Pearl Compact Traveler / Fat & Skinny Snare, Remo RotoToms, Evans Black Chrome Drum Heads
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- Опубліковано 10 гру 2021
- SUPER thrilled to upgrade and share my Pearl Compact Traveler Drum Kit setup where I added a Pearl Fat & Skinny Aux Snare, Remo RotoToms, Covered them with Evans Black Chrome Heads, an Evans EMAD Onyx Head on the Kick and brought in my Pork Pie Snare. With direct/close microphones on the toms, this kit is ready to go just about ANYWHERE!
I'm also using just a couple of Zildjian K series cymbals to keep the overall kit as small as I can, while still being able to meet the needs of most songs.
If you’re interested in taking a look at my first review of the Pearl Compact Traveler Kit straight out of the box, you can find two versions here:
* Full version: • Pearl Compact Traveler...
* Short version (samples only): • Pearl Compact Traveler...
I hope this video is helpful for you ... I'm sure liking this setup a LOT!
Thanks for watching.
Sounds just like big acoustic drums. The sound I really love
Glad to hear that ... You made my day! That's EXACTLY what I'm striving for - a big acoustic sound in a small compact kit! Thanks for watching and thanks for your comment!
Great, smart solutions, good suggestions! Thanks!
Hey micheletripaldi1966 ... thanks for watching and I appreciate the kind comment!
i'm obsessed with this video, shallow shells and Black Chromes sound so good! excellent work man!
HA! Glad to hear that! Hey Sam ... thanks for the great comment and thanks for watching!
I love what you’ve done this is awesome. A video on the Fat and Skinny would be great too!
Hey Charles … thanks for the kind words! You got it … I’ll put together a demo of the Fat & Skinny Snare. It sounds great and deep with a double ply head and miced up as a floor Tom and can sound pretty good as a snare too (with a single head and some tweaking). It may be a little while before I get it posted, but I’ll surely do it!
Damn, it sounds so great!
Hey Fabio ... glad you liked it! Thanks for the comment!
Well done dg
Hey David ... thanks for watching and for the nice compliment - Take care!
Great video
Hey Isaiah ... thanks for the nice comment. I appreciate it!
Thanks for the vids. Very detailed. I have a suitcase drumkit and in certain rooms with wooden floors that give a big sound drums that normally sound too thin sound good and where regular drums would be too much.
Hey Roland ... thanks for the kind words! I appreciate it ... and great comment too! You are absolutely right about the acoustics of the room you're playing in. I've seen some videos on suitcase drum kits and what a cool idea that is! If you have any videos of you playing yours, let me know. I'm always up for seeing/learning new things. Take care.
2:31 OoooWAH AH AH AH
Well, you turned that compact kit into a big one but, it sounds great. I think you should add another kick drum. A double bass drum would be the ultimate oxymoron 😀
HAHA! Thanks! Yep ... Those Rotos did broaden the palette a bit didn't they? :) You should see it now. I actually integrated 4 of my Yamaha toms and added another snare/stand and two more cymbals! It's quite the monster now, but man it's fun to play! Take care.
You have a Merry Christmas sir👍@@dgdrumtime1239
@@dgdrumtime1239 Let me share a little story with you well, it might be a rather long story. I am a guitarist/singer that can play drums. I have been on a quest for the ultimate foot percussion rig to play while I play guitar. I have used cajons, coolers, buckets, you name it. I have settle on two steel blank electrical covers sandwiching BB's mounted on a bit of foam for my snare. The ultimate kick sound has been the challenge. As I am not using pedals. Just tapping my toes on my makeshift instruments. Right kick left snare. It turns out that an old suitcase is the best kick. I had an acoustic gig a week or so back. I had already loaded my giant foot cajon in the car and was doing a bit of clean up around the house before leaving for the gig. I was about to throw this suitcase in the trash. Instead I threw it on the floor grabbed my bb snare and acoustic guitar. Played a song my wife come rushing in the room. Going what are you doing? I said playing Mom's old suitcase. She said you must play that at the gig. I did and it was awesome. Myself on foot percussion guitar. Another guitar and a guy on bass. We finished the first song and the other guitarist said You crack me up! You have built the road! All we have to do is drive down it😀
@@tradbowtimewithuncledan2686 HA! Great story! First, I admire the talent it takes to play both Guitar and Foot Kick/Snare Patterns while singing. That's quite a gift. Great innovation too in seeing a suitcase as a Kick Drum. I surfed some suitcase kits before I bought my Traveler Kit. I was going to attempt it, but realized I'd probably be flinging screws at the audience before the first set was over. Ha! Post a video of you all playing next time. I'd be interested to see that. And Merry Christmas to you as well! I hope it's a great one for you.
