Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to everyone! Have a Happy and safe holiday!

I have a some new reviews lined up for the new year!

Keep drumming!!!

PJ

Twin Cities Drum Shell and Percussion LLC

OK, here’s one for all the drum builders! Sick and tired of being called a “Keller company?” Not that there’s anything wrong  with Keller shells but they have become synonymous with the custom drum market…well…that may be about to change. I bring you Twin Cities Drum Shells and Percussion LLC.

Right off the bat, Twin Cities offers not only 100% maple shells, they also offer the following shells,

Maple/poplar

Walnut/poplar

Mahogany/poplar

Maple/Mahogany

Bubinga/Maple

The Gold Standard shell is “a thick maple face with 1/8 mahogany core and the inner plys are maple.  (Maple/mahogany/maple).”

Their Vintage shell has a thick core of Mahogany with your choice of the inner and outer species ply.

They also do a “Ribbon Stripe” shell that looks incredible!

But guess what? Ply shells aren’t the only thing that they make!! They also make stave shells and hoops! You can even have them make you hoops to match the shell!  The best part is that their wood hoops are priced very nicely!

With all this info on their webpage, I had to check out one of their shells, so I bought an 8 ply,  6.5 x 14 Bubinga/maple shell.  It got here pretty quick (good sign). I opened it up and took a look at it. It’s sturdy and it’s BEAUTIFUL. It’s still in it’s raw stage, I haven’t started working on it yet but as a raw shell, it surpasses Keller. I placed it on top of an 8 ply keller maple shell and noticed immediately that the Keller shell was out of round.  I placed the TC shell on my DF drill matt and sure enough, it was perfectly round! Not just acceptable, but PERFECTLY ROUND!

I will post photos when the drum is complete, I have an idea of what I want to do with it, I wanted to do this review for the raw shell so drum builders can check them out and know that there is an alternative to Keller shells.

Price wise, TC are higher priced than Keller but then the quality appears to be higher as well. I’m not trashing Keller shells I use them quite a bit but it’s nice to know that there is another high quality source with some more variety in species to choose from.

Will Twin Cities put Keller out of business? Probably not, but like I said, builders now have another affordable option to choose from…and maybe we can be called Twin Cities kits as well as Keller kits!

Check out their page at www.tcdrumshells.com for the scoop!

Have a Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I have a couple reviews in the works! It's been a while and hope to get them out soon!

Fat Cat Snare Wires

I had a set of these lying around my shop for a couple years and finally decided to put them on a 12” snare I had just built for fun. 

 

Fat Cat Snare wires have a unique from other snare wires because they have a dual adjustability. First you can adjust them regularly with the tightening and loosening the strainer, but they also have a screw adjustment on the snare itself that can adjust the inner wires independently.  This allows for some serious sensitivity!

After I put them on the drum I messed with the tension, I tightened the strainer and loosened the adjustment screw and got some cool sounds, loosened the tension and tightened the screw and got more sounds. There’s a lot you can do with these wires, it’s nice to have more sounds.  The only drawback is that the adjustment screw causes the snare wires to extend past the hoop so when you set the drum down you get the wobble…other than that, these are pretty good and unique snare wires!

Until next time!   

Premiere Gemini 241 Bass Drum Pedal

This is a bass drum pedal that is not only a rare collector’s item but it’s just a plainly odd pedal. I actually own one that I purchased off ebay 6 or 7 years ago.  I’m not sure which pedal came out first, the Gemini 241 or the Dualist, The Gemini made its NAMM debut in 1998 and didn’t really do much after that.  This is basically a single pedal that has two beaters and is supposed to allow you to play double bass patterns with one foot…let’s explore.

This is a pretty sturdy pedal. Well built and solid. The way it operates is one beater is controlled by the foot board like a regular bass drum pedal and then the other beater is controlled with a heel operated pedal.  So basically, you have to rock your foot to get a double bass effect out of the pedal.  For players who play heel down, this isn’t too much of a problem but for those who play heel up, I can see a problem with trying to use the heel. Never mind you’re going to have to learn to rick your foot in a perfect rhythm to get a good sounding double bass pattern going.

The footboard flips up to allow access to mount the pedal to the hoop which is kind of cool. Once on the hoop, it’s kind of difficult to get the double bass going…at least for a sustainable amount of time. Triplets are a real pain in the butt to accomplish as well.

As a “double bass playing” single pedal, it fails. It’s just too difficult to get it going. For a neat collector’s item, win.

I like to refer to this pedal as the 241….A Bass Oddity.

Sorry peeps, I’m not giving this one away! I did see there’s one on ebay right now though! 

Until next review…

New winner of the 22" Gothic Radius!

Congrats to Kevin Carmen! You've been selected as the winner of the 22" Gothic radius!

Winner?

OK, so the winner of the 22" Gothic Radius has not claimed his prize. I'm going to give him a little more time, if I don't hear from him by next Friday, another winner will be selected.

