DW Mag Throw Off

OK, so here I was building myself a nice oak stave shell snare drum. The plan was for it to be stained Red Mahogany and have brass hardware. Here was the problem. The throw off…I didn’t like the two standard Worldmax  brass options and when I tried looking into the Dunnett R4 throw off…my first idea, well…my sources were sold out and an email to Dunnett went unanswered….what to do? what to do? So I started perusing ebay to see what was available. After typing in “brass throw off,” the clouds parted and sunlight shone on my computer monitor…ok, not really but what popped up on my screen was golden goodness..ok maybe not that either. The DW Mag Throw Off looked back at me.

Now the DW Mag Throw off doesn’t come in brass, it comes in GOLD, but gold is closer to brass in color than chrome or black so I decided to take a chance on it. I’ve always liked DW drums and their hardware so I felt pretty confident that this would be a good product. 

Once I got it into my greedy little hands, I noticed that it is heavy duty. I don’t know what it’s made out of but I know that if I ever drop my beloved snare drum, the throw off will be ok. It’s operation is pretty simple. You pull the front down to release the wires and push it back up to place them.  Magnets hold the lever in place.  I’ve put this thing through the paces as I’m practicing for my Voodoo Temple reunion (nice self promotion there huh?) and I have to say that this thing is great. It takes barely any effort to release the snares but no matter how hard I hit the drum, they have yet to release unintentionally!  Having used the Trick, Worldmax, and Ego throw offs, this is the smoothest, most effortless of them all to use while playing that I have experienced. 

Included with it was all the mounting hardware necessary to mount it plus various length bolts for thicker shelled snares! Which is really cool because my snare shell is the equivalent of about a 12 ply shell.

The downside? As far as the product itself is concerned, I really don’t see any, but from what I’ve heard, DW  doesn’t particularly care for custom companies to use their hardware on non-DW drums. I know that it’s that way when it comes to their lugs but as available as this product is on the internet for sale, I don’t know if they intended to sell it as a stand alone or not.

I’m happy with it on my snare drum so if you’re looking for a cool throw off, check out the DW Mag.

NuEdg Bearing Edges

I’ve seen these floating around for a little while now and always wondered about them, so one day as I was perusing ebay I saw some listed for sale. A pair of edges for $22.00. I thought to myself, that’s not a bad price since I charge $20 per edge when I cut bearing edges so I bought some to see how good they really were. 

The edges come in 5 different “cuts”

Traditional 45 – Which is a single 45 degree edge.

Vintage Round – Pretty self explanatory.

Classic 30 – A 30 degree cut with a rounded back cut.

Resonant 60/30 – A 30 degree cut with a 60 degree back cut.

Attack 45 – Standard double 45 degree cut.

Custom – They also do custom bearing edges.

Oops, that’s 6.

The sizes range from 8” to 18” in diameter and they are available for 5, 6, 8, and 10 ply shells. They come in either maple or composite.

It’s a little confusing at first when you’re selecting the right ply because they list a “Ply Series” and and “Application Drum Ply Shell” listed on the sizing page but they are very good about getting  you the right edges for your drums! They emailed me a couple times to insure that I was getting the edges I wanted.

I ordered a pair of 14” 8 ply edges to try out. They actually sent e a variety of edges. I’m not sure if they intended to or not but I received two 14” edges (one maple and one composite) along with a 10” and 12” edge(both composite).

I didn’t actually try one out on a drum because these are designed to place over a bad edge or a non cut edge and I don’t want to ruin a good edge by placing it on the drum and tightening it down.  But I did place it on a raw shell and messed around with it that way!

It appears that even on an unlevel edge, the Nu-Edg will sit relatively true. 

In general, I think that this is a pretty good product. For drummers who have a drum in need of a new bearing edge but don’t have the means to recut them or have them recut or just plain cant afford to have them recut, this is the answer, inexpensive but effective.

I don’t know if it would fall under their custom edge but the only thing I can see that they need to do is offer edges with snare beds. If they do that, they’re golden.

The Ego Thrown Off

Today’s review is on the Ego snare throw off. I’ve had quite a few people ask me about these so here ya go.