@@dgdrumtime1239 Thanks my friend I do have some videos of me playing my modified cajon while playing and singing but not Mom's suitcase. I will send you a link.
Awesome video! I just bought the compact traveler kit and was thinking of changing the snare drumhead for maybe something 2-ply. I want to make it sound a little less 'snappy'. What would you recommend?
Hey Alejandro … thanks for watching and congratulations on your purchase! I hope you like it as much as I do. That snare is snappy with the stock head and you can tame it down a number of ways and it’s a very personal choice. The inexpensive route would be to put a moon/other gel on it. Taping it down with gaffe tape would kept it in place and add a touch more deadening. You can also just tape a cotton ball down, or a piece of a t-shirt or a small piece of a paper towel. That might just get you where you want to be in an inexpensive way. The challenge in picking a head is made more difficult when more common choices aren’t made in a 10” size. The one I would normally choose would be the Evans HD Dry, but it doesn’t seem to come in 10”. One I believe would darken/deaden would be the 2-Ply Frosted Evans EC Reverse Dot Snare Drumhead. Let me know what you end up doing and how it turns out. Thanks for your comment/question and enjoy your new kit!
Can you please inform me on how you tuned the expansion pack toms? I’m having trouble with that. Thank you.
Hi EMJ ... sure! First thing though, this isn't the expansion pack. It's the 10" snare/tom that comes with it and the 14" Pearl "Fat & Skinny" snare/tom sold separately. They're the same diameters as the expansion kit and still the "pancake" type single headed toms, so they're VERY similar. I just wanted to make sure you to knew. Now, as for the tuning, they can be a bit tricky, but here you go (sorry for how long it is):
Try starting with the 10" tom and 1) Loosen the lugs completely and start from scratch. 2) Grab two lugs on opposite sides and tighten them up at the same time with your fingers as tight as you can, then go to two others across from each other and do the same and finish off with the remaining two. 3) Repeat step 2 until they're as tight as you can go with your fingers only. 4) If you have two drum keys go to two lugs opposite each other and give them a quarter turn at the same time and repeat with two others and then the final two. That should put you close. Then 5) place the tom on a carpet and GENTLY touch your finger to the center of the drum head so you can tap with your stick/mallet about an inch from each lug toward the center (i.e., an inch from the rim). 6) Tap in front of each lug until you find the pitch that sounds the strongest/cleanest/purest and then 7) Tap the lug across from it and tune it to the same pitch - make sure each time you tap that you have a finger from your other hand GENTLY touching the center of the head, muting the overtones (the other notes that make it hard to hear the pitch where your tapping). 8) Repeat that with the other lugs, tapping across from each other. 9) When they all match, you should have a nice note when you strike the center of it with your stick. 10) Repeat the same with the 14" tom. THEN, for a good tuning between the two toms, 11) raise the note of the 10" by taking your two drum keys and turning lugs on opposite sides a SUPER SMALL amount tighter (1/8th of a turn or less), and then turn 2 more opposite lugs the same amount and then the final 2 lugs opposite each other the same amount ... repeat the steps until the 10" tom is a fifth above the 14" tom (think of the opening riff to the song "My Girl" by the Temptations ... Do Do-Do, Do Do-do). That should do it!
Lightly touching the center of the tom is very helpful. Be sure though not to press the center or you'll create a different pitch at the lugs (especially on these single headed toms) and you'll be chasing an ever changing goal which can get frustrating. Good luck! Let me know how it goes.
