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Your Very First Kit???

Started by jokerjkny, January 30, 2003, 12:18 AM

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DrummingFrenzy

::sighs at the memory::

Ah yes, my first kit was given to me at the young age of 5. They had smurfs printed all over them and they were made totally of plastic. Revolutionary drums at that time, I'm sure. Man, talk about sustain! They had none and you couldn't change the heads, but they were the envy of all my friends.

Dead Trooper

My parents got me my first set when I was eight (nine years ago). It was a Maxtone set, with a 20" bass, 12" tom, and a 14" snare. Only one no name cymbal, and no hats. The snare was wood actually (cheap wood, but wood nonetheless). Then I bought a set of hats and a floor tom.

I always loved drums, even though i wasn't a music fan at all. That set and Metallica's Black Album started it all.

guerrillawar

i have and love my cb 5-piece with the meatalic red finish

Mark Schlipper

an old 60's whitehall (budget pearl) i got about 10 years ago.  5 piece (20, 16, 13, 12, 14sn) painted black over dark woodgrain wrap, steel snare.  just the mounting hardware for the drums, nothing else.  the guy in the paper was asking $50, i offered him $35 because i haggle ... allways ... he said he couldnt go under $40 so i gave him $40.  

still play it, though the snare is long gone and 13 is now two snares :)

LT500man

Its been so long since I thought about that ole Star set in Blue sparkle... a 4 piece with no name cymbals... they cracked after about a year... traded up to a Mercury set and just went up from there.  Next a Rogers set that I covered in Denim w/ Zildjians, tried an R.O.C. set for about 5 years. Now I'm a Tama man.

agogobil



1968 ... my first drum, a Kent "free-floater" ... (notice I'm playing outside)

Later on, my brother got me a 4-pc. blue sparkle Norma kit with one cymbal, from a pawn shop.  He needed some bucks later and took it back ... after that, a school friend's folks were going to pitch an old Apollo 4-pc. kit, so I had that for a long time.

macheteofodin

Well I just started playing so I am on my first kit right now.  Everything is how I bought it from this guy (it is used).  It is an 8 piece, but I only have 5 setup (I didn't want to be overwhelmed). The brand name is Thor.  I personally never heard of the brand, but it works for me.  I have Saluda cymbals (found them cheap on ebay, and they actually sound pretty good to me).  The hardware is all Pearl.  I believe the snare is a Ludwig (i don't know which model).  The batter heads for the toms are hydraulics, and the bottoms are cs.  I'm going to replace them soon because it was a used kit, and they look worn.  My bass drum heads are in good condition and sound fine so they'll stay on (powerstroke on the batter side and a pinstripe on the resonant side).  I'll probably replace the snare heads when I get the chance as well.

alanwatkinsuk

My very first kit was aged four......they were upturned buckets played with wooden mixing spoons followed by glass "soda" bottles filled to various levels with water and played with knitting needles "borrowed" from Grandma.

Sadly, I got diverted and never progressed further so I've never actually owned a kit :-[ but I did once go to an Irish wedding where the drummer....errr...fell over at about midnight (it was said he had taken too much Falling Down Lotion) and ended up playing till 5 a.m...kit drumming (if you can call it that) for the first time in several decades.  I had a truly wonderful time but I don't know how it was for the rest of them.

My first proper kit was the first pair of timpani I could actually afford to buy for myself...not that long ago.  Made in England in 1780 and capable of a most beautiful and gracious tone.

Hand beaten copper shells and sometimes I wonder who the man was who made those by hand and who was the first player to lay his mallets upon them?

I suspect "first kits" are like "first gigs".....you probably never forget them.

Great pictures of people enjoying themselves.  Drums are magical things.

PS: To DrummerFrenzy: it could have been worse......your first kit could have been sponsored by My Little Pony.  All I know is that  I spent a fortune on Smurfs and My Little Pony and neither company asked me to endorse them.

Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins


Roger Beverage

A really awful set of Champions, 40's manufacture in USA that were worse than any of the early Japanese drums.  Single tension 24" bass and 13" snare, a tom with tacked on heads and a 10"UFIP cymbal.  

I soon went to a set of late 40's Radio Kings, from which I still, by sheer luck, still have the snare because no one wanted to buy it when the in thing was chrome snares.

random_jedi

A Gretsch kit, Blackhawk and I still play them. Yeah, I heard they're not the best, but they don't sound that bad.  They're working for me for the time being until I get a new kit sometime in the summer.

