ever play four up, one or two down?

i just wanted to get some thoughts on having four toms up front. anyone play a kit like this? how does it feel? what are the (dis)advantages?

i'm thinking of adding two extra toms to my set-up. but i've never played four up. but if i did get the extra toms there'd be 10x8, 12x9, 13x10, 14x11 up front. 16x16 down. and maybe even an 18x16.

by the way, you can check out some pics of my Sonor S Classix in the 'your gear' section.
 
Four up would be a pain to get the hats and the ride in a comfortably postition. I already struggle with my 3 up setup (8,10,12).
 
Four up would be a pain to get the hats and the ride in a comfortably postition. I already struggle with my 3 up setup (8,10,12).

Yes I agree, I was once a gear monster wanting the biggest kit that I could get. In the end I bought 2 drum kits and put them together. That give me the four up and one down set up.

I mean playing it at home and stuff was great fun as there was no responsibility for moving it around however i never used it all at gigs i think i may have used it all just the once at a gig.

As Frank said positioning the hi-hat is difficult as it can come very close to the smallest tom and then you better have boom stands galore for cymbal positioning.

The best thing i saw for solving the hi-hat problem was a clamp from Mapex which attaches your stand to the left side of the bass drum which allows you to keep the legs together and it will stand on its own, this means you can get the hats directly next to the pedal without the legs getting in the way of the bass drum but this would only work if you had a double bass set up. Definitely worth thinking about if you want this kind of set up.

The advantages are obvious, more toms means more musical voices and the easier they are to reach directly in front of you. However for this set up to really work properly you would need two bass drums just to get it set up comfortably. I once seen a local drummer with a 9 piece Premier kit and he had rack toms galore probably 5 of them and only 1 bass drum the thing is he wasn't very good at all and he had no idea how to set it all up, you couldn't even hit 2 of the toms because they were behind the hi-hats and there were stands holding them in place everywhere and no where to put anything else.

If you have 2 bass drums, great then go for it, if you only have 1 I would rather play 3 up and 2 down and you could move a floor tom to the left of your hi-hat.

Now I stick to a 6 or a 5 piece, it's simpler and I realise I don't need all of that excess equipment as it is just inconvenient for gigging.
 
I had an 8,10,12,13 up and 16, 18 down at one point. I put the 8 and the 10 above the hi hats, though. It was a double kick setup and I tried the Steve Smith approach but the hats were too hard to position conveniently. Simon Phillips has this worked out pretty well by keeping his hats really low, but then again, he plays open handed so he can get away with that pretty easily.
 
I tried 4 up with my big Slingerland kit and while it looks impressive, it required a LOT of changing everything to accommodate all of those toms. If I had a smaller version of my remote hats maybe I could have pulled it off. Do you have any resistance to using remote hats? Mine simply wouldn't fit between the two middle toms due to the longer pipe attached to it. Other than that, it would be a go. A rack would be perfect but no budget for that right now. As it is now, I simply attach it to my left bass and mount the 6,8,10, right above the hats. Looks good and works well for me for now. When changing to a smaller kit I have the luxury of my remote. But the appearance of that many toms across the top has always done it for me. Not so practical in some cases though. Here's what I'm banging on now...
 

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The kit I bought was 4-up, 1-down. I didn't like it at all, it was a pain to get the cymbals organized with all those toms up there. So I got rid of the 8, did 3-up 1-down, promptly realized I almost never used the 10, now I'm on a standard 5pc.
 
Here's how I used to have my kit setup Played it that way for about 22 years and never had an issue with reaching anything.

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It's now a two up two down.

to me the 12,13,14 setup there won't be a huge difference in tone, I found it much more musical going 8,10,12,14.
 
I modeled my four-up, two-down-plus kit on a... rather obvious example. It's really a one-up, two-down kit, with the extra three high toms over the hi-hat. I'm running 6/8/10/12/14/16 on this kit.

Yet another advantage to racks.
 

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Yes, back in the day...
8x12, 9x13, 10x14, 12x15 on top 16x16, 16x18 floors..
that was with one bass drum..
When I used double bass, I ran 3 toms up top w/ the 16" & 18" floors.
Sometimes I added my 6 & 8" to the left of my hi-hats...
Some songs needed these extra tom sounds..
then sometimes ,in the mid 80's. it was cool to Look Big...lol

have fun
\m/
 
I just started with 4 up last week, Im loving it. Hats are right were they were when I had 2 up, so no problem. (might actually be a little closer then in this pic, since I just got a hi hat/kick clamp today) Only thing I lost is ride cymbal position, but Im willing to make that trade right now. Mine are 7x8, 8x10, 9x12, 10x12. Hoping to find matching individual Epic series drums on Ebay - I can dream, cant I?
 

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I just started with 4 up last week, Im loving it. Hats are right were they were when I had 2 up, so no problem. (might actually be a little closer then in this pic, since I just got a hi hat/kick clamp today) Only thing I lost is ride cymbal position, but Im willing to make that trade right now. Mine are 7x8, 8x10, 9x12, 10x12. Hoping to find matching individual Epic series drums on Ebay - I can dream, cant I?

Frankenstein kit or not, that's one awesome setup! Lovin the snare too, looks nice and deep!
I'd like a whole kit in that green wood finish! What brand are they?
 
:)

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Frankenstein kit or not, that's one awesome setup! Lovin the snare too, looks nice and deep!
I'd like a whole kit in that green wood finish! What brand are they?

Thanks Jessiah - The black/green fades are Ludwig Elements, the snare is a 6.5x14 Black Magic. Couldnt be happier soundwise.
 
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