) My back finally crying foul and blowing two discs;
2) My relocation to a town that has no venues sized in between coffeeshops and arenas;
3) My employment by a singer/songwriter whose main influences are Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, and Los Lobos (as opposed to my main influences - Rush, Tool, Porcupine Tree...)

So the kit in the first frame has slimmed down at most to the kit in the second frame (very occasionally we find a place around here where I can actually bring all this out). The rack is gone - first thing to go some years back was the middle bar, I had everything on those two side racks and the bass drum. Now this six-piece (frame 2) flies off of three or four single-braced stands. However, most times around here I end up with the four piece (frame 3), because that's literally all the room I have. And for the last month, we've been making a tour of some very cramped, intimate venues around the state and playing "unplugged" acoustic gigs, leading to me playing a kick, snare, hats, crash/ride, and incidental percussion (frame 4). I don't think there's likely to be as drastic a pare-down story as this ... or will there be?
 

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I used to have 2 snare drums, 2 floors, 2 racks, a ride, 3 crashes, a china, a wood block, a zil-bel and a tambourine.

Now I just use a floor tom a rack tom and a ride. It really allows me to concentrate on rhythm, accents, syncopation and dynamics.
 
by using a rack and mem locks. I have a 7 piece SQ2 set that goes together in about 10 minutes, the cymbals and hardware take another 10 minutes....I use a cart for all the hard cases....no problem.


F
 
I use to have the double bass 4 rack toms two floor tom Kieth Moon eat your heart out drumset. That all changed when I became a professional working musician. So far I have knocked my drum kit down to a 4 piece. my ride cymbal is off of my bass drum. my left crash, snare and high tom are on one stand and my other crash is attached to the leg of my flortom. There is hardlt any hardware to trip on and when I break down I can fit what little hardware I have in a childs golf stick bag.

I installed backstraps on my bass drum case and floor tom case.

I walk in with bass drum on back with cymbal bag velcrowed to top of it, snare in one hand, throne in other. Next and last trip floor tom on back tom in hand and hardware in other. Done! Setup is about 10 mins, I have all places on stand marked so i don't have to keep moving everything around to get it just perfect. My markings are perfect :)

How about yall?

This only works if I ever have to play a jazz festival or the ever-popular show choir festival....I bring 20 bucks and give it to the kid who either plays before me or after me. I use his sticks too....

I'll post a picture of how my stuff travels someday - it's been working for me now for the last 20 years!
 
I installed backstraps on my bass drum case and floor tom case.

I walk in with bass drum on back with cymbal bag velcrowed to top of it, snare in one hand, throne in other. Next and last trip floor tom on back tom in hand and hardware in other. Done! Setup is about 10 mins,

I wanna see a picture of this!
 
Boy anymore the load in doesn't bother me but that load OUT is brutal. I sure love playing on a bigger kit but I am eating crow anymore and playing a 4 or 5 piece and the occasional 6 piece.
 
I wanna see a picture of this!

I will have to take some sometime. When I walk into a club with my bass drum on my back the looks i get are funny as hell. I call it the mind over matter technique. Others like to use the "break your back instead of use your imagination to your advantage.

At a local club I walked in the door with my bass drum on back while holding drums up front and the cymbal bag velcrowed to bass drum and the bar tender freaked out walking backwards saying "what tha, dis mutha, what the helllllll" lol he later told me he thought i was about to blow the place up.

I play all kinds of music with my set up from metal, to jazz, to blues and rock. I have had nothing but complements from other musicians and the audiences on my playing andddd my set up, load in, load out etc.

One day I hope to figure a way to open up a suitcase and out pops my drum kit. Untill then I will have to do what i can do :)
 
Also my gigging vehicle is 97 honda civic hatchback. With the back seats let down I can get my whole kit in that little car and still have my seat and passenger seat available for me and who ever wants to ride with me.

Carrying that bass drum with my back helps me avoid injuries A LOT. I don't have back problems because im not slouched over on one side walking up steps carrying a big bass drum that is sometimes leading me instead of me leading it.