MVanDoren1

An offbrand Slingerland copy- 4 piece in dark blue sparkle with hats and a 14" crash that had died years earlier.  Soon expanded that kit to include a copy 16" dia. by 18" deep floor tom (the 4 piece had wood snare 14x5 or so, 12 mounted tom and 16" floor tom) , I moverd up to a set of Sears  hats and 18" crash ride- oooh baby-  then added the rack of roto's I still own (6", 8" and 12" - don't ask me why not the 10") and a cowbell.  Later got the set of Camber bronze hats and 18" camber bronze crash (that I still contend are every bit as good as the sound quality I hear my friends getting from their Sabians and Zildians) from a buddy of mine and Barts, Christmas present of a 16" Mica Sonic crash and a 20" zildian medium ride.  Played that set up for years before moving on
Ahhh the memories,  garage bands, jamming with high school buds, my best friend had a set of Pearls,  we'd get together at my place or his and I basically played steady beats back then and let him just go nuts.  Kelly was probably about the best rudimentary drummer we had back then and Bart was expanding his horizons on mallet instruments (big mistake I never did that) and Mark (friend I got the cambers from) was, well about the closest our town had to Neil Peart, etc.  some pretty amazing high school talent show drum solos came outta that boy- OMG!
Me-  well I just kinda enjoyed myself- I'd gotten started years later than any of them, but was able to soak up some great lessons and memories playing alongside them too.

Tex_Hedron

My first kit was purchased used from some guy in Avenel, New Jersey. He was also restoring a Sunbeam coupe (the car that Max drives in the opening sequence in "Get Smart",in the early episodes, later changed to a Karman Ghia) which was more interesting than the set.

The set was a psychedelic "Tempo Pro", standard 5 piece set, but it did come with a nice 22" Paiste ride cymbal (which a 'friend' of mine cracked at a New Year's Eve party)

The Hi-hats were mismatched, the top being a 15" Zildjian engraved "Property of Rahway High School", the bottom, some 15" very thin no-name cymbal.

A few years later, I added a chrome Slingerland snare, purchased at a flea market for $20, then later on, a Slingerland Radio King snare, purchased for $5 at the same flea market.

For my 16th birthday, I got a set of NEW 6",8",10" Rototoms!

THANKS MOM!

Scheming Demon

My first drum was a Ludwig Supraphonic snare in 1965.  Later that year my parents bought my cousins Ludwig 4-piece.  Don't know the model but it had 3 wide stripes going horizontally, blue on top and bottom with white in the middle.  The kit had to be circa early 60's or even late 50's.


nullify_drummer

man, i started out on 5 gallon bucket snare(it was in the snare place anyway, and it got techincal when i put foil on the top) with a card board box kick which i kicked, with a 2 and 3 gallon bucket duct taped on the top and a 5 gallon bucket with a couple rags under to deepin it for a floor tom. and i had 2 coffee can bottoms on some dowel rods also duct taped to the "kick box" for cymbals. man it was perty and stuff.

but my first actual kit was a bradley set which i still play http://nullify.fateback.com   (go to members, then shane-o) and thats the last floortom and my left side.  and i dont have the snare up cuz it sounds horrible but the rest dont.  

i wish i had pics of rusty (named after the coffee can lids when they got rusted)

JeepnDrummer

Quote from: Shane-O on January 31, 2003, 10:04 PM
man, i started out on 5 gallon bucket snare(it was in the snare place anyway, and it got techincal when i put foil on the top) with a card board box kick which i kicked, with a 2 and 3 gallon bucket duct taped on the top and a 5 gallon bucket with a couple rags under to deepin it for a floor tom. and i had 2 coffee can bottoms on some dowel rods also duct taped to the "kick box" for cymbals. man it was perty and stuff.

Ha ha ha...funny you should mention this as it reminds me of what I did.  Wow, I about forgot that I even did it until I read your post.  Before I bought my first real kit, I put together a makeshift kit starting with a no name snare drum and stand one of my older brothers had when he was in elementary school.  I then took the pedal from a U-Drive-it toy (remember those?) and attached a D-cell battery (beater) to it via a camping mess kit cover latch and tape.  I used an old toy box as the bass drum.  For the tom I used an old bango (all broken strings) which has its own sort of head.  It worked too! :)

Tom