Hey All,
The studio I work at may have to give back our resident Pearl Custom Z to it's kind owner who has let us use it for years. We're looking to replace it. I suggested lookin for an old Premier kit, 60's era ish. I've seen loads go for cheap and they have always sounded cool in my experience.

Who has a better idea? It would help me out to have some suggestions of a kit that's suitable for recording, therefore pretty flexible soundwise. Good sounding easy to maintain and not too expensive.
We need kick, toms, snare, hats, the whole thing except cymbal stands really.
We mainly record Pop/Rock, sometimes heavier stuff, the usual.

Any suggestions would be very helpful and much appreciated.

Budget? Do you need three toms or will a single rack tom suffice?

I need a recording kit as well.

I need bass drum, floor tom,one hi tom and ride,crash,hi hat.

I have no idea what drums are common in the UK. Here in the US it would be prudent to keep one eye on eBay and Craigslist and wait for a set of old maple slingerlands or Ludwigs came along.

I think that Premier and Olympic were homegrown drums there, right?

Get a maple kit, older is generally better just because they're often cheap and the fragile bits have been broken and replaced. This is not always true, of course, as there's nothing wrong with Yamaha and Gretsch kits. What I have seen old Slingerlands and Ludwigs go for over there... holy shit, forget about it.

Any maple kit can be made to sound good. Plenty of birch kits can also be tuned to greatness. Mystery woods are taking a chance. That is not to say that some of the Mahogany Rogers kits and Slingerlands from the '50s and mid-60s aren't amazing sounding kits, but you'll be hard pressed to find a BAD sounding maple kit.

There's a David Pye/recording engineer in Norwich, UK listed on MySpace. I am going to guess that's you.

Man, the Norwich fucking craigslist is DEAD. Going to eBay...

this kit will always sound amazing, only appreciate in value and holy, shit it's nice. It will probably go for a lot of money before the auction ends, though. Fuck, it's pretty.

you could do a LOT worse than this premier kit.

I don't know anything about these cabria kits, but I think they're probably new and not that great.

Gretsch drums are cool, but if this egregiously overpriced kit is any indication, hardly worth the trouble on that side of the Atlantic.

Another expensive kit, but I have basically this very kit in my studio. AND IT SOUNDS AMAZING. the only difference with mine is that the kick drum on mine is larger.

You get the idea.

I keep promising to get some video on how to tune drumheads up here. I will do it soon. I thought I was going to film tomorrow, turns out I have no video camera. Bleh.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

-patrick

I don't know what the local papers are like in Norwich, but (not a million miles away) here in Lincoln, they're a goldmine. I watch the local papers like a bargain-hunting-hawk, so I'll let you know if anything turns up in the next few weeks. My late 60s/early 70s Slingerland came that way, there are often vintage Premiers too...

Also worth looking at (and great for general drum help) is the Mike Dolbear (I have no idea who he is) forum/site ( Classifieds here ). Very, very helpful people there, lots of EBay watching and good tip-offs. Probably worth posting something saying that you're in the market for an old kit (if you are), bound to be some looking to offload.

Hey, thanks everyone for your input. Patrick, those were the kits I'd been watching, especially the premier and the Ludwig.
That is me on myspace that you've found there. And UK Craigslist is completely pointless no one really uses it at all. Ebay and local papers are gonna be the source I think. Thanks for your advice, similar to what I was thinking.

Adam thanks for the Mike Dolbear link, that's helpful.

I can tune drums well so getting it to sound good shouldn't be a problem anyway, just wanted some peoples opinions on brands and what to stay away from.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for older Ludwigs and Premiers though. They seem good. A friend of mine got an old Premier for £80 complete kit with cymbals and everything, sounds amazing!

Thanks all!

As someone who doesn't know a great deal about drums, why is it you'd typically go for a vintage model in the studio? Do they sound much better due to age?

I'm just comparing with buying cheapish guitars where usually you wouldn't go the vintage route.

Rodabod wrote:As someone who doesn't know a great deal about drums, why is it you'd typically go for a vintage model in the studio? Do they sound much better due to age?

It's surprisingly easy to pick up a set of vintage Premiers or something similar for a good price.
You have to be a bit picky though, because the condition can vary wildly, and they're not always brilliant.

The old hardware can be a bit odd too, hi-hat and snare stands in particular.
If you find a nice set of old drums, it's probably a good idea to get some sturdy modern stands to go with it.

I thought it was all about the bearing edge? I'm told by my main drummer and sometimes tuner that if the bearing edge is out then the drum won't tune properly.

How come no ones mentioned this. And how DO you tell if the bearing edges are bad or too worn or whatever the fuck screws them up?

drum people?

Rodabod wrote:As someone who doesn't know a great deal about drums, why is it you'd typically go for a vintage model in the studio? Do they sound much better due to age?

I think (I might be wrong) that it's more about build-quality/materials for your proverbial dollar. Vintage drums are easily had for prices which aren't comparable to vintage guitars - my near 40 year-old kit cost £100 for example, is maple and US made. You obviously can't buy a decent 40 year-old US Gibson/Fender for £100.

Also, if you're spending £100 - £400, who would opt for a generic, Chinese kit, no matter how sensible/usable over a sparkly 60s/70s effort, pre-mojoed? A crazy person, that's who! And not like a fox, either.