How would you setup?

Jeffrey99

Member
So I used to be in a country band that was easy setup. Ride, 2 crashes, 1 12" tom mounted to a cymbal and a floor tom. Now I'm in a band that's more rock/metal that wants more tom work then just the 12" and 16". My kit is a Pearl Sessions Custom 10x8, 12x9, 14x11 & 16x16. I have two racks one is Gibraltar GCS-400C and other is Pearl Icon Rack.

Currently I have the 12x9 and 14x11 mounted up top with 16x16 down low, with the 10x8 not mounted. 2 crashes, a china, a ride and the rack is pretty much maxed out. Not a super fan of the rack as instead of legs being straight they curve back to you, it kinda limits options. Works well for electronics though.

My question is would you: Use current setup, 10x8 not mounted. Buy another mount and move the 14x11 down low along with the 16x16. Which in turns makes room for 10x8 up top, so 2 up 2 down. Or use the Pearl Icon rack that gives many more options for drums and cymbals. My only concern with the Pearl rack is the footprint of the kit and some of the smaller stages we play on. Haven't used the Pearl rack in a while but from what I remember it takes up much more space since the sides aren't curved.
 
Not sure if you have any option to use tom mounts on the bass drum but this picture shows a 10" 12" 13" 16" FT.

The smallest tom works for me on a handful of songs (Actually I have moved to a smaller set with 8", 10", 12", 15" FT). If you find you need the small tom voice for some tunes then this kind of setup could work for you. The two larger rack toms are mounted to the bass drum and the smallest tom is mounted to a cymbal stand.
 

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So I used to be in a country band that was easy setup. Ride, 2 crashes, 1 12" tom mounted to a cymbal and a floor tom. Now I'm in a band that's more rock/metal that wants more tom work then just the 12" and 16". My kit is a Pearl Sessions Custom 10x8, 12x9, 14x11 & 16x16. I have two racks one is Gibraltar GCS-400C and other is Pearl Icon Rack.

Currently I have the 12x9 and 14x11 mounted up top with 16x16 down low, with the 10x8 not mounted. 2 crashes, a china, a ride and the rack is pretty much maxed out. Not a super fan of the rack as instead of legs being straight they curve back to you, it kinda limits options. Works well for electronics though.

My question is would you: Use current setup, 10x8 not mounted. Buy another mount and move the 14x11 down low along with the 16x16. Which in turns makes room for 10x8 up top, so 2 up 2 down. Or use the Pearl Icon rack that gives many more options for drums and cymbals. My only concern with the Pearl rack is the footprint of the kit and some of the smaller stages we play on. Haven't used the Pearl rack in a while but from what I remember it takes up much more space since the sides aren't curved.

This will sound unorthodox , but I would make room for the 10 by moving the 14 down, but to the opposite side as the 16. I love having two floor toms, but it never made any sense to me to have them on the same side. It's just not how I play. And having it on the opposite side really opens up some opportunities for cool linear work and cool metal driving tom beats.

But since you still have 3 toms all in a row, you can still do runs. So I say 2U 1DL 1DR.

Also, is there any way you can just remove the sides of your rack and just use 1 bar? When it comes to racks for me, the whole point is to make things simpler by having less hardware. Having sides basically means you have almost as much hardware as before and it gets in the way, just like you said. If you can find a way to use just the front bar, Do that. I'm about to buy a Gibraltar rack and I've already planned it out so I'll only need the one bar and can get rid of all 4 of my cymbal stands.
 
This will sound unorthodox , but I would make room for the 10 by moving the 14 down, but to the opposite side as the 16. I love having two floor toms, but it never made any sense to me to have them on the same side. It's just not how I play. And having it on the opposite side really opens up some opportunities for cool linear work and cool metal driving tom beats.

But since you still have 3 toms all in a row, you can still do runs. So I say 2U 1DL 1DR.

Also, is there any way you can just remove the sides of your rack and just use 1 bar? When it comes to racks for me, the whole point is to make things simpler by having less hardware. Having sides basically means you have almost as much hardware as before and it gets in the way, just like you said. If you can find a way to use just the front bar, Do that. I'm about to buy a Gibraltar rack and I've already planned it out so I'll only need the one bar and can get rid of all 4 of my cymbal stands.
Honestly....I've never thought about moving the 14" down to the left, mainly because I'm so right hand dominant. Guess moving down to the left would force me to work on my left hand more.

Yeah I could remove the sides but then I'm still having to setup atleast 1 cymbals stand for a ride.

What I ended up doing for practice Saturday is use the legs off my Pearl Icon rack, they are straight where the Gibraltor was curved. And then added another Pearl leg to the right side end of the rack and took off left side arm since it wasn't being used. So now all drums and cymbals (other then 16" FT) is mounted to either the front or the right side of the rack. I feel this leads to much quicker setup/tear down. And everything always go back to the same spot it was last time. Not spending half practice trying to get that cymbals stand back to exact same spot I had it practice before.
 
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