I met an older gentleman today who assumed I must be part of the younger generation and was surprised when I told him my favorite bass drum is a 14x24. He wasn't so surprised that a small guy had a 24" bass drum, but that it was only 14" deep!
He went on to lament the fact that modern sizes didn't make any sense especially bass drums deeper than 16". He said in his travels kids think 18" deep bass drums and 9x12 rack toms are 'normal'. And he complained that every time he went shopping for a drum kit, you had to special-order those traditional sizes we all grew up with. I totally understood where this guy was coming from. He was at least 15 years senior to me. He felt he was being penalized that if he ordered, say, a Ludwig Legacy tom in 8x12, he'd still have to wait for Ludwig to get to it - and when I told him I waited four months for Pearl to make me a 8x12 tom, he was shocked.
But this whole conversation made me feel like I was straddling some kind of invisible fence. For years as a child, I studied the old drum catalogs, and when power toms were being introduced, that should've been a normal evolution for me and I should've gotten right along with it. But all of my idols (well, Gene, Louie, and Buddy anyway) all played that 9x13 and 16x16 tom set-up with a traditional 14x24 (or 14x whatever) bass drum.
For some reason I didn't think I would ever surpass what those men have done, so those sizes kinda stuck in my "it ain't broke so don't fix it" mentality. Yes, I've gone smaller for logistical reasons with diameters, but I seem stuck in that 13/16/22 or 24 configuration. If I add more drums, sooner than later I take down everything and go back to those four sizes. Is this like an extreme case of settling in on what I can handle, or is there something wrong with my way of thinking?
I'm just not comfortable with toms deeper than they need to be. Likewise, I don't like the toms when they're shallower than normal either. And a bass drum that's less than 14" deep feels wrong as well - hence why I don't understand the sizing behind DW's Frequent Flyer kit, or Sonor's Player's kit. 12x20 I don't understand, nor do I understand floor toms that are 11" tall.
But being this way makes it really hard for me to just walk into a big box music store and select a kit off the shelf and take it home and be happy with it. I know I always say I can play whatever is in front of me, and I can do that. But why you never see standard sizes at a music store these days is beyond me. It's like the people with enough disposable income are my generation and older, and if you provided sizes of drums that they would like, they'd sell a lot more of them, don't you think?
I must be an anachronism
He went on to lament the fact that modern sizes didn't make any sense especially bass drums deeper than 16". He said in his travels kids think 18" deep bass drums and 9x12 rack toms are 'normal'. And he complained that every time he went shopping for a drum kit, you had to special-order those traditional sizes we all grew up with. I totally understood where this guy was coming from. He was at least 15 years senior to me. He felt he was being penalized that if he ordered, say, a Ludwig Legacy tom in 8x12, he'd still have to wait for Ludwig to get to it - and when I told him I waited four months for Pearl to make me a 8x12 tom, he was shocked.
But this whole conversation made me feel like I was straddling some kind of invisible fence. For years as a child, I studied the old drum catalogs, and when power toms were being introduced, that should've been a normal evolution for me and I should've gotten right along with it. But all of my idols (well, Gene, Louie, and Buddy anyway) all played that 9x13 and 16x16 tom set-up with a traditional 14x24 (or 14x whatever) bass drum.
For some reason I didn't think I would ever surpass what those men have done, so those sizes kinda stuck in my "it ain't broke so don't fix it" mentality. Yes, I've gone smaller for logistical reasons with diameters, but I seem stuck in that 13/16/22 or 24 configuration. If I add more drums, sooner than later I take down everything and go back to those four sizes. Is this like an extreme case of settling in on what I can handle, or is there something wrong with my way of thinking?
I'm just not comfortable with toms deeper than they need to be. Likewise, I don't like the toms when they're shallower than normal either. And a bass drum that's less than 14" deep feels wrong as well - hence why I don't understand the sizing behind DW's Frequent Flyer kit, or Sonor's Player's kit. 12x20 I don't understand, nor do I understand floor toms that are 11" tall.
But being this way makes it really hard for me to just walk into a big box music store and select a kit off the shelf and take it home and be happy with it. I know I always say I can play whatever is in front of me, and I can do that. But why you never see standard sizes at a music store these days is beyond me. It's like the people with enough disposable income are my generation and older, and if you provided sizes of drums that they would like, they'd sell a lot more of them, don't you think?
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