I’m going to try and NOT do a Trick/Ego comparison for this review but if I do…well then I guess I do.

The first thing you notice when you look at it is that it kind of resembles Trick’s throw off. It’s basically the same design although there are a few differences. Not a rip off, just similar. The Trick throw off is more squared off where the Ego has a rounded appearance.  The functionalities of the two strainers are pretty different though. I found that the Ego is not as smooth as the Trick, it takes more effort to move the Ego. Not a big deal until you’re trying to adjust it in the middle of a song.  One thing, you won’t have much issue with it accidentally releasing the snares. Once it’s tightened, it doesn’t move but like I said, if you’re the type of drummer who likes to turn the snares off during a song, you’re going to struggle a little. 

As far as a strainer itself goes, the Ego is solid, well built and about the same price as the Trick. One of the advantages of the Ego is that Ego offers free powder coating on the strainer as well as their lugs so it’s nice to be able to match the strainer to the lugs. One noticeable thing about the Ego is that it is heavier than the Trick.

Overall, it’s a good strainer. Is it better than Tricks? I think that can only be determined by the user. I have used both on my drums and have had no complaints about either….damn I compared them!

Til next review!

Sweet Riser

Here’s a product that was brought to my attention that I wish was around years ago!

I bring you the Sweet Riser. I remember back in my youth trying to build a drum riser in my moms basement and rigging one up that, looking back, I’m surprised didn’t kill me.  Trust me, stealing truck loads of plastic milk crates from the nearby grocery store stacking them two high and putting a couple pieces of plywood on them isn’t the safest way to build one…not to mention, the grocery store gets REALLY pissed off about their milk crates disappearing! But let me digress from my self incrimination…

Sweet Riser builds drums risers and stages. Does a drummer NEED his/her own drum riser? Probably not but I know I have played a few places with big stages but no riser and if I had had a portable riser I would have enjoyed the show much more…sorry as much as the music being the important thing, image is a close second to me…but enough about me. 

I wasn’t able to get an actual riser from them to review but what I can see from their webpage and knowing a little bit about carpentry, these things look pretty solid and the company stands behind them 100%.

There are three main sizes of risers, small, medium and large, each size having a couple variations of depth and height, Height being either 16 inches or 24 inches. 

Prices range from $399.00 for a 6’6” x 5’4” x 16” high riser to $799.00 for an 8’x8’x24” high riser (which with my drum set…I would need the latter). They also do custom sizes.

Would it be efficient to have a riser at a gig? Sweet Riser has a video showing one being set up in 2 minutes, eleven seconds on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GQa8o1PavI). I’ve seen drummers take longer than that to get one drum on stage!

Now this product isn’t just for drummers. Any facility/venue that hosts music events, whether it be a club, theater, church, etc, can use one of these. It may or may not be cost effective for a drummer to shell out $500-$600 for a riser, depending on the drummer, but this is a pretty good price for a club or church who will use it consistently. 

So if you’re in the market for a riser or a stage, give Sweet Riser a call! If I’m ever in the market for one, I plan on calling them!

The Drum Foundry Layout Mat

Here’s another one for the builders! 

This is a cool little mat that has multiple uses! Are you tired of taping a head and hoop onto a shell to layout the holes? This is the answer!

The Drum Foundry Layout Mat is good for shell sizes 6” to 24”. Not only that but it lays out 6 hole, 8 hole and 10 hole patterns, has a snare bed layout AND it shows if your shell is even the slightest bit out of round! Yes, this thing is pretty cool! I have one and I use it religiously. I almost forgot! You can also use it determine bass drum spur placement!

I’ve seen other ones out there, I’ve even had someone email me one for free (not for review, just because) but I realized after I downloaded it and looked at it, my printer doesn’t print 28x28 sizes so it’s not really that useful.  There are a couple layout mats selling on ebay, two in the UK and one in the US, the US one goes for $50.00 plus $18.00 shipping. The Drum Foundry Mat goes for $44.99 from the Drum Foundry webpage.

Overall I love this thing, I use it in all my drum building! Drum Foundry has some pretty cool gadgets for building drums. Maybe they’ll see this review and offer some stuff up for review! *wink*,*wink*, *nudge*, *nudge*.

Happy Building!