What mics are you using? Sounds amazing!
Hey Mark ... Thanks! Luv to hear that! Cool thing is that I stumbled across these great sounding microphones that are quite inexpensive. On the snare I've got a Pyle PDMIC78. It's like a Shure SM57 for a fraction of the cost. It was running ~$17 a few years ago, but looks like it's ~$26 now on Amazon. It doesn't seem quite as indestructible as the SM57 and listening side by side, it's sounds a touch more "brittle" on the high end, but on a snare, I can't really tell much of a difference at all. On the Kick I have a HEIMU HDM61 "Big Drum Mic". It's running ~$33 on Amazon and it's great for catching that deep low end. I use one on my floor tom as well. Overhead I'm using a Matched Pair of Lewitt LCT 040. These are incredible! I'm really happy with them and they make every instrument come to life in my opinion. These are currently running ~$200 on Amazon. Hope this helps and thanks again for your note!
@@dgdrumtime1239 thanks for the reply. Crazy how they can make a mic for $20 and sound as good as higher end mics with little to no adjustment at the board. Thanks again for the information.
What are you using to mount the fat n skinny snare/Tom?
Hey David ... I'm using the Latin Percussion LP472 Mini Everything Rack mounted to my Cymbal stand and it's working well. I use the other rod to mount a tambourine, block or cowbell just off to the side. It's super handy. Thanks for watching and for your question! Take care.
Oh ... by the way, there are other options for cymbal/tom stand mounted percussion racks available online at Sweetwater, Amazon, etc. for half the price. This just happens to be the one i picked up years ago and had available.
If you add a piccolo snare to this set, it would still be pretty portable
Hey David ... Absolutely! In addition, a few months ago, I actually stumbled across a really great sounding 12" x 5.5" Gretsch Blackhawk Snare that happened to go on sale and I picked it up. It has an integrated 12.7mm mount so it can hang off an L-Rod attached to the Hi Hat stand. Super convenient! I'm actually going to post a video on that too. Thanks for your tip and thanks for watching!
How do you EQ your drum kit?
Hey Chris ... I have a subscription to the arsenal of plugins available through Slate Digital. TONS of options and you don't have to be a "mixing wizard" to find the sound you're looking for. I run each individual drum through the "Virtual Mix Rack" and use a few presets as my starting point. For the Kick, I use the "Punchy Rock Kick" setting (EQ, Compression, more EQ and their "Revival" plugin for thickness) ... Snare, I use the "Punch Bright Snare" setting (EQ, Compression, and their "Revival" plugin for thickness and shimmer) and then I add some reverb from their "VerbSuite Classics" plugin ... Toms, I use "Rack Tom" and "Floor Tom" settings (EQ, "Revival" and THEN compression) and for the Overheads, I use the "Overhead Smooth" setting (just EQ and Compression). Lastly, I run it all through the Buss using the "Drum Buss Thick" setting. For each, I just make minor tweaks, but it's mostly to the EQ settings. Thanks for your question! Take care and thanks for watching.
So, you taken a compact kit and built a monster out of it…why not just buy a monster kit?
I have the pearl compact kit myself and find it to work fabulous for me in any situation.
Compact and sounds great.
Great video but I’m a bit lost on your concept. Have a great day!
Hi Mark and first off, thanks for watching! Yeah, I was trying to keep the talking to a minimum to keep the video short and didn't really do a good job explaining what I was trying to accomplish. Really, it was 1) To show how great the Pearl Compact Traveler Kit is (which I did in my first video with stock heads), 2) How you can expand your kit without having to buy the expansion pack (currently at $313 on Amazon) by purchasing the Pearl "Fat & Skinny Snare" ($99 at Sweetwater) and using it as a Floor Tom and adding a full snare, 3) How deep and full they sound if you if you swap heads with Evans Black Chrome (and EMAD Onyx on Kick) ... all while keeping a tiny footprint and remaining SUPER light and portable. Adding the RotoToms was really just for fun ... they do make the kit look huge though and I can see how that blurs the message. Thanks for your note and take care!