Winner of the 22" Factory Metal Percussion Gothic Radius!

Congrats to Tony Bruno! You won!

email me your shipping address at timekeep69@aol.com and I'll get it out to you!

PJ

Factory Metal Percussion 22" Gothic Radius Giveaway

OK, I just went to select the winner of the Gothic radius when I noticed that I accidently put July 1st as the deadline instead on August 1st...no wonder there were only 7 entries.

So here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to extend the deadline by 1 week. Today is August 1st, the drawing will be held on August 8th, so go to Factory Metals Facebook and post!

PJ

Factory Metal Percussion 22" Gothic Radius

Factory Metal Percussion has been around for a while now. First and foremost, they are not a cymbal company; they create what I call “effect” cymbals that you add to your cymbal set up for different sounds.

They have many different products including Celtic Bells, Cross Crashers, Hi-hat Jinglers, Vertical Chinas and Gothic Radius cymbals. The cool thing about their products is that they also add a visual aspect to the set up.

Today we’re going to go over the 22” Gothic Radius, the Gothic Radius comes in 20, 22, 23, & 26 inch radiuses.  If you listen to the sound sample, it kind of sounds like a thick ride cymbal;  A lot of ping but not a lot of wash afterwards.  This is pretty accurate for the most part. The 22” Radius that I played with had a little more wash and sounded like a ride cymbal that had some extra frequencies coming out of it but with a quicker decay than a regular ride cymbal…kind of like a dissonate ride with a short decay, kind of a cool effect if you ask me.

Sound Sample 

The only drawback I noticed is that they don’t project as wells as regular cymbals, so in a live setting you really can’t hear them over the music. I think they would do better in a mic’d situation.

Overall, prices are pretty reasonable, the 22” Gothic Radius runs for about $80. They’re a cool effect you can add to your setup in both sound and appearance without going broke.

Ok, here’s the fun part everyone!

I have said 22” Gothic Radius up for a giveaway! Here’s the rules.

Facebook users! Go to their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Factory-Metal-Percussion/29917660775 like them and then post something on their wall that is positive and also mention this blog so I know to enter your name into the drawing!

Non-Facebook Users! Leave a comment on this blog to enter!

I have a baby due in 2 days so I’m going to let this giveaway run til July 1^st before I have the name selector pick a winner for me so please be patient!

Good luck!

I haven't forgotten about you!

I'm waiting for a few items to arrive for review so until then it's going to be pretty quiet. I'll post once a new review is up, PLEASE BE PATIENT! :)

PJ

Rebel Meets Rebel

I don’t typically do CD reviews and I’m don’t plan on doing another one after this but I have some time before I get some products in to review so I thought that I would do this one really quick. Whenever I talk to people about this CD, I get blank stares back because no one seems to have heard of it and honestly, that’s sad because this is a GREAT CD.

The best way to describe this CD is Heavy Metal Country. Yes, HEAVY METAL COUNTRY. Let’s look into this further shall we? On drums we have Vinnie Paul, on guitar, Dimebag Darryl, and Rex Brown on bass, yes, ¾’s of Pantera fronted by country music rebel David Allen Coe.  We’re talking country music that knocks you out and stomps you in the face. 

The opening track “Nothin to Lose” is a great song. There’s nothing like Chugging guitars over a train beat.  “Get Outta My Life” has a guest appearance by Hank Williams III…country royalty if there ever was any.

While I am a Pantera fan, I’m not really a fan of David Allen Coe or country music in general but I personally LOVE this album. It was recorded during the Reinventing the Steel tour in 2000 but didn’t come out until 2006, two years after Dime’s tragic murder in 2004.

Here's the video to "Nothin To Lose".

If you can find it, pick it up. It’s a great album!

I have a cymbal and a couple snares coming in for review….stay tuned!

Gig Grips

I saw these back at NAMM and was interested in trying them out.  I’m the type of drummer who starts out a set at full speed with my playing and about two or three songs into the set I find myself holding on to my sticks for dear life because my hands get tired. Yes, I need to pace myself better, but when I saw these I thought maybe they would help a little. 

Basically, they’re a piece of rubberized plastic that fits over your sticks and forms a loop for your finger to fit through…simple and effective.  They are comfortable to use and don’t really get in the way while playing. I noticed I could relax my grip a little and still play without worrying about doing any unintentional stick tricks!

Although these are pretty cool, I feel that there are some drawbacks to them, mainly for the rock and metal guys. They don’t change out quickly. If you break a stick mid song you’re pretty much stuck until the end of the song, you can’t just drop the broken stick and get a fresh one. I think that these would work better for lighter players. I did see that they also work for traditional grip players too, you just use it with your thumb.

So for mainstream drummers I think these are a great product, for rock and metal drummers, not so much.

If these are for you, check ‘em out at www.giggrips.com.

Feel free to discuss!