Another thing I like about it, is with me carrying the heaviest stuff with my legs, shoulders and back my arms are not in a position to get a muscle strain or a pulled ligament from hawling all of that crap. Trust me the last thing you want is to pull a muscle in your forarm right before your going to play a bebop jazz gig or heavy rock gig, furthermore it just makes sense to not put your arms in all kinds of weird strains. Like haulingggg a whole drum kit from the house to the car, then from car to club, then set up, then break down, then haulllll it back to the car and.....anyways you get the point.

To each his own. I do enjoy watching new drummers pull allllll of their "uncalled for" stuff out at a gig because they think it makes them look and sound better. I think one of the quickest ways to tell if a musician is seasoned is to watch how his setup goes. Everytime I see a drummer hauling and hauling and hauling I say yep he's a newbie and most of the time I am right.

That is not to say that if you do like a lot of gear you are not seasoned, I just find this is the rule with exceptions. Also this doesn't include the big wigs, they have hired roadies. When you are in this boat by all means bring all THEY can haul!

Anybody have any great ideas on saving time and weight?
 
i know exactly what you mean man. i did the same thing, went down to two toms with the ride in the middle. i was a kid though, and now i have some better stuff, although it doesn't make life all THAT better haha.

i found that the use of a dolly was key in avoiding the 12 trips into the venue. also, my new band helps and so that's nice.
 
I have a 7-piece, but scale down to 6-piece or 5-piece when I have limited space on stage. I don't play out that often so it's not a big deal, and I have a Chevy Avalanche with room to spare for loading up equipment. My drum rack takes the place of 4-5 pieces of hardware, and easily folds in and out very quickly. I am usually all set up before the rest of the band gets their equipment hooked up, and then help with the PA/sound system. I also do not use drum mics, so that saves time.

Next month our band has an annual fundraiser at a local firehouse. The stage is as big as we want it to be. I usually bring everything I own to that gig. The good thing is that I can park the truck right by the entrance door and only have to lug everything about 30 feet to the stage. Oh.....and my wife helps too. :)
 
Dollys are great, except when you get to the steps.

I shed my hardshell cases, I go caseless now. My drums now permanently live in my van so at the beginning and the end of the night, I don't have to load them into my van and unload them from my van. I love it. At the drop of a hat I can fly to a gig without loading a thing, because it's already loaded. I reconfigured my van shelving system to accomodate all my toms and snares. I made a shelf suspended by ropes for my kick right at the back doors. This keeps the kick off the floor and uses up-space that was never used before. I have a rolling hardware bag that I just roll under the kick drum shelf and stand up and bungee strap in place after the drums are in. Keeping them in my van reduces two whole set moves per gig. No complaints here. They are safer in my van than in my garage, which is easily broken into. A hidden kill switch makes the van hard to hot wire. And the problem of forgetting something is eliminated.

Someday I will put a bear trap chained to the frame near the gas pedal so if anyone tries to steal the van, they will be caught like the animal that they are lol.
 
Someday I will put a bear trap chained to the frame near the gas pedal so if anyone tries to steal the van, they will be caught like the animal that they are lol.

Or, you can hook the battery up to your driver-side handle. :D

My set up works for me quite well (the thread for my kit is in my signature...). My main issue was creating a setup with compact and light hardware, all while keeping the hardware together (I like to collapse my hardware rather than taking the tubes out of each other--saves a LOT of time!). With my old setup, I was hauling around one of those huge hardware cases on wheels, with a bunch of double-braced hardware. Now, all of my hardware, except for the high hat stand and throne, fits in my suitcase, and it's pretty light. I have a second hardware setup for when I take my Gretsch kit out, which consists of a similarly-sized suitcase, but incorporates a second snare stand for the rack tom and all flat-based stands for the cymbals. Load-in, setup, and "case-stashing" time is condensed to about 15 minutes total, 10 if I can pull right up to the stage and have recently had my dose of coffee...
 
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