I purchased a new set of drums. The Gretch Catalina Maple set in red sparkle; the six piece set. These are replacing my twenty plus year old Yamaha Stage Custom five piece set - the difference being, among other things, that this set has a second floor tom, which is cool because it allows for more bass versatility.

The set is really beautiful and is going in my new drum room. I will be using all my hardware and Zildjan symbols from the Yamaha set, which is decent hardware and superb cymbals from the "K" series. The Catalina Maple set has isolated, suspended toms, which is different from the non-isolated toms on the Stage Custom.

I will be taking the new Remo black pinstripe two ply heads off of the Yamaha's and putting them on the Catalina Maple. I will be using both standard snares and my piccolo snare, at least two snares in the rig at one time. The bass drum has an Aquarian with the muffling ring and has a great rock tone, and the entire set from any resonant ringing or boing'ing sounds. It will have a more muted, thuddy type tone, which is what I like. Even my main Yamaha standard snare has a Powerstroke 3 head that produces a full muted snare sound, eliminating the need for a dead ringer; in fact the use of a dead ringer on this head results in a useless snare sound. To provide for the popping snare sound the piccolo snare will sit just beyond the standard snare for roll offs, solo, and combined with the other snare, use. I'm looking forward to being able to integrate the second floor tom into the sound.

The drums look great with a dark, deep red with plenty of sparkle - not wrapped shells, but lacquered to a high gloss. I did not want the fire engine red sparkle vibe going on. The deeper, darker red gives the flashy style rig a more demure vibe; but I'm totally happy with some muted flashiness and sparkle. My Yamaha's are a deep walnut stained and lacquered transparent wood finish, which is cool, but a far cry from the Gretch red sparkle. The Yamaha's are also all birch shells. I'm looking forward to getting into the maple shells and the tones that I will be able to get out of them.

This will be my first new drum set in over twenty years and I'm looking forward to the change. Right now, it's kind of like Albert Collins sings, "There's Gotta be a Change". Ha ha. And a change it should be. I think I'm going to like the slightly bigger set.

I have a new drum room that is almost finished being renovated. I can't wait to get in there and get the new drums set up. Maybe I'll just set them up anyway and move them out during the actual ceiling replacement. The drums will sit on a solid pine plank floor, two by twelves about ten feet deep, wall to wall on the sides. In front of the drums is a larger newly carpeted area that constitutes our guest bedroom.

I am using a Crate Flexwave solid state combo amp with a 12 inch speaker. The stock speaker has been replaced by an excellent sounding, inexpensive Celestion Seventy/80 speaker that produces great reproduction of the music played into the cd input on the amp from my Sony cd Walkman. The sound of the amp is crystal clear and very clean sounding, even when cranked. It produces a good clean reproduction of the music on the cd's at a volume loud enough to lay into the drums decently hard without drownding out the music. This turned out good and has made good use of the inexpensive Crate Flexwave 15R amp. I think a Celestion Seventy/80 twelve inch speaker sells for about 25 dollars, but it is a very decent speaker in my opinion and works well in a guitar amp for both single coils or humbuckers. There are other speakers that may be preferable, of course, and I have some in some of my nicer tube amps; but the Seventy/80, I think, gets slammed by a lot of people that rip it out immediately and replace it with one of many other speakers. I think it is a very decent guitar amp speaker, especially after broken in. Speakers are a really good example of where "personal preference" often comes into play.

So, my new drum rig is a really decent set. I like the way it looks and I like the layout and the suspended toms. The style of the kit is different from my Stage Custom and that is a welcome change. The sparkle finish is also a big change from the laid back stained wood finish of the Yamaha's.

I have offered the Yamaha's to my son and explained to him that he will have to get stands, cymbals, and a bass pedal, plus batter heads; all of which he can get relatively cheaply considering he is getting a mint set of birch drums. He lives in Harrisburg, Pa., and there is a major retail drum distributer there called "Dale's Drums". Some of you may have heard of Dale's. He has major warehouse space and advertises in the big drumming magazines. I purchased all my drums from Dale's, including my Pearl rosewood piccolo on sale for 99 dollars and my set of three professional series Sonor Conga drums and basket stands. Evidently Sonor discontinued the particular series I have and when they did Dale bought all of the inventory that Sonor had in stock. The Conga's sold for 100 each including the heavy duty basket stands - heck, basket stands alone cost almost 100 dollars each. I have a twelve and a half inch one, an eleven and three quarters one, and a ten and a half one. They have heavy duty, real Buffalo hide heads and chrome rims. They are really nice Congas. Congas work really well to develop interesting rhythms. Plus you can play them softly at home and work on your timing. Ancient tradition has it that when evoking the sound from the Buffalo hide heads, you are able to communicate with God, the Great Spirit, by means of the "skin to skin" contact between your hands and the Buffalo hide, combined with the production of the penetrating sound that calls out and speaks to God. It is an interesting idea and can be very therapeutic.

I will post some pictures when I get my drum rig set up again.